# Installed new fans - now comp won't boot.



## xazraelx (Sep 29, 2008)

Okay, well, I just ordered quite a few (9) fans to replace all the ones in my case.  Sure, it's excessive, that mattered not to me.

So I booted down my fully functioning computer, starting taking it apart, undid all the power connectors, decided I would do some cable management while I was at it, did a little bit of modding (removing most of the junk in front of the top/front fans on the CM 690), and started putting everything back.  I plug everything back where it should belong (maybe I moved some of the SATA ports from one to another, no I'm not in RAID), tuck my cables behind my case, and put it the sides on.

So I take it back to my room, plug in the PSU and boot up.  No peripherals, just wanted to see what it looked like before I head to bed.  Well, it does this odd thing:  It powers up for about 5 seconds, maybe 4, then shuts down.  It powers up again, about 4-5 seconds, shuts down.  It will continue to do this until I turn off the psu power.  Another thing I noticed is that the CPU fan wasn't running.  I checked the plug to make sure it was plugged in correctly (it was), and even gave it a jumpstart of my finger, and it wouldn't spin.  I have an arctic cooler 7 on there.  When it starts giving everything power, the cpu fan "jerks" like it wants to move, but doesn't.  At first I thought I might somehow be straining my 620W PSU, so I unplugged all my fans, then gave it another go.  My 8800GT turns on, the HDD's start spinning, my RAM glows, but the cpu fan does nothing, and it continues to power cycle.

Any suggestions...I feel like banging my head against a wall.

Thanks TPU,

William


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## MRCL (Sep 29, 2008)

Check if anything is touching anything it shouldnt; like the mobo touching the case, or pressing through cables routed underneath it. Thats what happened to me once; the mobo somehow touched the case... after de- and reassembling, it worked just as if nothing ever happened.


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## xazraelx (Sep 29, 2008)

Just did...and it seems everything is clear.  I will try and take the entire computer apart tomorrow, and just plug everything back in again...and see where I go with that.  ><  I know these boards had some power cycling issues, I've just never had them before.


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## magibeg (Sep 29, 2008)

This happened to a friend of mine before, unplug the fans and hook them up one by one. In his case it turned out that one of the power cables for one of his fans had a small tear in it and was essentially draining the whole rail into the case.


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## xazraelx (Sep 29, 2008)

magibeg said:


> This happened to a friend of mine before, unplug the fans and hook them up one by one. In his case it turned out that one of the power cables for one of his fans had a small tear in it and was essentially draining the whole rail into the case.



All the fans are unplugged already.


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## P4-630 (Sep 29, 2008)

What about the CPU fan settings and other fan settings in the BIOS?


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## xazraelx (Sep 29, 2008)

It doesn't post.  My monitor doesn't even register receiving a signal when it power cycles.  So I can't even look in the bios


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## P4-630 (Sep 29, 2008)

xazraelx said:


> I will try and take the entire computer apart tomorrow, and just plug everything back in again...and see where I go with that



^As you mentioned above


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## iStink (Sep 29, 2008)

Yeah, I'd strip the computer down to only what you need to boot up and screw the idea of cable management for right now.  Just get everything rebuilt and plugged in properly and see if you can't just boot up with one stick of ram, a video card, and one hdd with windows on it.


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## JC316 (Sep 29, 2008)

You probably knocked a card of it's slot. I did that while installing fans once. Had me stumped till my PCI modem practically jumped out of the socket at me. Plugged it in and it was all good.


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## xazraelx (Sep 29, 2008)

It won't even display the BIOS, let alone boot windows.

I stripped the computer down, took everything out of the psu (it's modular), except for the graphics card, mobo power, and cpu power.  I have a question about the CPU power spot though...I have an "extra" sleeved 8 pin connector that looks like it would fit in the CPU slot were I to take the black "fillers" out of the other 4 pins.  But, it's worked fine for almost a year on the 4-pin cpu, so I don't see how that could be a problem.

I also took out everything but one stick of ram that I've had for a good long time (the lanfest edition ballistix =D still the dual sided chipsets, amazing ram) and it didn't post.  I even unplugged the front audio/usb/esata connectors.

So, all that is plugged in is this:
Graphics card power
Graphics card
CPU power
Mobo power
front turn-on buttons
one stick of RAM

And it still won't post ><

There are quite a few "bad" reviews on newegg with this board doing this, but it just pisses me off after almost a year, it decides to crap out.

Does anyone have any other suggestions?  I've greatly appreciated everything mentioned so far.  I also started the Gigabyte support ticket (they don't have a tech # to call for this stuff ><  You have to follow through with an e-mail back and forth process troubleshooting to make sure it's a mobo issue, which - according to reviews - takes about a month to get a new board)

Thanks TPU, you guys are the best 

And I'm looking at the bright side...I have an AMD 6000+ laying around, an extra 9600GSO, just need an AMD board to bring a computer back up for a while =)  Might be a good time to paint my case black -.-


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## erocker (Sep 29, 2008)

Sorry if I didn't read it somewhere, but did you take out the battery or reset the cmos?


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## MilkyWay (Sep 29, 2008)

faulty psu i think some how i think the psu is dead seems like classic symptoms
could be a dead cmos battery too, if the fans arnt connected and it still wont go on then there is a deeper problem than just the fans


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## xazraelx (Sep 29, 2008)

Yeah, I cleared the cmos - though can that prevent it from posting?

I have googled this problem to no end, and I find more and more users getting frustrated with  my exact model and the "no posting" error.  I think I'm just going to order an AMD board for my 6000+ sitting around, swap the gpu/ram/hdd/psu into a spare case, and just run off an AMD system until I can get this thing RMA'd.

Quick question about doing that...Will windows have a problem with the changing parts?  Will I need to boot into safe mode to get the drivers installed from the AMD board, or will I have to reformat?

Thanks everyone, for all your help - and if anyone has any suggestions they think will work, please let me know.


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## Zehnsucht (Sep 29, 2008)

In my limited experience it is a good idea to do a fresh install when changing motherboard. There's an awful lot of drivers that needs to be cleaned out.


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## xazraelx (Sep 29, 2008)

I'll just buy a cheap 250 hdd somewhere then.  Thanks =)


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## r9 (Sep 29, 2008)

xazraelx said:


> Just did...and it seems everything is clear.  I will try and take the entire computer apart tomorrow, and just plug everything back in again...and see where I go with that.  ><  I know these boards had some power cycling issues, I've just never had them before.



Check the fan that you put on the cpu cooler connected to CPU fun slot on MB. I had that problem I put FAN that doesn`t have sensor wire so it is not reporting to the bios and the bios was set by default to turn off the PC if the Fan is not working. Remount the CPU cooler see if is mounted properly. If it is on screws tighten them diagonally 1 3 2 4 and little by little avoiding to CPU cooler to prone on one side and the CPU to overheat fast.


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## xazraelx (Sep 29, 2008)

Wouldn't it still post before cycling?

But yes, the cpu fan is in the right place.  As for re-seating the cpu cooler, I don't have any thermal paste on hand, ordered some a couple days ago but it hasn't come yet, so I don't want to take that off yet.


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## alexp999 (Sep 29, 2008)

Have you tried jumpstarting the PSU with just fans and DVD drives connected?

It sounds like a dodgy PSU, but the fact that its corsair is making me doubt its faulty (not that they are always 100% ok, just seems highly unlikely)


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## xazraelx (Sep 29, 2008)

Jumpstarting the PSU?  Pardon, but I don't think I quite understand what you mean.  And the PSU put power to 9 fans, an 8800GT, 2 hdd, and 4 ram chips when I first booted it up...it just wouldn't post -.-

But if you don't mind elaborating on the jumpstarting part, I'll try it =)


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## alexp999 (Sep 29, 2008)

Here you go:

http://www.overclock.net/faqs/96712-how-jump-start-power-supply-psu.html

But plug as much stuff in as you can. PSU's dont like it when they power up and having nothing to power. So stuff like cathods, leds, fans, dvd-drives.
Not so important stuff that can power up without a mobo.

Obviously, I take no responsibility for what you do. But this is the best way to see if it a bad PSU


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## Atnevon (Sep 30, 2008)

Well, some blessings come in the form of misery. 

Take for example my desktop I have. I would not have it unless my laptop was blown to shit from lightning. You mentioned you have some AMD parts lying around. Well, its better to limp, than to be in a wheelchair. Sure you may only get 98fps, instead of 140, but it sure as hell beats 5 or 10.

Don't feel to gloomy, as if you RMA your board, it wont be a total loss. A 50 bukc board to tie you down for the time will be better than running around, bumming friends compys just to check your mail. That gets old, PDQ.

You mentioned casemodding as a new outlook at one point. Here's your chance. Take some time and reflect what you really have, then when you get it back, you'l think "wow, I can;t believe I had this performance before".

To be helpful, that link for the jumpstart looks interesting. Thanks for that, it was a cool read. 

(tries to pat azrael on the back, and offer a cup of coco).


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## techjunkie (Sep 30, 2008)

I had a similar problem. My pc wouldn't post when powered up, the fans in all the components would just spin up for about a couple of seconds and just die off. I took everything out of the case, assembled the parts again on a table over a sheet of cardboard and it post just fine.

That proved that there was something wrong with the case. Try doing that and tell me how it goes....


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## xazraelx (Sep 30, 2008)

Quick question...what can you set the mobo on when taking it out of the case to test?


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## P4-630 (Sep 30, 2008)

xazraelx said:


> Quick question...what can you set the mobo on when taking it out of the case to test?



On a table?


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## kyle2020 (Sep 30, 2008)

a table, in the motherboard box, and so on. Just dont put it on anything metal!


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## JrRacinFan (Sep 30, 2008)

xazraelx, 

I am beleiving your motherboard is dead. Try out an RMA and go from there.


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## techjunkie (Sep 30, 2008)

> Quick question...what can you set the mobo on when taking it out of the case to test?



place it on a piece of cardboard.
I did it on the box my keyboard came in


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## xazraelx (Oct 4, 2008)

Okay, so, just wanted to update this thread.  After many trials and tribulations with gigabyte support (all based online through tickets, REALLY crappy), I've finally submitted the correct RMA report but have yet to see a RMA ticket number.  Gigabyte may make nice boards, but their customer service is terrible.

In the meantime, I decided to take my case apart, and just got the jollies to do what a couple people suggested...I put the motherboard on the table, plugged in one ram chip into the farthest slot from cpu, put some new thermal paste on my cpu (debated on lapping the cooler and cpu, decided not to), put the graphics card in, plugged in the necessary equipment, and boom.  One power cycle, then it posted.

HELL YEAH!

So, I'm thinking...this is good, this is good.  I plug in the other ram piece into the matching slot, and it posts again.  Good, good.  I plug in the other set of Ram (so now all four pieces of 1 gig are in), and it doesn't post.  Just power cycles.  So I take the second set out, and replace the first set with the second set.  And it posts again.  So my first set of DIMM slots works fine, but when I plug in my second set of Ram it decides not to post on me.  What the hell is going on here? 

Any suggestions?


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## sneekypeet (Oct 4, 2008)

raise the NB volts to allow it to help push 4 sticks of ram. Also set the voltages and at least the 5-5-5-15 timing in the ram section of the bios as well!


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## xazraelx (Oct 4, 2008)

I think my lanfest crucial tracers have finally gone out, actually.  I was flopping around the RAM trying to figure out which voltage setting was the NB voltage at the same time, and I noticed that it won't post with one or two sticks of the lanfest edition ram, but the cpu fan spins about 10 times, then slows to a stop.  I've tried every DIMM slot with the gskills and it works, but the lanfest editions seem to suck all the juice out of my mobo.

What do you think?

Edit:  I raised the DDR2 voltage control up by .40 volts, and it boots with two sticks of the gskill, one of lanfests...about to try all four with +.4.

Also raised the NB .1V, everything is posting fine.  Kind of lost my hdd yesterday, so I need to go back into my room and find it to see if it boots =)


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## Jacko28 (Oct 4, 2008)

Removed - Missed page 2 :S hehe


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## JrRacinFan (Oct 4, 2008)

JrRacinFan said:


> xazraelx,
> 
> I am beleiving your motherboard is dead. Try out an RMA and go from there.





xazraelx said:


> One power cycle, then it posted.
> 
> HELL YEAH!
> 
> ...



Congrats on getting it working again!!!! I do stand corrected and do apologize. I just hope you can get 4 sticks working together again!


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## xazraelx (Oct 5, 2008)

Well...when I get home I'll upload a cute picture for you guys =)  Right now my machine is running case-less beside me at my desk on top of some duty styrofoam (sp?) with fans in the nooks of the styrofoam to keep it cooled off, and fans aiming at the gpu/nb/cpu =)

And ALL FOUR STICKS ARE WORKING!  You guys are amazing + I learned quite a bit about voltages from this.  I never got big into overclocking, so I only messed with the FSB and multiplier, not the voltages.  

And the bright side is, I had already ordered the mobo and psu I needed to assemble a "backup rig" while this one is down, and now I have all the parts to finish my AMD htpc/server machine!  And I had also started taking my case apart to paint, and have been testing out a couple different paint schemes, finally decided on one last night 

SO...everything works and I get
1) A new AMD machine
2) A painted/slightly modded CM 690

This was an amazing mishappening ^^

Oh, I also learned gigabyte's support is the crappiest support system I've ever dealt with since Dell initially moved their tech support overseas.  TERRIBLE experience.


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## JrRacinFan (Oct 5, 2008)

May want to take it off the styrofoam and onto cardboard. Styrofoam can create static electricity.


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