Old Faithful went dry (won't post)

[Hoot]

I'm stale after a 2 year vacation from the OC scene, where I was a real mover and shaker since the Duron 600 was king, to finish my long sought-after BSEE, after 30 years as an Engineering Technician. All of this is to emphasize the fact that I don't need Tier1 support. I need a Witch Doctor!

 

My rig in my signature, which was the Rock of Gibraltar for a couple of years refused to get past the 4 LEDs lit stage the other day. The amber standby power and memory power LEDs were lit.

 

I turned off the PSU, pulled out the battery and cleared CMOS. No Change.

 

I removed the memory sticks and tried each, by itself in every DIMM slot. No Change.

 

I took my Fluke 189 and Oscilloscope and checked the Seasonic S12-600 outputs while plugged in and failing to POST. All four of the main voltages were in spec and no ripple or significant noise.

 

It's was so locked up, holding the power on button (both front panel and easy touch) would not force a power down. I got the sense, I was not even getting past "first base".

 

I pulled out the PCI-E video card and put in a no frills, functional PCI video card. No change.

 

I unplugged the two SATA drives, front panel USB extension cable, floppy drive, anything not needed to get past POST. No change.

 

I Did the 24 hour CMOS reset. No change.

 

I Tried a different functional PS2 keyboard. No change.

 

Now, we move from the "miserable to the horrible".

 

Knowing that I had done a few low-risk mods to the motherboard, I assumed it may have croaked. After a lot of searching for a discontinued product, I located and purchased a brand new identical motherboard. Not Cheap! I swapped it out and still no change. :eek2:

 

I was hooked on getting to the bottom of this. Newegg had a great deal on a new A64 4000+ ($69.99) so I ordered one and (I bet you know where this is heading by now) it arrived yesterday. I replaced my trusty 3700+ and NO CHANGE! :sad:

 

I'm at wits end with this. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Consider nothing had changed before the initial malfunction. No OC experimentation. No high-risk mods. No nearby lightning strikes, EMPs, Nothing.

 

Am I cursed for not participating in these forums for the past couple of years?

 

I repent!!!

 

H E L P.....

 

Hoot

[kitfit1]

I know you said that you have tested your PSU, but are you able to try a different PSU. I'm saying that because, have a look here. There are documented probs with your PSU and DFI NF4's.

[Hoot]

While I haven't tried another PSU, I did read that thread before posting. My reasoning was if it had a compatibility issue with my motherboard, why would it wait a year and a half to manifest? I do intend to check the PWR OK signal when I get home from work. I'm checking out a digital storage scope for the weekend to see the timing relationship to when the +5 and +3.3V rails come into spec. vs when PWR OK transitions from logic low to high, assuming it ever transitions. I also borrowed a 512MB stick of Mushkin DDR memory from one of the PCs here to see if that yields anything. I read also about issues with Crucial Ballistik 1GB sticks. Again, I can't imaging them taking a year and a half to develop a problem. The S12-600 is in warranty and if I determine it to be the source of the problem, I'll try contacting Jeff or whomever at Seasonic.

 

Thanks for your input.

 

Hoot

[kitfit1]

You'r right about 1gig Ballistix probs, but if you are still getting a "no boot" with the Dram led on, and no long beep from the mobo, then it has to be something other than ram. I would still try another psu, if i was you.

[bldegle2]

there have been many who have had a PS fail on a DFI after many months or longer, then go through what you are experiencing.

 

when it came to the PS and going DFI, i wasted no time with offbeat brands, went straight to the DFI PS listings, swore at the prices, proceeded on from there, haven't had the slightest problem.......................

 

bet you get a one on the list, and it will work.

 

also. conversely, you will more than likely find your current PS will still work in another setup, as long as it isn't a DFI power hungry board, so all is not lost....

 

laterz,

 

baldy

[Hoot]

The sad part about what you say is the Seasonic S12-600 is probably one of the best made, independent 18A to each of the 12V rail PSU's made. What they don't spend on bling and advertising, they put into their product. It's not like I'm running a pair of SLI hogs an array of DVD burners and RAID5 or something.

 

I did some additional testing. The Mushkin memory didn't work either. The PWR OK signal does go high after the outputs get into spec. Here's an oddity. While checking the CPU voltage at the socket, it appears to only be .970V. Not nearly enough to run the CPU stable. No wonder it fails to pass CPU initialization stage. Not sure why this is happening with this new motherboard as I said before, all the rails feeding it from the PSU are in spec. I never checked the CPU voltage on the old motherboard before swapping it out, but will definitely swap it back and see.

[kitfit1]

Now that the mems are out of the equation, see if you can borrow a psu from work or a friend. The more you post, the more certain i am that it's the psu.

[Hoot]

Well, it's certainly starting to narrow down to that through the process of elimination. Unfortunately, at work, all we have are less powerful ones, or ones not ATX12V or EPS12V compliant. Does anyone have a link to a precise explanation of what the problem is with them? This isn't rocket science as there's a finite amount of outputs from it and all seem to do be doing what they should be. I'm a scrupulous person and hate to be put in a situation of buying one to trouble shoot with, then returning it. I have an Antec True550 left over from the days of CPU's that derived their core voltage from the +5V output. I may be able to sub it in enough to see if I can get past the 4 lit LED stage. That would probably yield enough evidence to start the RMA process with Seasonic.

 

Thanks,

 

Hoot

[Hoot]

Problem appears to be cornered. Double Variable!

 

When this first transpired, I assumed the new components I added were reliable replacements.

 

Never Assume.

 

I replaced my suspect motherboard with a new one using my old processor.

No Change

I replaced my old processor with a new processor in the new motherboard.

No Change

I troubleshot other components in system with a suspicious eye on the PSU.

No Change

 

What did I miss?

 

I did not try the new processor with my old motherboard!

 

Upon doing so, everything came up okay.

 

I should have thought of that. Trust Nothing Even new components!

 

Now I have to deal with the motherboard seller from Ebay, but he has a reputation as a fair guy. We'll see...

 

Thanks for riding along with me. Old Faithful is rolling again.

 

Hoot

[kitfit1]

Glad you found it Hoot. So it was the cpu. The strange thing there is that the diag led's were showing the cpu as ok. Odd that, very odd.

[Hoot]

Glad you found it Hoot. So it was the cpu. The strange thing there is that the diag led's were showing the cpu as ok. Odd that, very odd.

 

I must have misunderstood what the LEDs mean. I thought all 4 lit meant it was trying to initialize the CPU, but had not finished?

 

Hoot

[kitfit1]

I must have misunderstood what the LEDs mean. I thought all 4 lit meant it was trying to initialize the CPU, but had not finished?

 

Hoot

 

The sequence for Led's is:

4 LEDs on = Power applied, checking CPU

3 LEDs on = CPU has been detected OK, checking RAM

2 LEDs on = RAM has been detected OK, checking VGA

1 LED on = VGA has been detected OK, entering BIOS

0 LEDs on = System has booted to the Operating System.

 

It looks like in your case Hoot, that the cpu just died. Which is a bit unusual, don't tend to see that much now days. I must admit i have misread the problem as well. As you said,"Never Assume."