PCChips motherboard question

[rinscewind]

Hey,

First off, I did not know that PCChips was considered a lesser motherboard, and when I had the choice to upgrade a family member's system (mother's), I had all the parts except a motherboard, and the PHChips m811 LU (v 3.1) was the cheapest I could find for my old 1.2 Athlon processor. She has an 8 gig hard drive, a CD-Rom (read only), floppy, and PC-speakers already. I have an old Ti200 nVidia AGP and old SoundBlaster Live! card I can't use anymore, and a 50x CD-Rom (read only) collecting dust. Considering she is using a 500Mhz Compuserve system atm, I figured she needed an upgrade.

My problem: I can't get the system to start up. I have built a few systems before for myself, and I have done nothing different. I put the board in the case, put the CPU in with a thin layer of paste, put on the heat sink and fan for it, put in the video and audio cards, installed the CD-Rom and 3.5 floppy, 2 sticks of 256 pc2100 DDR RAM, and moved her hard drive to the new case. I connected the PC speakers, power and reset switches, and the msg led wires in place. I set the jumpers correctly (see below), and plugged everything in.

The fans didn't even start to turn, no noises, nothing. The motherboard does not have an LED to let me know if power is getting there.

I read in a prior post that PCChips is known for mislabeling the CMOS jumper so that it is set to 'Clear' instead of 'Normal', and I tried setting it for 'Clear' to see if that would let me even turn on a fan, let alone start up.

Still nothing.

Can someone help me? I am not sure I am even doing anything wrong, so the motherboard may be bad, but I doubt that. As this motherboard/company has a reputation, is there anything else to know? Other tips or tricks (:-p) I can find out to help me get it running? I have not built more than a few systems, and I know I have a lot to learn yet, so please don't think I have tried something and not mention it.

I don't want to buy anything else, as she is on a budget, and this board was my choice. =\ I had once tried to start a system that had too small of a power supply, and the same thing happened, no lights, no fans started, nothing. I put in a more powerful one (from 230w to 350w), and it worked fine. This system should be set with a 350w - used, from a friend, and old - but I don't know if this would be the problem. The 350w from my current system (2.4 Athlon, 2 hard drives, CR-RW, etc.) does not start this board/set up either. With the parts I am giving her:

Motherboard 30w
CPU ~60w
Hard Drive 15w
CD-Rom 25w
AGP 50w
Floppy ~10w
RAM (both) 15w
Modem 5w
Sound 5w
---------------------
Total ~215w

Even if the power supply is old, it still should be more than enough to run this. Can anyone help? Thanks in advance.

[tablvn]

Originally Posted by rinscewind

Hey,

First off, I did not know that PCChips was considered a lesser motherboard, and when I had the choice to upgrade a family member's system (mother's), I had all the parts except a motherboard, and the PHChips m811 LU (v 3.1) was the cheapest I could find for my old 1.2 Athlon processor. She has an 8 gig hard drive, a CD-Rom (read only), floppy, and PC-speakers already. I have an old Ti200 nVidia AGP and old SoundBlaster Live! card I can't use anymore, and a 50x CD-Rom (read only) collecting dust. Considering she is using a 500Mhz Compuserve system atm, I figured she needed an upgrade.

My problem: I can't get the system to start up. I have built a few systems before for myself, and I have done nothing different. I put the board in the case, put the CPU in with a thin layer of paste, put on the heat sink and fan for it, put in the video and audio cards, installed the CD-Rom and 3.5 floppy, 2 sticks of 256 pc2100 DDR RAM, and moved her hard drive to the new case. I connected the PC speakers, power and reset switches, and the msg led wires in place. I set the jumpers correctly (see below), and plugged everything in.

The fans didn't even start to turn, no noises, nothing. The motherboard does not have an LED to let me know if power is getting there.

I read in a prior post that PCChips is known for mislabeling the CMOS jumper so that it is set to 'Clear' instead of 'Normal', and I tried setting it for 'Clear' to see if that would let me even turn on a fan, let alone start up.

Still nothing.

Can someone help me? I am not sure I am even doing anything wrong, so the motherboard may be bad, but I doubt that. As this motherboard/company has a reputation, is there anything else to know? Other tips or tricks (:-p) I can find out to help me get it running? I have not built more than a few systems, and I know I have a lot to learn yet, so please don't think I have tried something and not mention it.

I don't want to buy anything else, as she is on a budget, and this board was my choice. =\ I had once tried to start a system that had too small of a power supply, and the same thing happened, no lights, no fans started, nothing. I put in a more powerful one (from 230w to 350w), and it worked fine. This system should be set with a 350w - used, from a friend, and old - but I don't know if this would be the problem. The 350w from my current system (2.4 Athlon, 2 hard drives, CR-RW, etc.) does not start this board/set up either. With the parts I am giving her:

Motherboard 30w
CPU ~60w
Hard Drive 15w
CD-Rom 25w
AGP 50w
Floppy ~10w
RAM (both) 15w
Modem 5w
Sound 5w
---------------------
Total ~215w

Even if the power supply is old, it still should be more than enough to run this. Can anyone help? Thanks in advance.

First off in troubleshooting think you have to take a close look at what the problem is telling you. You say that you have no power at all and that the power supply was previously working fine in the other system. So what controls the power to your pc? The power switch. I would take a close look
at all of the connections from your front panel to the motherboard, ie, power
switch, hdd lights etc and make sure they are jumpered correctly. See if that
doesn't help tablvn

[UT01]

I want to let you know that I have built many different systems. I just built 3 systems with the PCCHIPS MB with Sempron 2800 that are working out great.

Before I start, it may not be a bad idea just to take the MB back and get a new one, so you will know that it wasn't just a defective board. The three I built mentioned above, I had one failure. It did not want to boot. I took it back got a new one and had no problems.

The best advise I can give is the Kiss method. Keep It Simple Stup... I do not mean that in a bad way. What is means take the system down to the bare minimum. Only have the video card CPU and Ram plugged in. Disconnect all HD, Floppy, etc... On the MB only have connected the power cable, CPU fan, case speaker, and the button to turn the power on connected. Do not have the reset button or any others plugged in. See if the PC will boot up and post (note does not matter that it does not have a HD or Floppy to boot from at this point).

If at bare minimum it does not boot or fans do not come on, then it maybee the Ram needs to be reseated or need new Ram. You may need to reseat the CPU, but 1st try the Ram. If you change the Ram and it still does not work, you may need to try different Ram. It may also be a bad MB even though new, I would take it back get a different one the retest at the minimum. The video may be causing a problem as well so if you have a different one you might try taking it out and put a different one in.

If it does turn on then plug in one device at a time until it stops working. It could be a bad cable to the HD or Floppy or one of those devices could be bad. The sound card maybee bad, but one you put one device at a time in and reboot will let you know. I have had problems with HD cables being in backwards and system will not start along with the HD being bad.

I hope this helps. Have a great day!

UT01

Originally Posted by rinscewind

Hey,

First off, I did not know that PCChips was considered a lesser motherboard, and when I had the choice to upgrade a family member's system (mother's), I had all the parts except a motherboard, and the PHChips m811 LU (v 3.1) was the cheapest I could find for my old 1.2 Athlon processor. She has an 8 gig hard drive, a CD-Rom (read only), floppy, and PC-speakers already. I have an old Ti200 nVidia AGP and old SoundBlaster Live! card I can't use anymore, and a 50x CD-Rom (read only) collecting dust. Considering she is using a 500Mhz Compuserve system atm, I figured she needed an upgrade.

My problem: I can't get the system to start up. I have built a few systems before for myself, and I have done nothing different. I put the board in the case, put the CPU in with a thin layer of paste, put on the heat sink and fan for it, put in the video and audio cards, installed the CD-Rom and 3.5 floppy, 2 sticks of 256 pc2100 DDR RAM, and moved her hard drive to the new case. I connected the PC speakers, power and reset switches, and the msg led wires in place. I set the jumpers correctly (see below), and plugged everything in.

The fans didn't even start to turn, no noises, nothing. The motherboard does not have an LED to let me know if power is getting there.

I read in a prior post that PCChips is known for mislabeling the CMOS jumper so that it is set to 'Clear' instead of 'Normal', and I tried setting it for 'Clear' to see if that would let me even turn on a fan, let alone start up.

Still nothing.

Can someone help me? I am not sure I am even doing anything wrong, so the motherboard may be bad, but I doubt that. As this motherboard/company has a reputation, is there anything else to know? Other tips or tricks (:-p) I can find out to help me get it running? I have not built more than a few systems, and I know I have a lot to learn yet, so please don't think I have tried something and not mention it.

I don't want to buy anything else, as she is on a budget, and this board was my choice. =\ I had once tried to start a system that had too small of a power supply, and the same thing happened, no lights, no fans started, nothing. I put in a more powerful one (from 230w to 350w), and it worked fine. This system should be set with a 350w - used, from a friend, and old - but I don't know if this would be the problem. The 350w from my current system (2.4 Athlon, 2 hard drives, CR-RW, etc.) does not start this board/set up either. With the parts I am giving her:

Motherboard 30w
CPU ~60w
Hard Drive 15w
CD-Rom 25w
AGP 50w
Floppy ~10w
RAM (both) 15w
Modem 5w
Sound 5w
---------------------
Total ~215w

Even if the power supply is old, it still should be more than enough to run this. Can anyone help? Thanks in advance.

[Todaystech]

I have that EXACT same board on one of my PC's and ran across this topic after searching for a solution on installation of a video card with that board. Have been trying to install an ATI Radeon 7000 in the PC, and have had lots of problems...however I am 100% sure the card is good and the MB is good.

Wondering if you tried getting the computer going WITHOUT the addon video card, and use just the onboard video. I am currently only able to use that with this board.

Like it was said earlier, if there is no fan in PS and you know its good, then check switches. But if the PS doesnt kick on then it probably isnt related to your video card.