Posted: 8/11/2005 8:28:31 PM EDT
| Ok, Building a computer for another board member. Its a Athlon 64 bit system. Chaintech MB, Athlon 3000, Leadtek Nvidia 6600GT. The problem I'm having is there is no picture. Not even getting a signal out. Anything cause this other than a bad motherboard? I minimzied the ram and tried a few different sticks. Its a PCI-express card. Any suggestions on what i need to be checking. I'm trying to find another PCI-E card but they are rare. If it was AGP I'd have plenty of others to find. Thanks |
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Sounds like you shouldn't be building systems. That means the system isnt getting past its power on self test, and could be a bad motherboard - could also be a bad cpu or bad memory or memory in the wrong slots. It could also be configurational settings on the motherboard (if there any jumpers - which is unlikely now-a-days). Hook up the PC speaker interface and do you get any beeps at all? |
| Why shouldnt I be building systems? Its the 5th one I've done. Havent had this problem before. It sounds like its booting fine. Just not getting a picture. Which I assumed was just the video card. I can try hooking up the speaker, I wasnt going to because that disables the onboard AC97 that was going to be used, but I guess I can switch it back. Only stick of memory is in slot 1. DDR400. |
+1 on that. I've built many computers and I sure have made mistakes along the way. It's the only way to learn. |
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Remember, you can't just plug it into any of the PCI slots, it has to be one of the ones marked specifically for x16 and not the x4. Or, you may have actually did a big booboo and pent one of the pins on the CPU. I did that once and it was the most expensive target at the range that day. As far as troubleshooting, if you know someone who has a Athlon 64 system, ask if you can swap out the vid cards to test it. If not, maybe ask a local geek shop to test it. Don't bring in the whole computer, just bring in the card, I've found if you bring in the buggy piece of equipment they tend to not charge you or charge you a few bucks to test it. |
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I had the same problem once. I had one of those metal standoffs in the wrong hole in the case. It was grounding out the MB. ETA: Some people will let you keep old parts when you rebuild their machines. After a while you'll have an extra of just about everything. 
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All interesting ideas. I really hope its just the vid card. I was thinking about a local geek shop. I found out a friend has a generic Dell PCI-E card. Going to try and replace that first. Reasonably sure I didnt bend a pin when I installed the processor. If the new vid card dosent work we'll try MB next. Thanks for all the suggestions, the hive mind always helps. 
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I have never heard of the internal speaker disabling the onboard sound. Got a link to any documentation to verify this? The only thing close to that I have read is that certain boards will disable the onboard sound if another sound card is used, but not by having the internal speaker hooked up. |
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I'm curious as to what size PSU you are using. I've never seen this, but maybe not enough watts = no video output? Just a thought. Only other time I've seen a bad mobo was the post was stuck in a loop and woudln't boot. The dang thing kept beeping every 3 seconds, post boot, post, boot, post, boot. Etc. |
That's a classic symptom that the BIOS doesn't support the CPU or the BIOS is corrupted. If the processor you bought is a Rev E, there is a chance the BIOS that came on the board may not support the new Rev E processor. There should be a sticker on the BIOS chip that tells you the rev. Look on the Chaintech webpage and see if that rev supports Athlon64 Rev E. If the bIOS supports REV E, then the BIOS may be corrupted. If it's the BIOS, your only solution is to do ONE of the following: 1. Call Chaintech and ask them to mail you a new BIOS chip that has a BIOS on it that supports Rev E. 2. Find someone with a ROM burner and take your BIOS chip and get it flashed with the latest BIOS. 3. Find an old processor and use it to boot the system and flash the latest BIOS on the motherboard. Then switch processors. |
the board manual should have the beep codes listed. 2 is post complete. if i rember correct 3 is no video <might be memmory> it's been awhile. if you get the 2 beeps then post has completed and the system should be booting. at that point you need to look at : bad video card improper video config in bios <may or may not complete post> bad slot on board the first thing i would do is reseat the adapter. if that fails try a basic pci vga card in another slot and see if it works. if it does you have a bad slot or card. |
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I havn't built a 64 bit yet but dosn't most motherboards now come with a LED that shows the motherboard is working? Also check to see if you need power to the CPU I know they went that route before the 64 bit so may still be true. You need to hook up the generic speaker and listen to the post up. count the beeps and go from there. Did you make sure to have the Heat Sink on before booting up? Do the fans spin up on boot up? Do you hear the harddrive spin up at all when hitting the power button? Things like this could be anything so all the info you give can help us help you. |
Just not systems with crappy AMD processors! I made my mistakes by using their crap & have learned my lesson! |
There is nothing wrong with AMD. |
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Hooking up the little onboard speaker will not disable the AC97. Plug it in and see if you get any beeps. You need to swap the video card If same result then swap the RAM If same result then swap the CPU If same result you probably have a dead board, get it RMA'd Keep in mind sometimes it's easier to test your part in another computer than test a different part in the one you're building. |
Keep telling yourself that! |
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I built an athlon 64 with a chaintech mobo and for some freaking reason my old network card was killing my graphics. The mobo had onboard networking (not sure if that was a conflict) and whenever I had the old network card in the screen would go blank saying something along the lines of the refresh rate was too high or something crazy like that. I took out the old network card and it ran fine. Not sure if that is your case. The damn thing gave me hell setting it up. I was in your position looking at every freaking possible answer. I went down and tested the gfx card, monitor, then I stripped the damn thing bare and would add a component at a time until I realized it was the network card. I took the mobo out of the case and ran it on a static bag to see if it was grounding out or anything. |
Bad idea. That bag can short your mobo. The safest out of case place to run it would be the top of the cardboard box the mobo came in. I had a soundcard give me problems. Whenever the soundcard was plugged in it wouldn't detect my hdd. Took me a couple days of wtf to figure that one out. |
There is nothing wrong with AMD. The only people that say that crap are people that A) Don't know anything about building a computer and blame AMD for their screw-ups/lack of knowledge.... and/or B) work for Intel or make money off of Intel products. The US Govt does nuclear test simulations on AMD super-computers. The US govt bets the security of this nation on AMD computers. Los Alamos lab orders AMD Opteron clusters |
To make a mistake with an AMD CPU means the end user has problems or real bad luck. I have build dozens of systems with AMD and NEVER had a problem with any of them. Of the 800 or so technicians where I worked used AMD, and no problems with any of them reported. Ever go to LAN gaming set up? All use AMD, or at least 85% of them do. |