System Standby Light but No Boot

[Frostscythe]

Well, I searched for this problem and all I could find were more unanswered questions, so I figured I'd phrase it yet again. I shut down my computer after playing Oblivion fine and surfing the net last night, and It won't boot up. At first when I pressed the power button the front light would come on but no boot, so I kept pressing it systematically trying to turn on the PC. After 3 tries or so, the front light stopped coming on. The only light i see that turns on is the standby LED in the lower left hand side of the board. I just checked all connectors, I've got all 4 power plugs into the board, and I don't see why it stopped working.

 

I built it two days ago, and its been sitting under my desk since so i dont think its a short from moving. I ran memtest overnight (12+ hours) and got 0 errors (i didnt bother running a full test as i knew the ram was good - i transferred it from another system). I've primed in it, put the cores to full load, gamed, and it's been smooth so far - why wont it boot up now?

[Frostscythe]

EDIT-This post was erroneous and useless.

[EdLSmith]

What did the red diagnostic leds indicate? Have you attempted to clear CMOS and reenter bios? You ran the memory in another system at same timings and Dram settings?

 

You are much too fast for me. It takes me a couple of days after build before I am stable enough to load OS, much less begin game play. Did you try starting from switches on the MB. Are you certain of the PSU? I am unfamiliar with Sunbeamtech.

 

????

[Frostscythe]

The red diagnostic LEDs dont appear to be lit. I tried a short 10 sec cmos clear, im trying a longer one as we speak (powered off and caps discharged, of course). Will attempt exroadies method once I can figure out how to remove the battery lol. I ran the memory in another system at tighter timings (2-2-2-5) at 100% stability, the bios on my board has defaulted it to 2-3-2-6 which im fine with (i like to get stable at defaults before pushing my builds). I tried starting from the mobo "ez-switches", pressed both the power and the reset many times to no avail.

I am very certain of the sunbeamtech, It's SLI Certified and every review ive read lauds it for insanely stable voltages. It should be more than sufficient for my lowly rig, and bios and ITEGuardian show it as stable on all rails (11.96 on 12V, 3.35 on 3V, 5.0something on 5V). I still have to get a multimeter to test it with though, but im fairly confident as its been flawless installing the OS and memtesting for 12+ hours and priming and gaming.

 

Edit: As to the speed of my build, this is my first new build from scratch in ~4 years, and I've been obsessed with completing it

[EdLSmith]

You don't need to remove battery on the Expert.

[Frostscythe]

You don't need to remove battery on the Expert.

I've got an Ultra-D, though

[dling]

im having the same with my expert, i was running prime 95 it was a 2 day old build when i came to check on it , it was dead, i rma'ed my psu just got the replacement still not working, ibelive my m/b is dead.

[Frostscythe]

UPDATE: Most of the time only the VGA DETECTED LED (EDIT: i believe this is actually the standby light; its the light by the bottom left of the board) is on. However, If i remove my ram and reseat it (power unplugged of course), then plug back in power i see the ram LED (the orange LED by the ram slots) light up too. When I press the power button in this state the computer makes a sound like some small electrical component is discharging (a small, highpitch squeak almost), and the ram light goes out and im left with just the VGA light. Any more ideas?

[Frostscythe]

I tried taking EVERYTHING out of the mobo and loosened the screws and made sure there was no short behind the mobo. I only tried with RAM and a CPU. (no video card). All 4 power connectors. I've tried resetting the CMOS for about an hour with the battery removed, that did nothing either.

 

Rephrased situation so maybe I'll get more replies:

Most of the time:

ONLY the amber/yellow LED between the serial ports and the PCI card slots is lit. When I try to power on in this state, nothing happens (no other lights, no fans spinning up, no noises whatsoever). I tried the EZ Switch on the mobo and the front case switch both to no avail.

 

A SMALL FRACTION OF THE TIME:

If I've walked away for a bit and left the power on, SOMETIMES the yellow LED near the serial port/PCI slots will be on as well as the yellow LED near the ram slots. This has occured about 5 times in the past 5 hours. When I try to power on in this state, the PSU fan spins up for a fraction of a second (and i think the rest of the case fans do too, its not enough time to me to observe and know for sure). As this spinup occurs, theres an electronic whining sound, and everything shuts off except for the Yellow LED in the PCI/serial area of the mobo. Now I'm back to my "most of the time" situation.

 

Anyone have any way to fix this?

[red930]

The way the LEDs are responding it sounds like you're not getting a PWR_OK signal to the PSU as it tries to start. This normally indicates that the PSU is defective.

 

But!

 

I had the same thing happen on a build with an Operton. I pulled the CPU to put it in another rig then got called away. While I was away on a service call one of my techs put the very same CPU back in the board and it fired right up.

 

Hmm?!

 

The board has completed bench testing and will be installed in the case for delivery Thursday.

 

You might as well give it a try.

[Frostscythe]

EXROADIE YOU ARE MY HERO THIS FORUM IS THE BEST PLACE ON THE INTERNET :nod:

I am pretty happy, actually. I've got the rig next to me, i wasn't really going to mess too much with it tonight, but i figured, what the heck, ill take a look. I couldnt really get the heatsink off( b/c im a noob) but i jostled it around gently a bit in the process of trying. I was going to put it off till tomorrow, but i figured, hey, might as well give her one more shot. I plug it in, and WOOT THE FANS SPIN UP AND EVERYTHING! I don't know if the problem is solved for sure as the ram is in this rig now but at least its powering my devices again. I guess the mounting solution doesnt hold the proc in there well enough, or theres some strange pressure around the CPU socket that causes a short. Ill tell you what I find when im more awake. THANK YOU SO MUCH, and thank everyone else who posted earlier in this forum(edit: THREAD) for helping me to try different stuff too. You guys are the best.