New equipment (Motherboard, Video) "dead"

[FunkyMunky]

Hi

I bought an Asus A8N-SLi Deluxe (PCI-Express) and a Gigabyte Geforce 6800 256mb online the other day to go with my Athlon 64 3200+ Winchester and a gig of DDR400 (2x512) I had lying around. I assembled the system barebones as usual and tested it with the video card, CPU and memory installed. The motherboard shows a good standby light and the system appears to powerup, with the CPU, chipset, VGA and case fans all activating. I get no display output however, and no apparent beeps from the system speaker. I've tried the system with one stick of ram and some old RAM, with the same result. Booted with just the motherboard and got no speaker beeps or voice output from the asus "bitchin betty" POST reporter, which leads me to believe the system is not reaching the POST at all (it should at least beep or "speak" a No CPU, No Memory or No VGA error).

I've tried the system out on a desk (no chance of a short with the system case then) and I've checked every essential connector on the motherboard, from the SLI "EZ" Selector to the PCI-Express connectors, and my PSU should be sufficient (480W, 18A on the 12V rail).

Any ideas? Ideally I'd like to know if the motherboard or the graphics are borked so I know which to return but I dont have any other PCI-Express equipment to test with. At the moment it all looks like an expensive doorstop.

Thanks :{

Edit to add I was "wired" to the system at all times and assembled everything on an antistatic mat, so I dont think I've fried anything ;) Also, the physical locks on the PCI-Express slots were floating in the bag when I opened it up; would the fact that I've tried to power it up despite this damage (it's just a lock for heavier cards, mine doesn't even use it and it doesn't affect operation) affect my chances of getting a return? I'd imagine if the board itself is fried, they're not going to care about a couple of bits of plastic.

[Mac the Knife]

I've experienced this once. Went through pulling everything until eventually I removed the floppy and it booted. Put the floppy back and bingo, no boot. Something duff in the floppy or it's connections thinks I. Eventually traced it to a short in the floppy male power connector - fixed short, put floppy back and all well.

Try removing everything apart from the video card and a stick of RAM.

PS: You DID connect the aux (4-pin) power supply for the CPU, didn't you?

[FunkyMunky]

:mad: :mad: :mad:

Fixed it, yay, but it was something so simple I should slap myself silly :mad: :mad: .

The +12V connector wasn't seated properly...a capacitor was stopping it coming down fully. Noticed this morning when I was putting back together the old motherboard that it fitted fine the other way round as well...rebuilt new stuff on desk, popped it in the other way round and voila. Doh!!

At least now I have a £700 room heater/BF2-runner instead of a £700 silicon doorstop ;)

Thanks for the help

P.S. I suppose I didn't connect the 4 pin supply. ;) At least, not properly. I thought I had it seated but as usual, a quick look instead of a proper check when running over my options in despair caught me out. Caught my mind this morning when I thought that the CPU fan was spinning a lot slower on the failed boot attempts. Ah well, live and learn :P