Expert Will Not Boot After POST

[MoboMonkey]

Hi All,

 

I am working on a system for a co-worker of my wife's. He told me that one day it just died and would not power up. I have determined that it was the PSU (Enermax Liberty 500) and have replaced it with a Corsair HX520W (from the reccomended PSU list).

 

My problem is that the machine will POST but it will not boot. If I try to boot from the HD I will get a blank screen and nothing. If I try to boot from the DVD using an XP Professional install CD I get a blank screen with a blinking "_" in the upper left corner and nothing. I have done the following:

 

Hooked up all 4 power connections as mentioned in other posts.

Reset BIOS to optimized configuration.

Relocated memory to Yellow slots per user manual

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Thanks, RTS

 

NF4 SLI-DR Expert

BIOS Version 6.00PG

OPTERON 165 1.8ghz

GSkill 2x1GB DDR PC4000

EVGA 7900GT 256mb

2x82gb random SATA drive

1x Random DVD

[Guest navinjohnson]

It's possible that when the old PSU died it took out other components or damaged portions of the motherboard. In an old gateway of mine, the PSU blew and took out everything but the hard drive and video card.

 

The best method to see what has and hasn't been affected is to swap components to a known good system.

[dresser]

i have memory in orange slots, hope this helps.

[kitfit1]

I presume the rig you are working on is the one you have in your sig ? I also presume that you did set the boot order after loading bios defaults ? The only time i can recall having the symptoms you describe is if a)not enough voltage to the ram, or b)not enough voltage to the cpu. The blinking you get booting from the cd strongly suggests ram voltage, if it's not a boot order problem.

[MoboMonkey]

In response to the replies: Thanks!

 

Here is some clarification and my current plan:

 

Manual states that ram should be in slots 1/3 (yellow) if running two sticks of dual sided (which is what I believe this RAM is) in dual channel mode. They were originally in the orange slots but I have switched them back and forth with not difference.

 

The rig in the sig is the one I am working on and I have adjusted the boot order for DVD,HD.

 

My current plan is to swap the mobo for one I got off of eBay. I thought the mobo was bad before finding out it was the PSU. If I get the same symptoms I think I can assume that the mobo is fine.

 

I will post my results.

 

Thanks,

 

RTS

[MoboMonkey]

All,

 

I tried the other mobo and it was in worse shape. When I started it up I got a CMOS corrupt (or something like that) error, a restore of the CMOS, and it would lock up during POST (after memory check). I reset the CMOS and rebooted to get the BIOS setup. Everything went fine until I saved settings and rebooted. The system locked up again. I reset the CMOS and just rebooted and it locked up. That will teach me to buy used crap off of eBay. But I guess thats the only place you can get these mobos these days.

 

Anyway, I put all the stuff back on the original mobo and put everything back the way I found it (ram in orange slots) and the system miraculously re-booted and started Windows XP.

 

So it looks like he ram will work in the orange slots despite what the manual says. Problem solved.

[bldegle2]

orange slots for the win....depending on the ram IC chips one will find the orange slots to be the most compatible.....

 

there are some memories that seem to like the yellows better.

 

glad to hear it is all running properly now. finicky boards, but once you get them right, tiger's:)

 

laterz.

[ganders75]

Just a quick followup on your troubles with that other mobo. What kind of CMOS clear did you try? Just a short one? Follow the routine shown in the sig - it can often help bring these boards back from the seeming dead...

 

When you try booting, you should be using just one stick in the furthest orange whenever you have problems. This will help to eliminate other issues such as RAM not playing nicely in dual channel mode, etc.