My computer won't POST

[Stigmata]

So here's the rundown:

Sold my laptop, bought a new PSU for my computer, and hooked everything up. Everything is connected, I think. 24pin/4pin motherboard connectors, PCI-e power for my video card, and my hard drive and DVD drive. When the PSU is on, my motherboard's power indicator goes on.

When I hit the power button, fans start going, and the front panel power light goes on. The hard drive activity goes on as well, but instead of flashing with the presumed hard drive access, it stays solid. Nothing comes up on my monitor, and my monitor doesn't even detect the presence of a GPU.

What could my problem be?

 

[Hectic Glenn]

Did you change anything else apart from the PSU?

I assume you've checked all the connections are pushed in firmly. When installing you could have unseated the RAM? Are they in firmly? VGA / DVI cable plugged in?

Eliminate the HDD, try unplugging it, starting up and seeing if the HDD activity light remains on.

Also, open up your case and smell if there is any burning, or the back of the PSU. I hope not, but a capacitor could have blown, any sludge on the mobo?

edit: After doing lots of googling this issue is regular in two instances:

1) Bad PSU which has blown / is faulty
2) Bad mobo, as a result of a power surge from a PSU blowing.

I notice you have bought a new PSU, I'm not sure why you bought a new one, but either of these scenarios could be possible.

 

[Sir Phoenixx]

whoops, accidentally quick replied instead of edited...

 

[Sir Phoenixx]

24pin/4pin motherboard connectors

By that you mean the 20+4pin connector, and and the 4pin atx12v connector?

 

[Vegeta897]

You also need to plug this:

into this:

 

[Raziaar]

Don't forget to press this guy too.

 

[Stigmata]

By that you mean the 20+4pin connector, and and the 4pin atx12v connector?

Yeah. I should've specified 20+4.

Did you change anything else apart from the PSU?

I assume you've checked all the connections are pushed in firmly. When installing you could have unseated the RAM? Are they in firmly? VGA / DVI cable plugged in?

Eliminate the HDD, try unplugging it, starting up and seeing if the HDD activity light remains on.

Also, open up your case and smell if there is any burning, or the back of the PSU. I hope not, but a capacitor could have blown, any sludge on the mobo?

edit: After doing lots of googling this issue is regular in two instances:

1) Bad PSU which has blown / is faulty
2) Bad mobo, as a result of a power surge from a PSU blowing.

I notice you have bought a new PSU, I'm not sure why you bought a new one, but either of these scenarios could be possible.

In order:

Yes. I've switched out the motherboard and CPU once each, on my old power supply. [edit] That is, I bought a new CPU and mobo once each (and in separate instances), tested the new CPU in my current mobo followed by a new mobo with my current CPU, saw no change each time, returned the new item each time, and re-installed my current CPU/mobo each time as well. Don't know why I did that last part so much...

Nothing is unseated, and my DVI cable is plugged in.

I'll try removing the HDD and see what happens. At the library now for internet, so it'll be slow goings

There's no burning smell, no mobo sludge, and no visibly-blown capacitors. There's some dust but it's always there.

I'm confident that my motherboard is okay. When I power up my system, the DVD drive is active and tries to read the empty tray repeatedly. So it's transmitting power properly, at the very least. So... I'm starting to suspect I've shorted my CPU. I've removed it, cleaned it, and reseated it so many times in the past six months that it's pretty likely some thermal paste worked its way between the pins. And since thermal paste is conductive... D:

 

[Qonfused]

Not cleaning the CPU off when removing the heatsink... D:

 

[No Limit]

It's posting now isn't it? Zing...

Anyway, I would disconnected everything you can outside of the ram and video card then seeing it it makes any difference. You don't get any kind of beeping when you turn it on? Do you have another power supply you could try?

 

[Stigmata]

No no, I cleaned it every time. I have this two-step cleaning solution from Thermaltake (I think), made of two liquids. One emulsifies the thermal compound, the other is a "surface primer/purifier" the function of which I'm not entirely sure about.

I'm thinking that when I used the emulsifier, it reached the edge of the CPU die and then, through some freak act of surface tension, dribbled down to the underside and got some compound between the pins.

[edit] IT IS NOT THE PSU!!! haha. I bought a new PSU, and this one actually turns my fans and components on. My old one did NOTHING except turn the motherboard's indicator light on. No fans, no beeps, no DVD drive reads, nothing.

 

[No Limit]

Also, you're in the UK so make sure that the voltage on the back of the power supply is set properly. You guys use 220V don't you?

 

[Qonfused]

Also, you're in the UK so make sure that the voltage on the back of the power supply is set properly. You guys use 220V don't you?

Location: London, Ontario, Canada

 

[Stigmata]

ITT only England has a London.

[edit] God damnit Qonfused, stop making me lol in the public library.

 

[Raziaar]

You're making sure your PCI express cable, or molex... whatever you're using, is seated firmly into your video card?

The other day I thought I somehow destroyed my brother's video card somehow when I was testing it in my computer and the computer didn't go to the POST or anything, even though there was power and fans were working and shit.

The fans on the video card were working, but the problem it turned out was that I didn't plug in the PCI express cable fully into the card, so it must have been getting power somehow(unless the fans were powered by the mobo), but not enough to actually fire the rest of the card up.

I'm sure you already double checked this though.

 

[Stigmata]

Couldn't hurt to triple-check it. I remember having some issues with the PCIe connector not going in all the way, or feeling like it was when it really wasn't.

 

[No Limit]

I guess you Canadians can't do anything yourselves, you even need to steal city names from other countries.

Since you're in canada make sure it's set to 120 (or 115). Also, as I said disconnect everything you don't need and if you have another power supply you can try do that.

 

[Raziaar]

I guess you Canadians can't do anything yourselves, you even need to steal city names from other countries.

We take it a whole step further in this country... we don't steal city names to name our cities, we steal country names to name our cities! Muahahaha.

Peru, Illinois
Peru, Indiana
Peru, Kansas
Peru, Maine
Peru, Massachusetts
Peru, Nebraska
Peru, New York
Peru, Pennsylvania
Peru, Vermont
Peru, West Virginia
Peru, Wisconsin

Mexico, Indiana
Mexico, Kentucky
Mexico, Maine
Mexico, Maryland
Mexico, Missouri
Mexico (village), New York
Mexico (town), New York

Poland, Maine
Poland, Chautauqua County, New York
Poland, Herkimer County, New York
Poland, Ohio
Poland Township, Mahoning County, Ohio

Turkey, North Carolina
Turkey, Texas

Germany, Georgia
Germany, Indiana
Germany, Texas
Germany Township, Pennsylvania

China, Maine, United States
China Township, Michigan, United States
China, Texas, United States
China Grove, Texas, United States

Cuba, Alabama
Cuba, Illinois
Cuba, Kansas
Cuba, Missouri
Cuba, New Mexico
Cuba (village), New York
Cuba (town), New York
Cuba City, Wisconsin
Cuba Township, Minnesota

Syria, Virginia

Sudan, Texas

 

[Stigmata]

Update 3 (or something)!

I bought an Athlon64 X2 5200+ at 2.7GHz. I have DDR2-800 RAM, which is the fastest RAM that my motherboard will support. What sort of clock/multiplier settings do I need to set to keep my RAM at 800MHz? I don't want to open the package up until I figure this out.

 

[Sir Phoenixx]

You should set your settings back to default/auto for the first time (if you can't get into the bios before, do it as soon as it boots after you got the CPU and RAM installed). The bios/motherboard should detect your CPU and RAM's speed and set the FSB, multiplier, etc. accordingly. Get CPU-Z: http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php (if you don't already have it) and use that to check your speeds. If the speeds are off a little or you want to overclock then you can go in and change the settings.

At default yours should be a 200mhz FSB, 13.5 multiplier (for 2.7ghz), 1:1 DRAM divider (might be listed as "DDR 800", or "800mhz" depending on your motherboard).

 

[Stigmata]

But isn't memory speed derived by dividing the CPU clock speed by an integer? If that's the case, I can't achieve full 800MHz memory speeds:

2700 / 8 = 337.5 * 2 = 675MHz
2700 / 7 = 385.71428571428571428571428571429 * 2 = 771.42...MHz
2700 / 6 = 450 * 2 = 900MHz

[edit] This is important. If this fact is true, then the person who sold me my new processor (Athlon64 X2 5200+ 2.7GHz Brisbane core) lied to me in order to make a sale :|

 

[Kadayi]

Stig

Firstly just get your system up and running normally and worry about overclocking it once your system is up to date and fully functional. You'll probably want to ensure your BIOS is up to date as well. Then read these: -

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1804

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/phenom-overclock-athlon,2161.html

Hopefully that will help. I'm pretty sure (albeit I have an OC'd pentium) that your calculations are off and you should be able to come up with a viable OC system. 800MHz is a good speed for ram.

Kad