First boot good, and now, nothing. Nothing.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Byron
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Byron

Hi there,

Today I did my first solo PC build. I'd watched it done a couple of
times, and thought I could handle it.

So I bought and put together all the pieces, and on the first power-up
it miraculously worked, taking me to the BIOS to adjust the settings.

The only changes I made were fixing the system date and time, disabling
the floppy drive (because I don't have one) and adjusting the boot
configuration to disable the floppy and check the DVD drive before the
system drive.

I saved the changes and rebooted, and now I get nothing. Not even a
signal to my monitor. I get one beep, which the motherboard manual says
could be either a keyboard input error, no master drive detected, or a
refresh time error.

I think it might be a master drive detection error. I'm using three SATA
drives in IDE mode, with only the DVD device connected via IDE. I'm
guessing this is causing a configuration problem? I've tried
disconnecting each one of the drives in a variety of combinations, but
so far all I get on boot up are blank screens.

My other worry is that the first boot knocked out my video card. There's
no on board video to try instead.

Any idea why it would've worked the first time, but after those slight
BIOS changes, it gives me nothing?

Here's my configuration:

ASUS P5GDC Deluxe
Pentium 4 550 LGA775 3.4 Ghz
Radeon X600 XT (pci-express)
Integrated audio
HP DVD640i
2x Corsair ValueSelect 1GB DDR2

80 GB Sata HD (system)
250 GB Sata HD
250 GB Sata HD

All items are brand new except for one of the 250 GB drives transferred
from an old machine (no OS on it, just data).
 
It sounds most likely that in changing the BIOS settings, that you have also
inadvertently tried to overclock something as well. Try resetting the BIOS
to defaults either by using the jumper marked RESET on the board or by
removing the battery.

If that doesn't work, and by one beep it sounds like you mean a long beep
perhaps?? With all mains power removed (unplugged) try re-seating your
graphics card, memory and CPU.

If that doesn't work either, strip the computer back to the bare minimum
with whch you should get a basic Power On Self Test (POST) - motherboard,
CPU + cooler, memory (1 stick is all that's needed), graphics card and
keyboard. Even try this set up on a bench outside the case on an insulated
surface. You may have a short to ground caused by the metal stand-offs in
the case touching something.

Does this board talk to you when you boot up (some do)? Try connecting a
set of speakers to the audio output on your board's audio interface and it
may tell you what the fault is as it attempts to boot.

It's unlikely I think, but there is a possibility that you *may* have
damaged your CPU if the heatsink and fan assembly wasn't properly installed
and wasn't completely touching the top of the CPU casing for any reason.
Pentium chips are generally a bit more forgiving than certainly the older
Athlon XP + chips used to be (8 seconds before burn-out without a heatsink
and fan properly installed), but the temperatures modern chips reach - and
quickly - don't give you much leeway. Having had a faulty spring clip
experience on a heatsink/fan assembly once which allowed the heatsink not to
touch the (AMD Athlon) CPU by a fraction of a millimetre, I always make it
my business to check system and CPU temperatures in the BIOS screens at the
first opportunity the system allows me. Anything untoward in terms of too
rapid a rise in the CPU temperature causes me to switch off mains power
immediately.

I think though from what you've said, it's either a simple BIOS reset that's
needed or you've not seated something properly in its slot.

HTH

Nick
 
If that doesn't work, and by one beep it sounds like you mean a long beep
perhaps?? With all mains power removed (unplugged) try re-seating your
graphics card, memory and CPU.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the feedback. Good thing I tried the video card before re-
seating the CPU. The video card was a bitch to get in there, and it was
not fully into the pci-express slot. Now I get video.

I'm still having some difficulty with the drive set-up, however.

The BIOS shows this configuration:

Primary IDE Master: HP DVD Writer
Primary IDE Slave: Not Detected
Third IDE Master: 80 GB SATA drive (I want this to be the system drive)
Third IDE Slave: 250GB SATA HD (data drive)
Fourth IDE Master: 250GB SATA HD (data drive)
Fourth IDE Slave: Not Detected
IDE Configuration: SATA as Standard IDE

Is this right to have the DVD drive listed as the primary IDE master?
And why do the other drives start at "third" and not "second?" Do I even
need to be concerned about this?

Thanks again.
 
Byron said:
Thanks for the feedback. Good thing I tried the video card before re-
seating the CPU. The video card was a bitch to get in there, and it was
not fully into the pci-express slot. Now I get video.

I'm still having some difficulty with the drive set-up, however.

The BIOS shows this configuration:

Primary IDE Master: HP DVD Writer
Primary IDE Slave: Not Detected
Third IDE Master: 80 GB SATA drive (I want this to be the system drive)
Third IDE Slave: 250GB SATA HD (data drive)
Fourth IDE Master: 250GB SATA HD (data drive)
Fourth IDE Slave: Not Detected
IDE Configuration: SATA as Standard IDE

Is this right to have the DVD drive listed as the primary IDE master?
And why do the other drives start at "third" and not "second?" Do I even
need to be concerned about this?
Click to expand...

Don't worry - those are absolutely normal (even if master/slave
makes no sense with SATA drives - it's just the terminology
they use to identify controllers.)
With that setup, the OS (eg XP) will normally try to install itself to
your 80GB SATA drive, which is what you want.
HTH
 
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