My thoughts:
The CMOS battery may be dead. I bought the motherboard brand new. But it would have been old stock (socket 754 mobo!). Then it sat around unopened for a few months at home before I used it. Could the battery have gone dead? I tried replacing it with another battery I had from an old mobo. Nothing changed (tho I'm not 100% sure of the condition of this replacement battery).
A question - how well does the battery sit in it's socket? It seems even after you latch it into place it is still slightly moveable. Is this meant to be?
I have loaded optimized defaults in the bios which didn't help.
I unplugged everything that wasn't needed for POST (sata hdd, floppy, dvd rom). Didn't help.
If anyone can help with some guidance, it would be much appreciated. My parts are:
Sempron 2600+ skt 754 (bought brand new)
MSI K8MM3 (bought brand new)
Antec Overture II with stock psu (secondhand but saw working)
512mb kingmax tiny bga (secondhand)
Thanks!
**edit**
I just read the sticky up the top (troubleshooting guide for building pc). I'll try and make use of those suggestions. Of course any extra help would still be great.
Edited by natman87, 13 November 2006 - 07:23 AM.