# Asus motherboard doesn't POST.



## jnhay (Jul 16, 2005)

I just got all the parts to build a new pc and for some reason when I power on, all the fans work (including cpu cooler and videocard fan) and even the motherboard light and usb lights come on, but I hear no beeps, and nothing is displayed on my monitor. I've troubleshooted to the point that I am now looking at just the motherboard, cpu/cpu cooler, video card, 1 stick of ram, and the monitor. I have the power connections all hooked up too.

I've reset the cmos several times, tried plugging the card into the second pci-e slot, and a couple other things.

Motherboard: Asus p5n32-e SLI

RAM: Gskill ddr2 800

CPU and cooler: e6420 and thermaltake v1

Video card: XFX geforce 8800 gts 320mb

Monitor: Samsung 206bw


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## mattlock (Dec 28, 2005)

What power supply do have? Make, Model, wattage, and apms per rail? This info is found on the sticker on the side of the PSU.


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## jnhay (Jul 16, 2005)

I have the PCPC 610 eps12v, which I've been told should be more than enough to power all my components. 49 amps going to the videocard.

When I power on, everything continues to run until I power off, except no display is actually produced. I've seen many posts on different forums with the same sounding problem (no boot or beeps), except none of the solutions have worked for me.


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## mattlock (Dec 28, 2005)

That's a pretty goog PSU. Have you reset the CMOS? If so and that didn't work then it's possible that you have a grounding problem. You may have accidentally installed one to many standoffs or misaligned one which would cause your board to groundout against the case and not post.

Try the following steps for bench testing your system. 

Courtesy Of Linderman:

The purpose of this thread is to demonstrate an easy way to test your system prior to complete assembly. If you take the time to bench test your build prior to full assembly you will save yourself hordes of time in troubleshooting a faulty component. 

The most efficient way to minimize lost time is assemble each part one piece at a time until operational stability is proven. The bench build is especially useful when troubleshooting a previously assembled system that has begun to show quirky instability problems, possibly caused by a case short or other similar problem which is hard to detect in an occupied case assemby.

Another major benefit to the bench build is the up-close inspection this method offers you, many times I have torn down a flaky system, bench assemble the parts and notice a burn spot, or debris in the video card slot, small plastic chip type debris has been found in the main motherboard connector which prevents full contact of all the pins in the main connector, another common discovery upon up-close visual inspection is burnt pins in the main connector or cpu power connector on the motherboard.

*Here we will get started with the steps of bench building & testing.* only the bare essentials here, no cd-rom drives, hard drives, floppy drives etc



A) Place the motherboard on top of a non-conductive surface. I personally favor the motherboard box itself as it allows the video card riser to ride past the bottom surface of the motherboard, this is an important consideration (see black arrow)


B) Install the CPU into the motherboard, here is an often made mistake, many fellas want to assemble the cooler heat/sink mounting frame to the motherboard prior to inserting the CPU, however after market coolers such as the Zalman 9500 frame stop the cpu lever from swinging open enough to open the socket lever to insert the cpu. 
Therefore install the CPU into the motherboard cpu socket before mounting the heat sink frame. Make sure you align the *golden arrow* on the cpu die perimeter with the orientation mark on the motherboard socket (see manual)

C) Install the CPU heatsink / Fan combo and connect the fan wire to the CPU fan header on the motherboard, this is a very important step, many motherboards will not fire if the cpu fan is not activated, at the very least the cpu temps will rise immediatley and cause a thermal auto shutdown.

D) Insert one stick of memory; see motherboard manual for specific slot to be occupied for single stick operation, some motherboards will not fire up unless these rules are followed. Please adhere to the single stick memory install until we have achieved the "*first*" successful bios screen post.
Often times memory incompatibilites will cause a system not to post, these problems can be quickly identified if you install only one stick for our first post screen goal! (seldom does proven incompatible memory fail to start a system when single stick occupied)
Later in our bench testing we will go after the second post screen, then we can install the second stick, if you have a memory incompatability it will then show the dilemma withouth further loss of time!

E) Place the PSU on the bench and connect the motherboard *main *connector (20 pins or 24 pin) If your PSU uses a 20 + 4 connector (most units use this now) you will either leave the detachable four pin in place for a 24 pin main connector motherboard or you will detach the snap lock four pin from the 24pin connector to reduce the main connector to a 20 pin configuration.
Next step is attach the 4 pin square looking cpu power plug (some boards have an eight pin cpu power plug) make sure when inserting the four pin cpu power plug you "hear" the snap of the positive lock of the clip. 
Many fellas make the common error of trying to use the detachable four pin connector from the 20+4 motherboard connector to power the CPU this does NOT work you must use the *CPU power plug*

F) Install the video card and the video card dedicated power plug if the card needs such a power plug. Make sure the video card riser extends past the bottom of the motherboard surface (see pic w/black arrow above)

G) Connect a keyboard and mouse to the motherboard. Connect a monitor to the video card, verify the monitor has power active. Connect the PSU power plug into the wall socket.

H) You have two options to start the system, you can assemble the test platform next to the case and just simply bring the case switch wires over to the motherboard as I have done in the picture below and use the button on the case for system activation. (see blue arrow)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Or you can use a small flat bladed screwdriver to just touch the two pins on the motherboard header, these are the same two pins that normally get occupied by the *PWR Switch * on the motherboard connector header. Simply touch those two pins together for about two seconds and then pull the screw driver away, it should fire up. If not check the switch on the back of the PSU to make sure the PSU switch is on?

at this point in the test you should see the post screeen ????? ray: if not; power off the system, inspect everything step by step for accuracy and try again, if still no joy. :3-smash: 

Just kidding; swap memory sticks and try again ? 

Things to check when the power is activated:

1) Does the CPU fan spin at start-up ?

2) are there any LED lights that are lit on the motherboard when the PSU is connected with the power active in the PSU ?

3) does the video card fan spin ?

4) when the power is active to the system on the bench does the monitor show a yellow or green stand-by light (next to the monitor power button)

Once you get to a post screen I advise you hang there for about half an hour in the bios screen and monitor CPU temps and get your bios settings configured while you are waiting out your temperature monitoring. Set the data & time if this is a new build, boot priority, etc




Now that you have the core components of the Motherboard, CPU, Video Card, two sticks of memory, Power Supply, Keyboard, Mouse & Monitor working; next we proceed to adding Cd-rom drive, Hard Drives, Floppy Drives and the Operating System. All components are added one at a time and verified working. If you build three systems you will receive one new dead part, guaranteed! Thats why installing one variable at a time will save you alot of grief in identifying that culprit when the reaper comes knocking.



in photo above the hard drive is active, floppy drive & cd-rom drive (dont forget jumper pin settings on your drives) and if the bios doesnt detect your drives, then you cant go any further with this process, you must correct that immediately, the bios must recognise your devices before you can use them at all! *No drivers* whatsoever have to be dealt with at this stage!
If you look closely at the monitor the hard drive is being formatted during the OS install.


Now that all components have been verified and the OS is installed, we can stuff all the "guts" into the case knowing that everything is operational, so if there are any problems we know we made the problems while installing into the case. One word of advice, make sure when you install the motherboard stand offs in the case you only use the motherboard mounting holes which have a silver ring around the hole, you DONT use the holes in the motherboard which dont have the silver ring around the perimeter of the hole!
Its very important that none of the metal surfaces on the bottom of the motherboard touch the case surface or you will create a nasty motherboard short!



if you encounter any difficulties with this material or need additional help, please start your own thread in the "Motherboard" section of the Hardware Forum. 

Enjoy and hope it goes smoothly for you :spinning:


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## jnhay (Jul 16, 2005)

Things to check when the power is activated:

1) Does the CPU fan spin at start-up ?

2) are there any LED lights that are lit on the motherboard when the PSU is connected with the power active in the PSU ?

3) does the video card fan spin ?

4) when the power is active to the system on the bench does the monitor show a yellow or green stand-by light (next to the monitor power button)


Weird thing is, all the listed occurs when I power up. I have the motherboard, videocard, cpu/cpu cooler operating all outside of the case in the motherboard box. I powered up just like the guide says to (screwdriver), and everything seems to power up, but no display.


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## mattlock (Dec 28, 2005)

Try reseating the Video card, also try the other DVI output connector on the video card. 

Do you have, or can you borrow, another VGA card that you can use to test your system?


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## jnhay (Jul 16, 2005)

I tried both connectors and have reseated it multiple times. I might be able to borrow another card as the only other I currently have is AGP. Any other ideas before I do that?


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## mattlock (Dec 28, 2005)

Do you have a case speaker hooked up to the board? Do you get any post beeps at all? If so what are they?


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## jnhay (Jul 16, 2005)

Nope, no POST beeps. Reading up on it, that makes me believe it may be my ram (since it's 2.1 volt rather then the motherboards default 1.8 volt) or the CPU (I hope not).


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## Houndog777 (May 17, 2007)

Hi, Jnhay
Reading your post, you do not mention the actual monitor much; can you try a different monitor? Or the monitor on a different pc?
Also, you no doubt know that if one of the main components was at fault, you would receive an error beep. Have you double-checked your Front Panel speaker connection?
Is your P4 ATX 12v firmly seated? Is the clear cmos jumper in it's default position and not set to clear?
Any of your friends have a similar mobo for you to check your cpu and ram?
Sorry if you've tried all the above...........there seem to be a lot of queries about this motherboard and getting it to boot-up successfully.


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## jnhay (Jul 16, 2005)

To be honest, I haven't tried a different monitor. I figured that since I know my lcd (Samsung 206bw by the way) works fine, that's all that mattered. I'll see if it works with my CRT , but I don't understand why there would be a different result though.

I've tried using connecting the speaker cable in both ways, and neither produce any sound. That makes me think either my motherboard is bad, or my ram or cpu are not working correctly since I've read the board won't post if there's something wrong with either component. Thanks for the help.


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## mattlock (Dec 28, 2005)

You should get beeps for POST Failure to point you in the right direction, but I've often seen systems that gave no beeps at all. I doubt that your CPU is faulty but there's a good possiblity that the board itself is bad. There have been alot of DOAs reported with that particular board. 

Your RAM does not seem to be on the approved list for that board, so that could also be an issue.
http://www.asus.com/999/download/products/1459/1459_10.pdf

You could try getting you hands on some ram that has a default voltage of 1.8v and see if it'll POST with only one stick. If so enter the BIOS and increase your Vdimm to 2.1v, save and exit. Once the system starts to POST up again shut it down and install one stick of your Gskill and see if it POSTs. If so add your other stick.


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## Vanquished (Jun 16, 2006)

i have got the same probelm, but i have beeps, i got a 1 beep, then 3 beeps, then another 1. everyone seems to be having this problem, i have posted more on my own thread, please help, thanks in advance

Lee


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## urbtree (Feb 27, 2007)

maybe a dumb question but have you got the 4 pin connector above the cpu connected. just asking as i had this ame mobo with thw same problem as you when i first built my system and i ended payin a tenner to get it plugged in as i missed it


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## jnhay (Jul 16, 2005)

I did plug in the cpu power, it was harder then I expected to get it to go in all the way. So hard, that I gave up the first time. I tried again, and since it snapped in I thought the board would start working. No luck. I just bought a $20 stick of ddr2 ram Friday, so I'll be trying that. Too bad it's coming 5-day Fedex from probably the furthest away it could be (San Jose to Maryland from ZipZoomfly) so it'll probably take the full 5 days. I would've paid the extra $3 at Newegg if I knew it was coming from that far away, but oh well.


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## Houndog777 (May 17, 2007)

Jnhay
The power connector for the cpu should slot in no problem. Make sure you have it connected properly; it has a little hook which clips onto the outside of the socket.


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## mattlock (Dec 28, 2005)

As Houndog said , that conector should snap in with ease. That could be you whole problem. Verify that it's aligned correctly and take a look at the pins to make sure they are not bent or damaged.


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## jnhay (Jul 16, 2005)

I made sure to put it in the right way, but for some reason I could get it down but it was hard to get it to snap in all the way.


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## mattlock (Dec 28, 2005)

Did you inspect the connectors for damaged pins (both on the motherboard and from the PSU)?

Also double check to make sure all your jumpers are on where they need to be. Especially the CLRTC or Clear CMOS jumper. If that jumper is not on correctly the system will not POST.


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## jnhay (Jul 16, 2005)

Just to update you guys so you can help others out better, I used the new 1.8 volt ram and my motherboard eventually booted on my third try. I don't know if also connecting the case speaker to the board had anything to do with it, but I doubt it. Thanks for the help.


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## mattlock (Dec 28, 2005)

jnhay said:


> Just to update you guys so you can help others out better, I used the new 1.8 volt ram and my motherboard eventually booted on my third try. I don't know if also connecting the case speaker to the board had anything to do with it, but I doubt it. Thanks for the help.


All right, now if you want to try to get your Gskill running enter the BIOS and increase your Vdimm to 2.1v, save and exit. Once the system starts to POST up again shut it down and install one stick of your Gskill and see if it POSTs. If so add your other stick.

Post back with your results.

BTW, hooking up the case speaker didn't help it boot, but you need it hooked up to hear the system beeps on some boards.


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## jaggerwild (May 21, 2007)

Yeah ASUS motherboards are very picky with RAM. :4-dontkno


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## cluelessidiot (Jul 28, 2007)

thanks jnhay you solution saved me more than 50 bucks


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