Help determining if my MOBO is defective

PlastiCup · Post by **PlastiCup** » Thu May 07, 2009 1:16 am

Hi everyone,

I have been buying parts for my computer and finally got the last piece last night. I tried putting it all together but have a problem. I hit the 'on' button and the power supply starts to spin, but only for a second, and then it all shuts off. In short, it never really gets going. Does this mean my motherboard is defective?

I admit that this is the first computer I have put together myself, so it's also possible I hooked up something wrong. What might cause this problem?

The motherboard is a biostar TA970GX128M. The processor is an AMD 940 quad core 3.0ghz. 4gigs corsair ram 1066mhz. integrated sound/video. sata hard drive.

Any help much appreciated!

Joe · Post by **Joe** » Thu May 07, 2009 1:48 am

go back through everything slowly.. And do not hook up anything not essential to the pc running such as CD/dvd drives, extra hard drives etc... just the basics.. make sure your cpu is in the socket correctly and not spun 180 or something.

PlastiCup · Post by **PlastiCup** » Thu May 07, 2009 1:20 pm

Joe wrote:go back through everything slowly.. And do not hook up anything not essential to the pc running such as CD/dvd drives, extra hard drives etc... just the basics.. make sure your cpu is in the socket correctly and not spun 180 or something.

Will do. Already unplugged everything else. Have a 650watt antec true power supply. Should be more than enough. i'll double check the processor though. Are there any weird settings on motherboards I'd need to set? Like pins that are set to 'off' by default that need to be 'on' or something?

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Thu May 07, 2009 2:07 pm

Make sure all required power connectors are plugged in.

PlastiCup · Post by **PlastiCup** » Thu May 07, 2009 11:47 pm

YARDofSTUF wrote:Make sure all required power connectors are plugged in.

As best I can tell there are 3 main power cords. This is the one I purchased.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813138130

I have the 24 main pin, the 4pin for the graphics card, and the 4pin for the cpu. Am i missing any?

Joe · Post by **Joe** » Fri May 08, 2009 1:50 am

No special settings on the board I am sure. Like Yard said your board almost certainly has the standard atx connection but also the extra 4 pin power connector as well. Make sure both are plugged in. You could double check your wiring on the power switch and reset as well. Those pins are easy to miss and hook up wrong.

Please make sure you post back what u have tried and the results. If you do happen to get it working please let us know what it was u did.

Thanks Bud,

Will help as much as we can!

PlastiCup · Post by **PlastiCup** » Fri May 08, 2009 2:20 am

Joe wrote:No special settings on the board I am sure. Like Yard said your board almost certainly has the standard atx connection but also the extra 4 pin power connector as well. Make sure both are plugged in. You could double check your wiring on the power switch and reset as well. Those pins are easy to miss and hook up wrong.

Please make sure you post back what u have tried and the results. If you do happen to get it working please let us know what it was u did.

Thanks Bud,

Will help as much as we can!

GOOD NEWS! It now has power! Turns out I had the screws too tight and the computer was grounding the motherboard. In fact, I had pretty much screwed it all in wrong. Ironically, my wife helped me put them in the right way. Now that the case is not touching the motherboard, it has power and stays on.

But......I have another problem, still hardware related. I can get into the bios, and the cd drive works, but I am not having any luck with loading from the hard drive. It is detected in the bios, but as soon as I try to load from it (or reformat with it), the entire computer shuts down instantly. I am uncertain as to why this is. Please help!

Joe · Post by **Joe** » Sat May 09, 2009 12:31 am

Well it should be harder to diagnose problems now that you got it to turn on.

Check the drive settings in the bios. See if you dont have some wierd drive setting enabled. Try another drive if you can to see if it is for sure the drive.

PlastiCup · Post by **PlastiCup** » Sat May 09, 2009 1:28 am

Joe wrote:Well it should be harder to diagnose problems now that you got it to turn on.

Check the drive settings in the bios. See if you dont have some wierd drive setting enabled. Try another drive if you can to see if it is for sure the drive.

Tried two hard drives, and booting from the CD, and running an internal memory test. All of them result in the computer completely dying midway into them, before I can do anything with them.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » Sat May 09, 2009 1:29 am

Hopefully you didnt fry something on the board if you had it shorted out on the door of the case.

PlastiCup · Post by **PlastiCup** » Sat May 09, 2009 2:13 am

Joe wrote:Hopefully you didnt fry something on the board if you had it shorted out on the door of the case.

I hope not too. How could I tell? I notice the big orange thing in the middle (link from above) of the board gets pretty hot after I've had it on. As does the other square orange thing. Is this normal?

PlastiCup · Post by **PlastiCup** » Sat May 09, 2009 4:45 am

Update:

Fiddled around in the case a bit more. made sure the mobo wasn't touching the case weird or anything. tightened the cables, reconnected things. Now I can't even get into the bios. It boots, starts detecting things, and within about 10 seconds it dies.

PlastiCup · Post by **PlastiCup** » Sat May 09, 2009 3:07 pm

Another update. Cleared my 'cmos' settings, got the bios back. Still can't load from the hard drive or boot from the CD. Dies instantly. The CD gets only slightly farther. Goes to "loading windows executive" and then dies. I'm definitely confused as to what might cause it. If the processor was overheating, I would have to wait before I could turn it back on, right? If it was the ram, or mobo, i couldn't get into bios, right?

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Sat May 09, 2009 3:13 pm

Try different RAM. If thats all you have try 1 stick at a time.

PlastiCup · Post by **PlastiCup** » Sat May 09, 2009 4:05 pm

YARDofSTUF wrote:Try different RAM. If thats all you have try 1 stick at a time.

Progress! I took one stick out and now it is booting from the CD! I am currently in the progress of reformatting the hard drive. Hopefully it will work!

I checked my mobo manual again. I don't believe I had it in the wrong slot (being dual channel memory), or installed wrong (since the other is working). Does this mean a slot on my mobo is dead? Or does it mean the other stick is dead? I haven't tried putting the other stick in by itself. Maybe i'll do that later.

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Sat May 09, 2009 11:20 pm

I would lean towards a bad stick before a bad slot, though either are possible.

Faust · Post by **Faust** » Sat May 09, 2009 11:39 pm

i'm taking a leap here, but....

there have been 2 times when i came across inexplicable errors that involved mobo mounting screws.

what i mean is..... try taking the mobo and placing it on a piece of cardboard (between the mobo and whever you are using as a table. be it the case or whatever.... usually what im talking about entails laying your tower on its side with the mobo resting on said cardboard palette close to where it would be mounted.

hook the mobo to your devices and try booting. my anecdote is all about case/mobo mounting screws shorting out a path on your mainboard. in my previous incidents, i had to exclude a couple of the mobo mounting screws due to them being the cause of the probs. it all depends on the mobo layout and if you have the fabled paper washers between your mainboard and its mounts.

Faust · Post by **Faust** » Sat May 09, 2009 11:52 pm

i guess i should have continued.... what i was after is that, if you can isolate the mobo in said manner, you will have excluded outside infulence from being the cause (in a physical sense), and be able to say the issue is due to an endemic mobo component/compatability.

PlastiCup · Post by **PlastiCup** » Mon May 11, 2009 1:10 am

Update:

The computer is currently up and running. I took the MOBO out and only used the bare minimum of screws I needed to keep it stable when putting it back in. I also switched what slot the ram was in and now have both sticks in. So far, everything is running good. My guess is that one of the screws was somehow interfering and that the ram was not in the right slot (ddr ram). right now it's different from the mobo manual, but i'm not complaining. Haven't run anything intense yet, so I don't know how stable it is, but for now it is running.

Faust · Post by **Faust** » Mon May 11, 2009 11:51 am

PlastiCup wrote:Update:

The computer is currently up and running. I took the MOBO out and only used the bare minimum of screws I needed to keep it stable when putting it back in. I also switched what slot the ram was in and now have both sticks in. So far, everything is running good. My guess is that one of the screws was somehow interfering and that the ram was not in the right slot (ddr ram). right now it's different from the mobo manual, but i'm not complaining. Haven't run anything intense yet, so I don't know how stable it is, but for now it is running.

good to hear. at least you managed to extrapolate my point from the posts above. after a few drinks i tend to get blabby... which wouldnt seem so bad if i could only manage to stick to my point in 1000 words or less.

PlastiCup · Post by **PlastiCup** » Wed May 13, 2009 12:48 am

Update. I installed Unreal 3. I can load it, start a map, but only play for about 10 seconds before the computer dies. Is something overheating? How can I tell what's going on?

Faust · Post by **Faust** » Wed May 13, 2009 11:54 am

im not having much luck finding the mobo using that model#. do you know what chipset it has? or can you run something like sisoft sandra or belarc advisor and see what it says it is?

most chipsets have available temp monitoring software, as do many diag/benchmark apps (like sisoft sandra, but last i checked, sandra's isnt realtime). which one to use depends on what chipset is on that mobo. of course, you can check the system bios, but thats hard to use to check current temps while under heavy load.

PlastiCup · Post by **PlastiCup** » Wed May 13, 2009 5:05 pm

This is the MOBO I have in the case.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813138130

It's a biostar TSeries. AMD Mobo.

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Wed May 13, 2009 5:13 pm

one other thing to check, is make sure the memory is running correct the timings and voltage.

PlastiCup · Post by **PlastiCup** » Wed May 13, 2009 7:09 pm

Mark wrote:one other thing to check, is make sure the memory is running correct the timings and voltage.

How can I check that? I have corsair 1066 dominator ram. 2 sticks of 2 gigs each. I THINK I saw in the bios that it was 7-3-7. Should it be 7-7-7?

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Wed May 13, 2009 7:28 pm

download this and run it to see what the ram is running at now
http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php
then compare that to the advertised settings for your ram

PlastiCup · Post by **PlastiCup** » Wed May 13, 2009 7:50 pm

Mark wrote:download this and run it to see what the ram is running at now
http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php
then compare that to the advertised settings for your ram

The Dram frequency is 400mhz. It should be 1066 right?. the NB freq is 1600mhz. is that weird? the fsb:dram is 1:2. CAS Lat is 5. That one is good. It says single for channels. I think it should be dual. If i try the ram in another slot though, it shuts down on boot.

Faust · Post by **Faust** » Fri May 15, 2009 4:21 pm

i dont know for sure about the specific timings on that CPU/FSB and memory.

im still a fan of taking the mobo out and laying it on a piece of cardboard, and trying 1 stick of memory at a time in different slots. would eliminate a lot of the lower level variables.

PlastiCup · Post by **PlastiCup** » Sat May 16, 2009 2:13 pm

Faust wrote:i dont know for sure about the specific timings on that CPU/FSB and memory.

im still a fan of taking the mobo out and laying it on a piece of cardboard, and trying 1 stick of memory at a time in different slots. would eliminate a lot of the lower level variables.

I hadn't thought of that. At this point I have the ram set to 800mhz, with both sticks in, and it seems to work pretty okay. If I take it up to 1066 it becomes unstable and dies if i do too much. I may do the cardboard thing tomorrow if i think it's bugging me still. I've been able to play UT3 much better though, which is definitely a good sign.

Faust · Post by **Faust** » Sat May 16, 2009 8:04 pm

PlastiCup wrote:I've been able to play UT3 much better though, which is definitely a good sign.

indeed. one step closer. personally, it would drive me up the wall not knowing what the problem was. but once youre able to do with your system what you wanted to do in the first place makes it easier to deal with.

PlastiCup · Post by **PlastiCup** » Sun May 17, 2009 3:09 am

Faust wrote:indeed. one step closer. personally, it would drive me up the wall not knowing what the problem was. but once youre able to do with your system what you wanted to do in the first place makes it easier to deal with.

Well, I do remember it giving off this big spark during one of the times I tried powering on, when it was still being grounded by the computer case. That probably has something to do with it. User stupidity at its finest. But, it's the way I learn.

PlastiCup · Post by **PlastiCup** » Sun May 17, 2009 3:28 am

Update---Definitely still have some problem. I was copying files from one hard drive to another, surfing the web, and installing adobe, all at the same time, and the computer died on me. No warning, just instant power down. VERY FRUSTRATING. Sounds like an overheating issue to me. What do you think?

PlastiCup · Post by **PlastiCup** » Mon May 18, 2009 12:15 am

Another update. The issue seems to be with the motherboard and the ram. If i have one stick in there, it's great. If i have two, it dies. I have switched the sticks back and forth, so each one is good. I have tried each slot, so it's good that way. But, for some reason, when there is two sticks in there, it dies. Perhaps the slots are overheating, or the motherboard is, but it's definitely something to do with that.

Thoughts?

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Mon May 18, 2009 6:21 am

try running memtest to check for errors

http://www.memtest.org/

PlastiCup · Post by **PlastiCup** » Mon May 18, 2009 8:29 pm

Mark wrote:try running memtest to check for errors

http://www.memtest.org/

That's what my MOBO runs actually. I have run it in the bios. Each stick passes individually. It's when they are together that it dies. I contacted my MOBO manufacturer (biostar) and got an RMA number so at this point i'm concluding that it's defective.

Thank you all for your help. I've learned a lot from you guys.

PlastiCup · Post by **PlastiCup** » Mon May 18, 2009 8:52 pm

Had one more thought/question. Do you think my hard drive is messing it up somehow? Like, could it be going bad and be causing this? What would be a good way to find out? What are signs that a hard drive is dying?

BaLa · Post by **BaLa** » Mon May 18, 2009 10:13 pm

If the mobo is bad, there is a good chance that it is/was your fault.

PlastiCup · Post by **PlastiCup** » Mon May 18, 2009 11:59 pm

BaLa wrote:If the mobo is bad, there is a good chance that it is/was your fault.

Probably yes. I didn't exactly screw it in right when I first got it, and all that grounding can't have been good for it. But it's at least possible that all that didn't affect it and that it was bad from the start. And that's why i'm sending it in.

BaLa · Post by **BaLa** » Tue May 19, 2009 7:59 pm

I return stuff to Walmart all the time....

terrancelam · Post by **terrancelam** » Thu May 21, 2009 11:16 am

Couple pointers:

1.) Check the layout in the case to see if there are any metal support pegs that are making contact with the motherboard. You may have some unecessary pegs that could be causing your problem.

2.) (*Most likely culprit*) If you are able to boot the computer and install windows but get weird problems, it could be your bios is out of date. I would get the latest bios off the manufacturer website and install that before you send it back. I had a P5ND which I thought was defective because it kept crashing with my 8800GT but it ended up being some bios issues that was causing it to malfunction.

Hope this info helps ya out.

Cheers,
M