[auromak]

Ok. Finally got all my parts in to build an all new (minus ram and hdd from an old comp) box for my wife, but am having serious troubles getting it running. hooked everything up, configured the jumpers on the mobo, everything looked good to go, and i hit the power. all fans spin, hdd/dvd spin... but no beep, and nothing on the monitor. Thought maybe i just had the pos/grnd switched on the speaker connect to the mobo, so i flipped that, but still no beep/post. changed vid card from an agp card to an old pci card, but still no monitor activation what so ever. I followed every step in gerryf's new build guide, to no effect. I am losing my mind over this... i've built several pc's from scratch before, this is the first that simply will not do anything. I've tried multiple sticks of ram, in different dimm slots, i've tried with/without HDD/CD attatched, bare bones with nothing attatched just to see if it would post, but no. nothing. heres all the stuff i'm working with:

ASRock K8 Combo-z mobo
AMD 64 3200 939 pin
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro AGP
multiple types of ram, from PC 2100 to PC 3200, 512 and 256 sticks

one thing that bugged me was the power LED connecter was a 3 prong, with a dummy slot in the middle, though the pins it needed to connect to on the mobo only allowed for a 2 prong connector, so i havnt been able to connect that. also, just to clarify, is there a standard in which is hot, and which is ground, with all the wires (power switch, reset switch, hdd lights, speaker, etc) that connect to the mobo? is the black always ground/hot? or is whichever one that has "KSP ->" marked on it positive?

anyway, if theres any more info i can give to help someone help me out on this, please let me know! i'll try anything at this point!
thanks!

[admin]

Welcome to Geeks to Go auromak!

Sounds like it may be a case short. Did you install the mobo with stand-offs? Maybe try removing everything from the case and 'bench-testing' it.

[auromak]

Thanks, looks like a great community here, glad i stumbled upon it...
but as to the standoff issue, yes, i installed it with standoffs, then went ahead and removed the mobo from the case, set it on cardboard, and went from there, as gerryf recomended in his guide, but all to the same result. nothing.

[auromak]

Ok, minor update: i pulled the hsf off of the processor, and noticed that the arm that locks the processor into place is unable to completely lock, as the little plastic tab that it locks into place under is broken. hard to explain, hope thats understandable... theres a little tab that when the locking arm is placed into locked position, the arm rests under to keep it from just popping back up into unlocked... and this tab is gone, so the arm never really fully locks into place. could this be a problem?

[admin]

Ouch, sure could be the problem. If it's a new mobo hopefully they'll warranty it, as the only way to fix it is by replacing the motherboard.

[auromak]

roger, guess i better get on the phone with new egg. well, i'll let you know how it goes when i get a new mobo, see if that does the trick. thanks for your help, its nice getting such quick responses!

[auromak]

Well, gave up on the asrock mobo, got a new asus, and everything works fine. Now i can boot up, but am having another major problem with my video card. it seems like everytime i build a new box, there is inevitably a whole barrage of problems... is it possible to have a smooth build?

if anyone wants to try and help with my new problem, check here. thanks!