thanks Paul, but I'm still at a point of not even getting a POST. The
PSU I bought is pretty crappy (not a major brand)... anyone have a
good list of reasons for NO POST? I know this beyond vauge, but I'm
at a loss now since this last great post from Paul.
You can try simplifying your setup. For example, remove the video
card and the RAM. Sometimes, bad RAM can make a board fail to do anything.
With video card and RAM removed, if the BIOS was actually working, the
computer speaker should beep. Your motherboard doesn't have SPKR pins on
the panel header that I could find in the manual, and the picture of the
motherboard on Newegg shows the board has a round piezo speaker near the
SATA connectors. That should beep once if everything was working fine.
If you have a motherboard, with processor ahd heatsink/fan connected to the
CPU header, then the processor should be able to execute some BIOS code.
You'd check that a BIOS chip was present in its socket. On this motherboard,
the BIOS chip is near the blue video card connector. On the one side of the
video card connector, is the yellow PCI Express x1 connector. On the
other side of the blue connector, is the BIOS chip socket and BIOS chip.
It has a hologram looking sticker on the top of the chip.
If the processor can read the BIOS chip, then it'll be in a position
to "complain" about the lack of other hardware components. You'd expect to hear
two beeps or three beeps (varies with BIOS type), for some of the
missing hardware conditions. You'd be relying on the existence of
those beeps, that the processor is executing some BIOS code. If
the processor cannot execute BIOS code, then you get no beeps.
Then, if you install some RAM, and the beeping stops entirely, that
tells you the RAM may be bad and shorting out the memory slot.
(Always power off, and even unplug, before making changes to the
hardware configuration. You don't want +5VSB to be present in the
computer, when changing RAM for example. I find it simpler to just
unplug when changing hardware, as that is easier for me to remember
to do.)
The last two computers I built, I assembled them entirely on
my work table, without using the computer case. I put the motherboard
on top of a cardboard covered telephone book. That raises the
motherboard high enough, that the faceplate tab on the video card
won't hit the table. You have to be really careful with this method,
because if you accidentally pull on the video cable, it pulls the
video card right out of the video card slot.
The advantage of the "cardboard test", is it avoids potential shorting
issues on the bottom of the motherboard.
I actually got the system working completely, while sitting on the
table, including repair install of the OS on the boot drive. Once
all the hardware was proven, I could put the hardware into the
computer case and finish the job.
If you wanted to verify the power supply, what I do it take a
multimeter, set it to 20VDC full scale, and probe the backside
of the main ATX power connector, while the system is running.
I clip the black ground lead of the multimeter to a screw on
an I/O connector in the I/O area of the motherboard. Then,
with the red lead, I can probe the main power connector (where
the wires enter the nylon shroud). There is some exposed metal
of the power connector pins there, and you can take a voltage
reading from each pin. The motherboard manual has a list of the
signal names on that connector, to compare against. The voltages
should be no more than 5% from the nominal values (3.3V, 5V, 12V,
-12V, +5VSB and so on).
Paul
