Motherboard powers up but will not post bios

[eastwood4450]

I've got a Biostar M7NCD 462 board that stopped posting to bios since i tried to switch out the 1 Gig ram pc 400 for a 256mb pc 266(I wanted the 1 gig for my main computer). I have tried different ram, video cards, the proccesor(1800 Xp) and reseting the bios with no luck. It will only power on the fans and will not post to bios. Any ideas anyone? Is she dead?

[Celeste]

Hi eastwood4450,

Questions:
Have you tried putting back the original ram ?
Any beeps when she boots up; if so how many?
What is your bootup setup?
Have tried removing the battery for ten minutes?
When was the last time you updated or flushed your BIOS?

Awaiting your answers.

[eastwood4450]

Thanks for the help Celeste,
Here the answers in order
original ram Yes
No beeps
I dont know what a bootup setup is
I havn't tried taking out the battery but I'll do that next
I have never updated the bios on this board. I've only flashed a bios on an ecs board that I was having trouble with a few years back. I worry that I'll mess up the flash and ruin the board that way. Thanks for the ideas, I'll do the battery thing and find some more ram to try.

[Celeste]

You are most welcome, but lets keep the thanks on hold till we can figure this out. :)

Alrighty then, you go fiddle with the battery.
I will be here waiting for your return.

In the mean time I will be looking up the specs of your board and see if I can't find a download manual.

No beeps at all huh?

Have a few more questions for you , if you don't mind.

Did you put the original ram back on it's own, or with other ram ?

Which slot did you place the ram in?

Any lights on the keyboard?

Anylights anywhere?

Not sure if this will work , but do you have onboard video on that board?

Just wondering if when you removed the ram your motherboard went back to onboard video rather then pci.


Boot up order AKA Boot up sequence.
Eg: floppy / cdrom / c: ........
You get the drift.

Do you still have the motherboard's utils cd?

And remember don't panic if there are no flames shooting out of your case it is propably software or settings. ;)

[Jupac]

Make sure the speaker is hooked up on your MOBO for diagnostic beeps

[eastwood4450]

The speaker is plugged in but I can't get it to make any beeps even when starting with no ram in. I tried the original ram as well as 4 other sticks of different speeds and sizes. No keyboard lights, monitor or any other lights will come on. The board has no onboard video and I have tried a pci video card as well as an agp card. I'm going to look for the original agp card that was in before it stopped working. Im not sure what the bootup sequence was before it stopped working or what it would be after flashing the bios 3 or 4 times now. Im wondering if the battery might be dead? Would the cpu fan power up like its doing if the battery was dead?

[%jackson%]

system

p5b-e
805d
ocz 2x512 ddr800 (2.1v)
gforce 7950oc
450w power supply
western digital 160g hdd

I put everything togather and the first time I tried to start the cpu it did run for a short time, started to read the bios and new hardware installed, reconized that i had installed a new cpu then crashed.

one funny thing that i noticed while it was booting it said that it only saw 256mb RAM when I had both 512 sticks installed? could this be a problem with the board and having 2.1v ram?

now when I try to turn on the system, the green light on the MOBO comes on but once I hit the power button the led's on the cpu fan come on for 1 second then shuts down.

please help

FYI: there maybe another issue as well, I have a 20 pin power suppply and there is a 24pin connetor on the MOBO....so should I hook up the 4 pin power by the cpu and the 20pin or buy a 20 to 24pin adaptor? after this should I keep the 4pin power hooked up or not?

this is what I have tried so far...

Ok, so I bought some 1.8v ram...tried it in every socket = no luck

I tried my 2.1v ram 1 stick at a time in every socket = no luck

I tried two at time, three at a time = no luck

I bought the 20 to 24 pin connector = no luck

I pulled the known working PS from another PC hooked it all up = no luck
(but the fan will stay on for two second instead of one).

I tried with the 4 pin and the 24 hooked up and vice versa = no luck

the asus tech guy thought there might be a short in the case, so I pulled everything out and hooked up everything on a non-conductive work desk. = same problem

Now, I guess I'm down to the CPU or the MOBO itself being the cause of the problem?
but I don't have another 775 mobo to test the cpu...any suggestions?

Post Edit

[Celeste]

Would the cpu fan power up like its doing if the battery was dead?

Yes it would the cpu fan gets it's power from the MOBO which in turn get's it's power from the power supply.

Ok, let's try and clarify this.
Was the thing working ok, before you removed the ram stick?
not trying to insult your intellegence here , but have to ask ;are all the cables hooked up correctly and firmly in place.

Now the the next thing is going to really bug you, but humor me and try it anyway, if you will, when you boot her up can you open your cd-rom tray at all?

We could be dealing with 2 seperate things issues here, the first is the power supply is on it's way out, the other one is the cpu.

You haven't had any power surges hit her of late have you ?

Does the original ram stick work in your main computer?

[Celeste]

Hi , %jackson%

Sounds like the cpu , but then again the whole pin issue conflict with your MOBO and power supply has me concerned as well.

So is this MOBO and CPU still new ?

Now you stated you have the same problem am I to assume that there you are not getting any error beeps as well?

The reason I am asking is that you stated that you started her up without any ram in her at all, that should have resulted in very long beeps in an endlesss loop.

I have to ask this one , have you got your DIP Swithches adjusted correctly for your CPU?

Get back to me and don't give up yet.

[%jackson%]

yes everything is brand new.


cpu is connected correctly.

all of the things that I have tried hence far have always produced no beep no post.

[eastwood4450]

The problem started with it when I tried taking out the 1 gig 400 ram for a slower 256 about 6 months ago but it looks like something else has happened to it since then, no power surges or anything but perhaps touching it without being grounded properly when working on it. I usually ground myself on something but with all the part swapping going on I may not have a few times. The 1 gig ram works in my new computer and I switched out the 2000XP for a working 1800XP. The 2000 now runs in my current system. I tried a different battery out of an old pentium board and no luck but theres no saying that old battery was any good either. The cd burner did not light up or open when I tried. Cables have all been dis and reconnected. I may have to put this back on the shelf until I find another tested battery and power supply to try on it.

[Celeste]

Hi eastwood4450.

Sorry, I could not be of more help to you on this one. :(
Well at least yoiu can say you tried

Here is to hope.

[eastwood4450]

Celeste, thank you for taking the time to help. I'll let you know how it turns out when or if I get it going. Thanks again

[seanm1980]

Does your power supply have a 20pin, 4 pin and an 8pin power connectors?

I have the same motherboard (p5b-e) and a 535w enermax PSU. I plugged the 20 and 4 pin in the 24 pin motherboard connection, and plugged half of the 8pin into the 4pin connection on the motherboard.

I built this system on Friday (2 days ago) and this set up worked for me until tonight, when i started getting the same problem as you have posted about.

I'm thinking that i should get a new PSU with a 24pin and 4pin connectors (since the asus manuel says to only use 4pin in the 4pin lol)

Since i have a GeForce 8800gts video card, a PSU with 600+w wouldn't be a bad idea anyways

[Celeste]

Since i have a GeForce 8800gts video card, a PSU with 600+w wouldn't be a bad idea anyways

Hey if you have the cash to spend I would say go for the ATX at least it will run cooler.

But that is up to you, but with your video card I would go for the ATX if you can afford it.

[theuedimaster]

If your cpu fan does what I think it's doing, the heatsink/fan combo might not be secured down fully on the cpu. That can always make the heat sensor go off and shut down the system prematurely.

[PushBiker]

Had a similar problem Turned out to be a small amount and I MEAN small of dust on some of the cpu pins. Cleanliness is next to godliness because it fixes non functional computers. Clean with All RAM and CPU pins and the corresponding slots with circuit board cleaner and hope for the best. Use a silicone free type about $5.00 in Repco

[brad1150]

Ok, first off I really don't know hwo big of a bump thsi is as I just found it at teh top of google. But anyway, i am havign the same problem with on eof my motherboards. only thing with this one is that it worked perfectly with everything it has in it now. But now I get teh same exact problem as above. I think this may have caused something but I had the ram out of it as I was usign it to test another pc, and I powered the pc up to use its hard drive power plugs for an xbox hd. Anyway when it started beeping, I turned it off. then I put the ram in it and it started doing what the others MB's were doing. I've also resetted the cmos by the manual's guide and taken out the battery for about 30 minutes with still no luck. I am 100% sure the power switch is plugged in correctly, i am using the motherboard on a non-conductive table, and I only have teh basics in it, ram, processor, cpu fan, and all the power/light/reset cables. It had a video card in it before it went down, but I havnt tried putting it back in. I will edit my post after school with the motherboard model.