Advice on rebuilding old pc - Not booting up issue

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Carkus

33 posts

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#82554 1-May-2011 21:10

Hi there,

I've been trying to build a media pc with a bunch of old parts that have been sitting in boxes unused since 2008

ASUS A8N32 SLI Motherboard
AMD 4200 X2 CPU
Hynix 1GB DDR400 x2

Have also got a new Gigabyte 5450 fanless gfx card, and some old IDE hard drives.

The PSU i'm using is a Corsair HX650 which is only about 6 months old, and is in working order since I tested it in my current PC.

Now the problem I have is that the green power light comes on the motherboard, hard drives start spinning, but the CPU fan just doesn't seem to be going full speed and subsequently the computer does not want to boot, or bring up BIOS or anything on the display.

I don't have a PC speaker in this case so I can't work out if there are any beeps or not.

If i disconnect the 4 pin 12v ATX power to the motherboard and power on, the CPU fan goes at full speed except obviously it won't boot without the 12v cable from the PSU plugged in. I've also tried removing all the other components but still no success.

My thoughts are that since the motherboard and CPU have been sitting for ages un-used, the thermal grease might have dried up or the CPU isn't sitting correctly? I don't have any thermal grease but i'm thinking i might clean the contacts, apply some more and resit the CPU on the motherboard with the heatseak & fan.

Does anyone have any suggestions or other thoughts to what it might be?

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#464272 1-May-2011 21:19

Remove all power from it and the cmos battery, Leave it over night and try again tomorrow, Helped me when rebuilding an old computer.

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Carkus

33 posts

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#464275 1-May-2011 21:26

boby55: Remove all power from it and the cmos battery, Leave it over night and try again tomorrow, Helped me when rebuilding an old computer.

Yeah I kinda tried that already, should've mentioned that earlier. Swapped the battery with another also. Thanks for the reply.

gzt

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#464451 2-May-2011 12:32

Unplug all peripherals, cards, etc, including the drives, and power up.

Check the MB manual for bios codes, and see if you can eliminate some of those conditions deaf. Also check the mb manual for ram installation instructions (and specs), some require two sockets are filled, but definately not the other two. Make sure the mb manual is the right one for your board revision.

Reset the bios using the board jumper (manual).

Try and find a speaker of some kind somewhere, it might save you a lot of time.

Carkus: My thoughts are that since the motherboard and CPU have been sitting for ages un-used, the thermal grease might have dried up or the CPU isn't sitting correctly? I don't have any thermal grease but i'm thinking i might clean the contacts, apply some more and resit the CPU on the motherboard with the heatseak & fan.

Lack of thermal grease would not stop the boot. Very unlikely the CPU is not seated correctly if it was working before, but it could happen I guess.

Carkus

33 posts

Geek

#464456 2-May-2011 12:51

gzt: Unplug all peripherals, cards, etc, including the drives, and power up.

Check the MB manual for bios codes, and see if you can eliminate some of those conditions deaf. Also check the mb manual for ram installation instructions (and specs), some require two sockets are filled, but definately not the other two. Make sure the mb manual is the right one for your board revision.

Reset the bios using the board jumper (manual).

Try and find a speaker of some kind somewhere, it might save you a lot of time.

Carkus: My thoughts are that since the motherboard and CPU have been sitting for ages un-used, the thermal grease might have dried up or the CPU isn't sitting correctly? I don't have any thermal grease but i'm thinking i might clean the contacts, apply some more and resit the CPU on the motherboard with the heatseak & fan.

Lack of thermal grease would not stop the boot. Very unlikely the CPU is not seated correctly if it was working before, but it could happen I guess.

Yep tried that. Removed everything, and tried with CPU and Motherboard only. Yep have checked the manual already for correct RAM slots, and anyway I haven't changed the slots around and have left them in the same slots as they were in when I stopped using the PC. Done the bios jumper reset, and even removed the battery and tested it with another.

I'm getting my hands on a PC speaker tonight so hopefully will get an idea if there are any beeps and what they are. Also going to try doing the thermal grease and reseat the CPU anyway ...

Cheers

Ramjet007

311 posts

Ultimate Geek

#464721 3-May-2011 06:09

I got a new silent PSU for my Media center and it wouldnt work with the MB.

Have you checked that the PSU is compatable with the MB.
The good old days when a PSU worked with any MB have gone :-(

vinnieg

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#464753 3-May-2011 09:18

Is all the dust cleaned from the PC? Remove all the fans, clean them out, clean the heatsink out and as you suggested above, scrape down the cpu and heatsink with a razor blade and some rubbing alcohol and reapply it.

How much was on there originally? I think it's the size of a piece of rice is all it needs(thinner the better so you get more surface contact with the heatsink)

If that doesn't work then I reckon it's possibly the power supply too, have you got a spare to test it with? even an old 250watt will do

I have moved across the ditch. Now residing in Melbourne as a VOIP/Video Technical Trainer/Engineer.

nickb800

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#464760 3-May-2011 09:44

Does the video card or video chipset portion of the motheboard require extra power? Often there's a 4-pin square molex connector with 2xyellow and 2xblack wires from the PSU going to the video card.

Carkus

33 posts

Geek

#464767 3-May-2011 10:01

Thanks for the replies everyone ...

This stupid computer is doing my head in. I felt so defeated last night.

I cleaned the heatsink + fan last night. It was all dried up and old looking. I reapplied some more thermal paste (perhaps too much). The PC speaker I got off my mate has 2 pins and my motherboard needs 4 for the PC speaker so that was no use. I cleared the CMOS again also.

After I hooked everything back up I actually got it booting into BIOS for like an hour last night. I then had major issues getting drives to be detected or boot and even install Windows. Thinking it was the DVD Drive, I hooked up another spare DVD Drive and then the whole thing went dead again.

This is the manual for the motherboard here
It's a Corsair 650HX PSU that is only 6 months old. I guess it could be incompatible, but the Motherboard says it requires >22A for the 12v and >450 Watts with a 4200 X2 processor. My Corsair 650 PSU i believe has 52A on the 12v and 650 Watts. It shouldn't be an issue.

I do have two other PSU's. Antec CP-850 ATX which is in my working system and an old 500 Watt PSU. I've lost the 4 pin 12v adapter for that, so I don't think i can use it on the motherboard and I'd rather not dig out the CP-850 since i spent a while getting the cables tidy on that machine but I suppose I could give it a go.

Yes i've cleaned out dust, I'm beggining to think that this motherboard is stuffed. Just don't know why it was working and now not ...

Carkus

33 posts

Geek

#464770 3-May-2011 10:05

nickb800: Does the video card or video chipset portion of the motheboard require extra power? Often there's a 4-pin square molex connector with 2xyellow and 2xblack wires from the PSU going to the video card.

No the video card does not. It's a Gigabyte GV-R545SC-1GI HD 5450 Fanless card. I could try my GTX 470 in it though and hook up the power connectors to it.

gzt

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#464785 3-May-2011 10:47

Carkus: The PC speaker I got off my mate has 2 pins and my motherboard needs 4 for the PC speaker

Normal to have two pins. 'ground' and 'speaker' are the only connections required.

gzt

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#464786 3-May-2011 10:49

& make sure the board is not shorting onto the case somewhere. run it on a desk out side the case to be sure.

Carkus

33 posts

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#464791 3-May-2011 11:13

gzt: & make sure the board is not shorting onto the case somewhere. run it on a desk out side the case to be sure.

Yeah might give that a go, although the fans do spin so if it was shorting I would assume nothing would spin? I'm pretty sure I tried the PC Speaker in the Ground and Speaker ports, but maybe i had them around the wrong way so will try again tonight.

Cheers

gzt

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#464814 3-May-2011 12:01

Shorts can be partial with unusual behaviour. Asus usually have some fancy fan control modes in the bios, so that could also be a factor.

Attempting to restore the latest available bios using the asus crashfree might be interesting also. If it is a severely corrupt bios, maybe that will help.

gzt

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#464816 3-May-2011 12:11

Interesting articles about capacitor failure:

Visible failure modes etc.

No visible failure, but symptoms similar to yours + successful hacked replacement.

Carkus

33 posts

Geek

#464831 3-May-2011 12:45

Good call, I haven't inspected the capacitors. I guess that could explain the erratic behavior. Yeah I was beginning to feel the BIOS was corrupt, but now that it won't even boot into BIOS I can't really attempt to flash it or restore it. I'll try it out of the case tonight.

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