[Athena's Pet Geek]

Hi you crazy cats and kittens Okay, here's my tale of ineffable woe:

Good rig (or at least a functioning one) until I put her in a new case. No boot, no beep, not even the fan--so I figured maybe the motherboard was seated badly, making contact with something it oughtn't.

Out comes the mobo (set outside the case on cardboard) and I strip it down to the essentials: 1 RAM stick & vid card, just to see if I can get it to post. Still nothing. >.<

So I unplug the power and ponder. This is my first time, and I know very little about the mechanical electrical end of computers... so I wasn't pondering much, except what possessed me to do this in the first place *lol*

There are two power inputs on my mobo, a 20-pin and a 4-pin, separately seated. I figured they both needed to be hooked up, but now I wasn't so sure... what made me wonder? The "flag" on the cable for the 4-pin connector which said "For 24-pin motherboards only" (don't hit me! *facepalm*). I mean, there's 24-pins, even if it's 20 in one place and 4 in another, right? Uhm...

Anyhow, right ot wrong, I unplugged the 4-pin connection, plugged the power supply back in... and...

WE GET SIGNAL!

What you say?

Yeahp. The cpu fan came on, the led indicating the mobo was getting power came on, the vidcard fans and lights came on...

But still, no beep, and nothing on the monitor but the self-test bouncey-box. No BIOS.

So... I'm stumped. Does any of this have ANYTHING to do with the 4-pin power connection to the mobo? Oh, and I can't get the case power switch (which I do have connected and--yes--the case speaker too) to turn this puppy off and on... just the power supply switch at the back of the case. I'm missing something obvious here, I know I am... but I have no idea what.

Anyhoo, resetting the CMOS... any ideas in the meantime?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Cheers,

Wysdom
Bull(ette) in the Mobo China Shoppe

P.S.

System Type: Desktop PC
OS: WinXP Pro
Power Source: Topower TOP-350SFX 350W
Processor Type: AMD Athlon 64 (Socket 754) 800 MHz
Hard Drive: Maxtor 120 GB ATA
Ram: 1GB (512MB x 2) DDR RAM
Mobo: AOPen Mk89-L w/nvidia chipset
CDRW/DVD ROM 52x32x52
Vid Card: Nvidia GeForce 6800 OC (by BFG)

Edited by Athena's Pet Geek, 16 June 2006 - 12:30 PM.

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OKAY! Progress!

Turns out I had the wrong 4-pin thingy from the power source connected to the 4-pin "female" port on the mobo... *shudder* I know I'm lucky I didn't do more damage than I have (which I still don't know the extent). Anyhoo, One 4-pin "square" male connector (a opposed to the horizontal ones that supply power to the IDEs & video card) was part of the 20-pin main power--meant to "join up" with that connector and make a 24-pin thingy... I know you probably all know this, just making sure I have it figured out right. The other 4-pin "square" male connector running from the psu was slightly different, just yellow and black cords, and was the correct connection to supply the cpu (I think--that 4-pin female power thing seated apart from where the main power's plugged in?) Once I had that in place, I got one beep and BIOS came up. YAY!

But...

Now the BIOS hangs at detecting the IDEs... I'm guessing I must have them connected incorrectly to the mobo... I'll take a look and be back with more news.

Cheers!

Wysdom

[Athena's Pet Geek]

OKAY! Progress!

Turns out I had the wrong 4-pin thingy from the power source connected to the 4-pin "female" port on the mobo... *shudder* I know I'm lucky I didn't do more damage than I have (which I still don't know the extent). Anyhoo, One 4-pin "square" male connector (a opposed to the horizontal ones that supply power to the IDEs & video card) was part of the 20-pin main power--meant to "join up" with that connector and make a 24-pin thingy... I know you probably all know this, just making sure I have it figured out right. The other 4-pin "square" male connector running from the psu was slightly different, just yellow and black cords, and was the correct connection to supply the cpu (I think--that 4-pin female power thing seated apart from where the main power's plugged in?) Once I had that in place, I got one beep and BIOS came up. YAY!

But...

Now the BIOS hangs at detecting the IDEs... I'm guessing I must have them connected incorrectly to the mobo... I'll take a look and be back with more news.

Cheers!

Wysdom

[dsenette]

you're heading in the right direction....let us know if you figure out your ide issue

[rumble291]

Try switching the IDE drives round on the motherboard.

[Samm]

If you're still having problems, then try disconnecting the optical drive completely & concentrate on the hard disk :

Make sure you have the ribbon cable for the hard disk connected to the primary IDE port on the mobo. Make sure the second ribbon cable is NOT connected at all.

Check that the hard disk is configured as a Master.

Check that the striped edge of the ribbon cable is aligned with Pin 1 on both the motherboard port & the hard disk itself.

Check that the hard disk is connected to the end of the cable (not the middle connector). Also check that the cable is the right way round. i.e you have the correct plug on the ribbon cable connected to the motherboard & not the drive.