Dead birdy

[yurimxpxman]

I've had nothing but troubles with my build. My system's been dead for a couple weeks now. I was certain that I had killed the motherboard when I got thermal grease on it. I needed a different chipset anyways for the work I was doing, so I spent my last dollar on a new motherboard.

The board arrived today. I installed it, turned it on, and I got an error message that said the BIOS did not match the checksum, then it said it was scanning the A drive (I don't even have one). Now it does absolutely nothing. I have the same problem I did with the other motherboard: When I turn it on, everything starts up just fine, but nothing goes out to my monitor.

I've tried switching PSUs, graphic cards, booting with no drives, booting with no RAM, switching the slot I put the RAM in, etc. Nothing helps. And then I finally got something on the screen after several dozen tries: The same thing I got the first time I powered on this motherboard.

At this point, the only things it could be are the CPU and the RAM. I have no way of knowing whether each is working, but I'm wondering whether it's the CPU because it does the exact same thing regardless of whether or not I have RAM in the motherboard (I only have one stick of DDR2), but when I power it on with no CPU, everything starts up but the HDD light stays on.

The computer worked fine when I first built it. It only developed this problem gradually. After about a week, it started losing screen output randomly. These instances began happening more frequently until I couldn't boot it at all. I've never over clocked anything in it.

Here's the motherboard I just bought. The rest of the specs are in my signature. Do any of you have any ideas? I'm at the end of my road on this one.

[Hitman]

RMA the CPU. It's really the only common denominator, and it doesn't seem to be acting like a RAM issue.

[gvblake22]

You've probably tried it, but I didn't see it listed as a troubleshooting step, but have you tried resetting the BIOS by clearing the CMOS with the CLR_CMOS jumper?

[yurimxpxman]

Originally Posted by Hitman

RMA the CPU. It's really the only common denominator, and it doesn't seem to be acting like a RAM issue.

I will if I can. Unfortunately, being the idiot I am, I threw away the packaging the day I put it together. I didn't have any room for that stuff and everything was working fine at first, so I didn't keep it. I really regret that now. Does AMD accept RMAs themselves? I'm gonna check their website and find out.

Originally Posted by gvblake22

You've probably tried it, but I didn't see it listed as a troubleshooting step, but have you tried resetting the BIOS by clearing the CMOS with the CLR_CMOS jumper?

Yeah, I've done that quite a few times.

[Panda Man]

Originally Posted by Hitman

RMA the CPU. It's really the only common denominator, and it doesn't seem to be acting like a RAM issue.

I second that. If it was a RAM issue, it would never have worked in the first place, and you should have gotten warning beeps or something if this was a RAM issue, either that or you should have been able to post to the point that you could run memtest86+ or something.

This is what you get for a being a linux boi! j/k

[yurimxpxman]

I called AMD to consult their technical support before RMAing anything. He told me that my board should have beeped or spoken when I booted it with no CPU. I didn't hear anything, so he told me he suspected it was a dead motherboard. But he told me that it's likely that my CPU killed my motherboard, although he said that dead RAM couldn't hurt it. He suggested I call Asus before trying to RMA the CPU (which I now know that I can't, so that better not be the problem!).

The tech support guy at Asus said he thought the BIOS chip was dead or my motherboard was shipped with the original BIOS, which did not support my processor. So he told me he was transferring me to someone the BIOS shipment department to send me a new BIOS chip overnight free of cost.

But after I gave the lady my address, she told me that an overnight shipment would cost $20. I'm like, "uhh, he just told me it'd be free!" She said, "They're not allowed to do that. Who told you that?" "I don't know his name.." "Did he give you a case number?" "No." "One second please." ..two minutes later, "We don't normally do this, but since the technician said we'd send it for free, we're going to send the BIOS out overnight free of charge."

So, that's where I am now: Waiting for the new BIOS chip to arrive tomorrow and hoping it's not the CPU because I can't RMA an OEM processor.

Originally Posted by Panda Man

This is what you get for a being a linux boi! j/k

Eh. Unfortunately, Linux never even touched this system.

[Panda Man]

That's odd. If a CPU is unsupported/not recognized, you usually would get an error message telling you that it wasn't recognized. Plus, you booted up fine correct? I would still assume something is wrong with the CPU, but see if the BIOS chip helps out. As you said, it springs to some life without the CPU, and with it its dead. Though it is odd that you didn't get any warning beeps.

[yurimxpxman]

Originally Posted by Panda Man

That's odd. If a CPU is unsupported/not recognized, you usually would get an error message telling you that it wasn't recognized. Plus, you booted up fine correct? I would still assume something is wrong with the CPU, but see if the BIOS chip helps out. As you said, it springs to some life without the CPU, and with it its dead.

Now, that's not quite what I said. I said I got the same result regardless of whether or not the CPU was installed, except that the HDD indicator light on my case remained constant when the CPU was missing.

Originally Posted by Panda Man

Though it is odd that you didn't get any warning beeps.

That's the only reason I have any suspicion that the motherboard has a problem, really. Well, that and the fact that the only message I ever got from the board was that the BIOS didn't match the checksum.

[Panda Man]

Originally Posted by yurimxpxman

Now, that's not quite what I said. I said I got the same result regardless of whether or not the CPU was installed, except that the HDD indicator light on my case remained constant when the CPU was missing.

That's the only reason I have any suspicion that the motherboard has a problem, really. Well, that and the fact that the only message I ever got from the board was that the BIOS didn't match the checksum.

blah, I reread your post. I R TEH DUMMY! lol, I completely misread it.

Anyways, it does sound like a corrupted BIOS, hence why it gave you the bad checksum message and it scanned for a floppy - its triying to find a BIOS image to try and repair itself. But the BIOS chip should fix it. If not, RMA the board.

[yurimxpxman]

Originally Posted by Panda Man

blah, I reread your post. I R TEH DUMMY! lol, I completely misread it.

Anyways, it does sound like a corrupted BIOS, hence why it gave you the bad checksum message and it scanned for a floppy - for BIOS image to try and repair itself. But the BIOS chip should fix it. If not, RMA the board.

Well, that's my hope. But quite honestly, I'm afraid to try to use an RMA with this CPU. I've never encountered a dead CPU in my entire life, but that's exactly what it appears to be in this case. But it just doesn't make sense that it would work for a week and stop, especially considering I never overclocked it or anything.