11 replies to this topic

[dragon246665]

Hello again Tip.It tech forum, first off, thanks for all the really great advice on computers you've all given me over the last few months, without you guys I would still be thinking that my hard drive was where my disks went, or wondering what "GHz" were, and why they were so darn expensive. So really, thanks.

So, I finally got all the pieces of my computer assembled and turned it on for the first time today (without hooking it up to a monitor yet) and it went well I think. It sort of "blinked" on for a sec, where all the lights and fans and stuff were illuminated, then turned off for a few seconds (scariest moment of my life) then turned on and stayed on for about a minute, at which point it actually turned off for good it seems. So far it seems like this is all that it can do. My first question is, is it normal that my computer is doing this? Or is there some sort of fatal error that I don't know about? (just to clarify, it DOES still turn on, it just goes through the same cycle I described of on for a second, off for a few seconds, then on for a minute, then off until I press the power button again)

Second, when I attached a monitor to my computer, the monitor seemed unresponsive, and didn't start up. I'm assuming this is bad. I'm also assuming that this is somehow the fault of the monitor because its like, over 5 years old and still uses a VGA pin, and to even plug it into my GPU I needed a DVI to VGA adaptor. My question is how do I get the BIOS to show up on a monitor?

Thanks for any advice!

Specs:
Motherboard
GPU
RAM
HDD
Power supply
CPU

[pure_fett]

first, that looks like a pretty solid setup (not knowing what CPU you have) why would you have an old monitor with that setup?

first i would do is verify that the monitor is the problem

[dragon246665]

first, that looks like a pretty solid setup (not knowing what CPU you have) why would you have an old monitor with that setup?

first i would do is verify that the monitor is the problem

Oh shoot, I forgot to add my CPU, which I will do here:
CPU

Second, the old monitor is kind of a long story, I'm supposed to save half of what I earn from my job for college, but I wanted to finish my computer before the end of the summer so I struck a deal with my parents that I would keep all the money until I got all the essentials for my computer, then I would save 1500$, then I could buy the peripherals. So that is why I have a monitor that still uses VGA.

Also, is it bad that when my computer starts up, there is no beep?

[Askthedude]

Start over again from scratch, recheck all cables, ram pushed in properly, CPU seated properly, that sort of stuff... It´ll probably be some stupid little thing that you´ve forgotten to do.
Try removing the GPU and using the onboard graphics and see if the monitor becomes responsive.

[Guy]

Start over again from scratch, recheck all cables, ram pushed in properly, CPU seated properly, that sort of stuff... It´ll probably be some stupid little thing that you´ve forgotten to do.
Try removing the GPU and using the onboard graphics and see if the monitor becomes responsive.

There's no onboard graphics with the P67 chipset. However the advice is good - just start from scratch. It's likely that you've simply forgotten to plug in the power to something, or forgotten the SATA cables or something. Come back to us if that doesn't do anything.

[dragon246665]

Actually I think I identified the source of the problem, the little red LED next to my RAM is on, indicating a problem with my RAM. Fortunately the sabertooth motherboard comes with a MEM-OK button, but this is still kind of a bummer because my RAM says it was optimized for a P67 motherboard. I'm going to go try that then I'll post back here.

Just confirming, an error with my RAM would prevent my computer from entering its BIOS stage, right?

[Kevill]

Actually I think I identified the source of the problem, the little red LED next to my RAM is on, indicating a problem with my RAM. Fortunately the sabertooth motherboard comes with a MEM-OK button, but this is still kind of a bummer because my RAM says it was optimized for a P67 motherboard. I'm going to go try that then I'll post back here.

Just confirming, an error with my RAM would prevent my computer from entering its BIOS stage, right?

N... uhm.. er.. No? I don't think a ram error would prevent your computer from entering BIOS.
Does the P67 series still at least have a small bit of ram built on, so that you could effectively just
unplug your RAM and find out if that is the problem?

Sorry, I hate answering questions with questions, but those darn young-uns keep changin' up them motherboard and chip
layouts with there Sandy Bridges. I'll give ya a sandy bridge! I blew one up in Kuwait!


Ok, all of that last paragraph was just me when I haven't had my caffeine, none of that was true. Lol



~Kevill

[DatBooty]

It would surprise me, too, if a bad RAM stick was preventing someone from entering BIOS.

I'm going to say your PSU is the culprit. Got another power supply you can switch that one out with?

[Sbrideau]

Wouldn't surprise me though as it happened to me on my old computer when one of the sticks went bad.

[Guy]

Try using only one stick at a time in the #1 RAM slot to see if that helps. However faulty RAM shouldn't stop the board from posting at all. I would suggest running memtest86 but you can't even do that because you can't access the computer at all. That leads me to think that perhaps the monitor may be faulty, as bad RAM shouldn't stop POSTing.

This guide may be useful. However going through this points to motherboard and/or CPU and/or RAM failure, which doesn't help a whole lot. I found this thread which details problems similar to yours. This may also help.

If your motherboard came with a speaker, does it make any beeps?

Confusing :L

[jasignhagj]

Did you remember the thermal paste on your CPU Heatsink? I doubt the processor would overheat that fast, but I thought it was worth a mention.

[dragon246665]

Alright after unhooking and rehooking everything in my computer and pressing the MEM-OK button on my motherboard, and using a new monitor, I have managed to get to the BIOS! Yay! Thanks for all the great advice everyone.

Now I'm pretty sure that this isn't a terrible problem but it is kind of funny nonetheless, when I got to the BIOS, theres a built in thermometer on my motherboard to read CPU temp, and for some reason it read 5000 degrees fahrenheit...so either my thermometer is broken or my CPU is hotter than the surface of the sun.