Viewsonic VX2035wm 20in HD Widescreen
ANTEC Truepower Trio 550W Power Supply
ANTEC Nine Hundred Case
AMD X2 5600 Processor
2X1 Gig DRR PC5400 OCZ 667mHz DDR2 Gold-Gamer Extreme
1st Motherboard EVGA AM2 Motherboard
ABIT Fatality AN9-32X Motherboard
XFX Geforce 6800GT w/ 256MB Videocard
Seagate 400GB SATA2 Hardrive
LG Lightscribe DVD Burner GSA-H22L
I appologize for the long post, but this has got to be the most pain I have EVER had with building a new system.
Saturday Night:
We get all the parts to my house and start putting it together. Before we start, I warn him that with buying this many new parts there is a good chance something wont work. We get the pc together and what do you know it comes up perfect, but the fan on the motherboards chipset is making a loud rattling noise . So we turn it off and flip the master on the PSU and check the fan out seeing nothing wrong with it we turn it on and restart the computer. The fan is still making the noise, until my friend accidently caught it with his finger and this quiets the rattling. Then I notice there is no display on the monitor. We try to turn it off and on a couple of times, checking the cables, and seating of the components, still, no display. We pull out the videocard and reseat it still no display. Our friend assumes its the videocard, and places another video card(EVGA 7800 GTX) into the system. The display comes up. I scratched my head on that one, because I had just been using that video card on my system not but a few weeks earlier. I had had no problems with it, so I pop it into my system to check it out. As I suspect it came straight up, I tried it again and again with no problem. I reseated it in my case, to see if that would change my luck, and still came up. In this trial I managed to only once not get a display, but after reseating it came up again. After seeing the video card work on my system we decide to check my friend's computer. It came up again and again, until we turn it off and flip the switch on PSU. We get no display after resupplying power. We figure something must be wrong with the motherboard. We decide to take out the 7800GTX and and put back in the 6800GT without screwing it down to the case, thinking the case may be unseating the video card. We turn it on and get a display. We turn it off and on atleast three times and stiil get a display. We shut down the system and flip the switch on the PSU and unplug the PSU and reapply power turn it back on and NO DISPLAY. Everytime the same thing works fine then no display and everytime we get a good post beep. We try switching the monitor and get the same results. We try out his sticks of RAM one at a time and still the same results. We decide something is up with the motherboards PCI Express port or chipset. We werent particullary impressed with fan on the chipset so we suggested a different motherboard. None of us had any experience with EVGA motherboards and suggest for him to get Abit or ASUS. I suggest the price on the Abit Fatality was pretty reasonable for what you get.
During the week my friend replaces the motherboard for the Abit Fatality.
Friday night:
We put it together and the computer comes straight up with a display. We turn it off and flip the switch on the PSU to attach the Hard Drive and DVD Burner. We turn it on and what do you know... No display. Same symptom different motherboard. We try a different video card again. Same outcome eventually we get "No Display". I decide it might be the PSU so I plug mine into his computer and get the same result. We read some forums on the post codes. We try to see the post codes, CPU only, CPU and RAM, and get the correct post codes. We attach a friends analog LCD monitor and get a display over and over again. I recheck the 6800GT in my system and it comes up just fine. We take out the motherboard and test it outside the case and still get the same end result with only the button still attached to the case for ease of turning on. We decide to wait the next day for a different CPU and a PSU tester. Talking to my friend I find out he is having a similiar problem on his monitor and blames it on the previous weekend when we hooked his monitor into this machine. I wasnt so sure about it considering both monitors were the same model. But my friend insists he has never had a problem with his monitor.
Saturday:
My friend comes over with an extra CPU and a PSU tester. We test the PSU and find it outputs the proper voltages. We change out the CPU and we eventually get the same results(No Display). We figure maybe the PSU tester is wrong and there is a possibility that our friend got another bad motherboard, because we noticed that when it did come up, it came up with a checksum error. Of which still happened after we changed the battery. I go with my friend to Fry's with his PSU and motherboard in hand. They bench test it and get to come up time and time again with the same PSU we had. He removes the checksum error by changing the date in the bios. That was the first time I had ever heard of that one. They say both parts appear to be working correctly. I was happy with the help we got. I did however take note they were using analog and we had been using DVI and say something about it, but didnt think anything more of it. We take the motherboard and PSU back and decide to tryout totally different RAM thinking maybe both sticks of RAM are bad. We still eventually get no display with a good post beep. Our other friend was having some problem on his monitor. We hook their monitors to my computer and they come up evertime. We try my DVI cable and get the same result. We try different power cords and still the same result. We develop a theory about DVI and the flipping of the switch on the PSU causing the monitor to go into a strange state. We take my monitor which is a different model and go through the steps. The display is working fine until I turn off the computer and and flip the switch on the PSU, and get no display on next power on. Thinking I had just messed up my monitor I quickly hook it back to my computer and it comes up fine. We try my friends computer again and it comes up and decide to always unplug the DVI port before fliping the switch on the PSU. This seems to work out, we think we have finally found the problem. My friend manages to install Windows XP Professional and everyones spirits are high. Until he gets a "UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME" BSOD on reboot. We try all kinds of suggestions from forums and get no where with it. Then all of sudden he gets an "out of range" error on his display during a reboot. My friend calls it a night, while he is packing his stuff up I test his monitor on my machine and get it to come up.
Sunday:
My friend takes his computer to Fry's for help. They get the same problems. I wasnt there but it sounds like they checked a few things out They manage to get it to come up with the analog but not with the DVI when hooked to his monitor. So they get him a replacement monitor and hard drive. He gets it home and sets it up and eventualy gets the same BSOD and the no display again.
In Summary-
Symptoms:
Works fine then No Display
BSOD UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME" during Windows XP install
"Out of Range"
Remedies tried:
CPU Swap
RAM Swap
Monitor Swap
New Motherboard
PSU Swap
Video card swap
New Hardrive
different cables DVI and power
Out of Case but still atached to power switch
Temps are good
Voltage seems to be good
We are pretty much at a lost. We think the PSU might be doing something to his hardware. We also think it may be something weird with the case.
We know it has something to do with DVI and we are not sure about the hard drive.
We have decided his problem is actually gremlin we have named Moe after Moehawk from the movie Gremlins. We figure Moe follows him around and messes up every computer he owns. We dont like Moe. Anyone know of way to kill Moe?
ANTEC Truepower Trio 550W Power Supply
ANTEC Nine Hundred Case
AMD X2 5600 Processor
2X1 Gig DRR PC5400 OCZ 667mHz DDR2 Gold-Gamer Extreme
1st Motherboard EVGA AM2 Motherboard
ABIT Fatality AN9-32X Motherboard
XFX Geforce 6800GT w/ 256MB Videocard
Seagate 400GB SATA2 Hardrive
LG Lightscribe DVD Burner GSA-H22L
I appologize for the long post, but this has got to be the most pain I have EVER had with building a new system.
Saturday Night:
We get all the parts to my house and start putting it together. Before we start, I warn him that with buying this many new parts there is a good chance something wont work. We get the pc together and what do you know it comes up perfect, but the fan on the motherboards chipset is making a loud rattling noise . So we turn it off and flip the master on the PSU and check the fan out seeing nothing wrong with it we turn it on and restart the computer. The fan is still making the noise, until my friend accidently caught it with his finger and this quiets the rattling. Then I notice there is no display on the monitor. We try to turn it off and on a couple of times, checking the cables, and seating of the components, still, no display. We pull out the videocard and reseat it still no display. Our friend assumes its the videocard, and places another video card(EVGA 7800 GTX) into the system. The display comes up. I scratched my head on that one, because I had just been using that video card on my system not but a few weeks earlier. I had had no problems with it, so I pop it into my system to check it out. As I suspect it came straight up, I tried it again and again with no problem. I reseated it in my case, to see if that would change my luck, and still came up. In this trial I managed to only once not get a display, but after reseating it came up again. After seeing the video card work on my system we decide to check my friend's computer. It came up again and again, until we turn it off and flip the switch on PSU. We get no display after resupplying power. We figure something must be wrong with the motherboard. We decide to take out the 7800GTX and and put back in the 6800GT without screwing it down to the case, thinking the case may be unseating the video card. We turn it on and get a display. We turn it off and on atleast three times and stiil get a display. We shut down the system and flip the switch on the PSU and unplug the PSU and reapply power turn it back on and NO DISPLAY. Everytime the same thing works fine then no display and everytime we get a good post beep. We try switching the monitor and get the same results. We try out his sticks of RAM one at a time and still the same results. We decide something is up with the motherboards PCI Express port or chipset. We werent particullary impressed with fan on the chipset so we suggested a different motherboard. None of us had any experience with EVGA motherboards and suggest for him to get Abit or ASUS. I suggest the price on the Abit Fatality was pretty reasonable for what you get.
During the week my friend replaces the motherboard for the Abit Fatality.
Friday night:
We put it together and the computer comes straight up with a display. We turn it off and flip the switch on the PSU to attach the Hard Drive and DVD Burner. We turn it on and what do you know... No display. Same symptom different motherboard. We try a different video card again. Same outcome eventually we get "No Display". I decide it might be the PSU so I plug mine into his computer and get the same result. We read some forums on the post codes. We try to see the post codes, CPU only, CPU and RAM, and get the correct post codes. We attach a friends analog LCD monitor and get a display over and over again. I recheck the 6800GT in my system and it comes up just fine. We take out the motherboard and test it outside the case and still get the same end result with only the button still attached to the case for ease of turning on. We decide to wait the next day for a different CPU and a PSU tester. Talking to my friend I find out he is having a similiar problem on his monitor and blames it on the previous weekend when we hooked his monitor into this machine. I wasnt so sure about it considering both monitors were the same model. But my friend insists he has never had a problem with his monitor.
Saturday:
My friend comes over with an extra CPU and a PSU tester. We test the PSU and find it outputs the proper voltages. We change out the CPU and we eventually get the same results(No Display). We figure maybe the PSU tester is wrong and there is a possibility that our friend got another bad motherboard, because we noticed that when it did come up, it came up with a checksum error. Of which still happened after we changed the battery. I go with my friend to Fry's with his PSU and motherboard in hand. They bench test it and get to come up time and time again with the same PSU we had. He removes the checksum error by changing the date in the bios. That was the first time I had ever heard of that one. They say both parts appear to be working correctly. I was happy with the help we got. I did however take note they were using analog and we had been using DVI and say something about it, but didnt think anything more of it. We take the motherboard and PSU back and decide to tryout totally different RAM thinking maybe both sticks of RAM are bad. We still eventually get no display with a good post beep. Our other friend was having some problem on his monitor. We hook their monitors to my computer and they come up evertime. We try my DVI cable and get the same result. We try different power cords and still the same result. We develop a theory about DVI and the flipping of the switch on the PSU causing the monitor to go into a strange state. We take my monitor which is a different model and go through the steps. The display is working fine until I turn off the computer and and flip the switch on the PSU, and get no display on next power on. Thinking I had just messed up my monitor I quickly hook it back to my computer and it comes up fine. We try my friends computer again and it comes up and decide to always unplug the DVI port before fliping the switch on the PSU. This seems to work out, we think we have finally found the problem. My friend manages to install Windows XP Professional and everyones spirits are high. Until he gets a "UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME" BSOD on reboot. We try all kinds of suggestions from forums and get no where with it. Then all of sudden he gets an "out of range" error on his display during a reboot. My friend calls it a night, while he is packing his stuff up I test his monitor on my machine and get it to come up.
Sunday:
My friend takes his computer to Fry's for help. They get the same problems. I wasnt there but it sounds like they checked a few things out They manage to get it to come up with the analog but not with the DVI when hooked to his monitor. So they get him a replacement monitor and hard drive. He gets it home and sets it up and eventualy gets the same BSOD and the no display again.
In Summary-
Symptoms:
Works fine then No Display
BSOD UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME" during Windows XP install
"Out of Range"
Remedies tried:
CPU Swap
RAM Swap
Monitor Swap
New Motherboard
PSU Swap
Video card swap
New Hardrive
different cables DVI and power
Out of Case but still atached to power switch
Temps are good
Voltage seems to be good
We are pretty much at a lost. We think the PSU might be doing something to his hardware. We also think it may be something weird with the case.
We know it has something to do with DVI and we are not sure about the hard drive.
We have decided his problem is actually gremlin we have named Moe after Moehawk from the movie Gremlins. We figure Moe follows him around and messes up every computer he owns. We dont like Moe. Anyone know of way to kill Moe?
