# installed new mobo and lights flicker wont start



## mtb211 (Nov 24, 2009)

hi everyone, I just installed this motherboard

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128400


When I power on the computer the lights come on but the fans move very jerky if they move at all, I am not sure what is causing this... any ideas?

I just installed new CPU+RAM+MOBO

god, i hope its not my power supply... I have a 750 watt gamextream power supply, worked fine before :/


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## smoothforprez (Nov 24, 2009)

do the fans stay on or do they just start for a sec and stop?


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## mtb211 (Nov 24, 2009)

they stay on and move really slow, i read somewhere it could be the mounting screws under the motherboard but that cant be correct right?

I had a problem before when the fans would flicker for a few seconds but then the pc would boot fine and handle extreme loads

I bet this is something simple but Im not sure, I could probally take a video of it and post it if that would help


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## CodeMinion (Nov 24, 2009)

Try taking out the CMOS Battery for like 15 seconds then put back in... i had this problem back on my build 2 yrs ago.. i called the MOBO manufacturer and they told me to do that and it fixed everything... goodluck


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## StrangleHold (Nov 24, 2009)

When you swapped the boards out did you make sure all the standoffs were in the right places? Plug in CPU power connector?


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## mtb211 (Nov 24, 2009)

i responded in the wrong forum 
my motherboard standoffs are just random underneath... I cant seem to find enough laying around, my mobo did not come with any either (stand offs are the little yellow screws under your motherboard right?)

could this honestly cause a problem? how do I know the correct areas to put them?


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## StrangleHold (Nov 24, 2009)

Even if you dont have enough standoffs,(but enough to support the board) Only put them under the holes with grounding strips. If you dont they will ground out on the bottom of the board.






Under just these.


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## smoothforprez (Nov 24, 2009)

mtb211 said:


> i responded in the wrong forum
> my motherboard standoffs are just random underneath... I cant seem to find enough laying around, my mobo did not come with any either (stand offs are the little yellow screws under your motherboard right?)
> 
> could this honestly cause a problem? how do I know the correct areas to put them?



the stand offs are okay if you're missing some just not if you're covering stand offs that aren't in use.(if that makes sense)


does the computer work with the mother board outside the case?
did you bend the little tabs on the i/o shield?
which ram slots did you populate?


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## mtb211 (Nov 24, 2009)

I populated the blue slots for the ram, so if there are standoffs inserted under the motherboard but im not using them, then this is bad?


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## smoothforprez (Nov 24, 2009)

mtb211 said:


> I populated the blue slots for the ram, so if there are standoffs inserted under the motherboard but im not using them, then this is bad?



try populate just the white ones(i learned that earlier)

yes if you have extra ones under the board remove those


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## StrangleHold (Nov 24, 2009)

Use the White slots if your only running two sticks. Yes, its a no no to have standoffs where there is no hole. Ground out!


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## mtb211 (Nov 24, 2009)

okay im almost done, the screws dont need to be perfectly straight right?

probally let you know if 20 minutes


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## mtb211 (Nov 24, 2009)

okay I did all that and its still doing the same thing, now the led lights on the mobo light up just really quick, hmmm this is sooo strange....

The 4 pin cpu power socket, i have two of those on my motherboard, I have cpu1 and cpu2 plugged in from my power supply to the mobo...

as long as i have the power connected 4 pin , plus 20+4, all the hardrive and cdvroms connected, It should boot right? 

The only thing i was unsure about was connecting the case pins to the motherboard, it was a bit confusing, but if i screwed it up I wouldnt get any power right?

Is there anything i am missing?


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## smoothforprez (Nov 24, 2009)

this may sound really simple but make sure all the cords are in the right spot and make sure you flick the switch on the power supply


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## mtb211 (Nov 24, 2009)

im pretty sure everything is in the right place, ive done this before... unless somethign has changed... All my fans go on, my keyboard flickers and my leds on my case flicker, when I unplug the back of the power supply the computer goes to a full boot for a second after its unplugged but then it goes off, obviously... I used to unplug and plug the back of my power supply to get the computer booted once in a while... but it always worked... someone told me it was the cmos battery and thats how he fixed his but I do not know anymore, I have a bunch of extra cords from my power supply but im pretty sure i do not need to use any of these


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## mtb211 (Nov 24, 2009)

wait wait wait, bend the little tabs on the i/o shield... what do you mean by that? The little plastic piece you put in the back of the case? i just pushed it in... did do anything else


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## smoothforprez (Nov 24, 2009)

mtb211 said:


> wait wait wait, bend the little tabs on the i/o shield... what do you mean by that? The little plastic piece you put in the back of the case? i just pushed it in... did do anything else



yeah that thing(the metal tabs should all be at 90' angles) but i dont think the problem is that simple

try each ram stick one at a time in the first white slot


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## mtb211 (Nov 24, 2009)

yeah that didnt do anything too..... when i unplug the plug in the back of the motherboard it goes full power for a second then stops, this is so weird...

Right now I have the 20+4 connector in

I have the two cpu 4 pins in

Sata drives in

No ide of any kind

Could this be input wires from the case? IE HD LED or PWR


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## mtb211 (Nov 24, 2009)

what about the pins for sys fan or pwr fan, I do not have those hooked up does that matter?

The cpu fan now spins for like 2 seconds then stops :?


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## smoothforprez (Nov 24, 2009)

mtb211 said:


> what about the pins for sys fan or pwr fan, I do not have those hooked up does that matter?
> 
> The cpu fan now spins for like 2 seconds then stops :?



no  i dont have those fan pins in either

did you try the cmos battery?


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## smoothforprez (Nov 24, 2009)

on the case connectors are the words  pointed up or down?


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## mtb211 (Nov 24, 2009)

yeah man i tried the cmos battery too, the cpu fan barly spins at all now 

What kind of power supply do you have? i want to make sure its the power supply before i buy a new one, is there a way I can test it?


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## mtb211 (Nov 24, 2009)

all the letters are facing the cpu, red is positive, black is negative, i dont know what the hell green is


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## smoothforprez (Nov 24, 2009)

mtb211 said:


> yeah man i tried the cmos battery too, the cpu fan barly spins at all now
> 
> What kind of power supply do you have? i want to make sure its the power supply before i buy a new one, is there a way I can test it?



i have a 600w thermaltake

not really sure how you would test it though


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## smoothforprez (Nov 24, 2009)

mtb211 said:


> all the letters are facing the cpu, red is positive, black is negative, i dont know what the hell green is



the words on mine are facing downwords


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## mtb211 (Nov 24, 2009)

hmmm, is the red wire positive or negative on yours? is it possible this could be the problem? i just thought it wouldnt start if i tried that

thx for the help man, i appreciate it


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## StrangleHold (Nov 24, 2009)

You sure you got the standoffs in the right places?

The case power switch wire goes on the PW+/PW- pins, not the PRW pins. 

The Case power LED goes on the PRW pins


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## mtb211 (Nov 24, 2009)

I think i have the standoffs in the right places, 

im kinda lost on the case input , could that be the problem? do I need to have the hardrive led in and all that, is there a way i could just test the power button?


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## smoothforprez (Nov 24, 2009)

mtb211 said:


> hmmm, is the red wire positive or negative on yours? is it possible this could be the problem? i just thought it wouldnt start if i tried that
> 
> thx for the help man, i appreciate it



i'm retarded when it comes to electrical current so i never learned which wires were + and - without those symbols. i just remembered reading a review that said this board was reversed from usual so i put mine with the words facing down and it worked


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## bigrich0086 (Nov 24, 2009)

WAIT A SECOND. DIDNT your motherboard come with the ASUS quick connect for easy installation of case wires.

The white piece in picture. ALL Asus boards come with it now. Just match the words with wires and thats it.

EDIT. EACH case wire if you look is labled with a + or - on the plug.


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## mtb211 (Nov 24, 2009)

my asus did come with a quick connect, buttt... it doesnt fit... its older and it will not matchup on the motherboard


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## tlarkin (Nov 24, 2009)

OK, I think that standard troubleshooting methods should apply here.

What we know, is the unit will power but there is no POST.  So, lets make it POST.  For the computer to pass POST you must have the following components installed and working:

1)  Motherboard
2)  Processor
3)  RAM
4)  Video

Anything, and everything else is not required for a POST.  If you have a work bench area, take the motherboard out of the case and slap in the RAM and Video (assuming you aren't taking the processor off) then hook it up to power.  Power it on, and you should get the BIOS screen and it should POST.  It will immediately give an error after POST about not finding any boot-able material, but that is expected when you have no hard drives hooked to it.

If you can get it to POST outside the case, then we know it is grounding out in your case somewhere.  If it will not POST period, we can more safely assume it is hardware failure.


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## mtb211 (Nov 24, 2009)

o man hardware failure, that sounds scary 

I am at my office, I wont be home for another 6 hours, So I can put the motherboard on a wooden table, do I leave my power supply in the case? 

If it boots to bios tho, couldn't this mean its grounding out also?

I was ready to buy a new PSU because im so impatient, I guess I can wait til black friday, I will def give this a try... I was just hoping I could have a bit more information on how to safly run my motherboard off a work table, I do not want to break it :/


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## mtb211 (Nov 24, 2009)

someone just wrote me this "It's probably your power supply, if "I unplug the power supply while its flickering, it will get full power for a second after i unplug it".  There's a difference between startup current and maintaining current during heavy gameplay.  An old or failing power supply typically has bad capacitors in it (see www.badcaps.net) and a temporary fix is usually getting the power supply into a warm reboot state, versus a cold boot state (you did this by turn it on repeatedly).

You can get a good power supply for less than $100 - I would recommend PC Power & Cooling, Seasonic, or Antec Earthwatts."

Is this true?


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## tlarkin (Nov 24, 2009)

Well troubleshooting starts a lot of times just by doing a process of elimination.  Since there is questions about the stand offs and what not, I would recommend we do a POST test outside the case to make sure that is not an issue.

At this point with me being a long ways away from you and on the Internet I can't really give a fair assessment of what is going on.  For these types of things you have to physically be there to make better assessments.

If it will POST outside your case, your hardware is good.  If the power supply were the problem I don't think it would even power on.  At least that has been my most common experience with power supplies.

When I worked at the warranty repair shop some years ago we had a motherboard that just sat there with basic RAM, video and a PSU.  We used it as a barebones testing unit.  I would toss a client's RAM in it and run memtest x86 on it, or hooked the HDD up and run a sector scan on it.  This was an open system, with no case just lying on a bench.


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## mtb211 (Nov 24, 2009)

so if it POSTS (whats posts stand for) then I know right away something is shorting it out, therefore it would be my case?

Maybe I forgot to do something when I bought my case, are there grounding wires on the case or something?

I pretty much bought my case and threw everything in there

I did notice a wire in the case which looks like its been Cut open, Ive never touched it before, I think im just second guessing everything


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## tlarkin (Nov 24, 2009)

POST stands for *P*ower *O*n *S*elf *T*est, and it is a small self test every computer in the world does to ensure that RAM, motherboard, video and processor are all working.


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## mtb211 (Nov 24, 2009)

thx! our electrical engineer has a power supply tester and he also has spare 700 watt power supplys, he will bring them in tomorrow so I can test everything out, again like you said, he said I should lay the mobo on the table, see if that works... if it doesnt then he said its hardware failure, I know thats exactly what you said, the more opinions the better... he also told me it could be a bad screw

I want to get a set of screws that fit standoffs, Is there an ATX kit of screws I can buy, for my cdrom, for my standoffs, screws that go in standoffs, screws for screwing in the video cards?

thats what i really need

thx!


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## tlarkin (Nov 24, 2009)

Well typically blinking lights are actually an error code and can be looked up.  Each motherboard is different so the error codes are not standard, and you would reference them in the MB manual.  So, if it flashes a pattern, just look at the pattern then look up what that means.


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## Jamin43 (Nov 24, 2009)

mtb211 said:


> I want to get a set of screws that fit standoffs, Is there an ATX kit of screws I can buy, for my cdrom, for my standoffs, screws that go in standoffs, screws for screwing in the video cards?
> 
> thats what i really need
> 
> thx!








http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details-print.asp?EdpNo=31741&Sku=ULT31338


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## mtb211 (Nov 24, 2009)

lol they charged me 7 dollars for shipping , im sure i wont see these til next week, but thanks again for giving me those!!

I swear all this stuff came with my last mobo


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## smoothforprez (Nov 24, 2009)

mtb211 said:


> I swear all this stuff came with my last mobo



screws usually come with the case and cables come with the motherboards


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## mtb211 (Nov 24, 2009)

so prez, what kind of framerates are you getting? play l4d?


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## smoothforprez (Nov 24, 2009)

mtb211 said:


> so prez, what kind of framerates are you getting? play l4d?



at the moment i only have modern warfare 2 and gta 4 but i havent ran any benchmarks

do you recommend any benchmarking program?


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## mtb211 (Nov 24, 2009)

someone told me to use 3dmark06, in call of duty MW 2 are you maxing out the settings? I have MW2 for the ps3, i wouldnt be suprised if there is no dev console because of no Dedicated servers, so there might not be any Draw_FPS command, youll have to use 3d mark 

Im guessing it looks good though ?

Im sure someone out there knows a better way


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## smoothforprez (Nov 24, 2009)

mtb211 said:


> someone told me to use 3dmark06, in call of duty MW 2 are you maxing out the settings? I have MW2 for the ps3, i wouldnt be suprised if there is no dev console because of no Dedicated servers, so there might not be any Draw_FPS command, youll have to use 3d mark
> 
> Im guessing it looks good though ?
> 
> Im sure someone out there knows a better way



with fraps on mw2 all maxed out at 1680x1050 i get about 60fps


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## mtb211 (Nov 24, 2009)

thats nice man , really nice

Stranglehold i think you are right, i think it is shorting out, nothing else will make sense, ill start the pc on a wood table, this way i can make sure


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## smoothforprez (Nov 25, 2009)

hey, whats the story on getting your computer to its first boot?


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## mtb211 (Nov 25, 2009)

so prez! i have good news, well kinda... for you at least hehe (since you recommended these parts)

I just had someone give me a power supply tester at work, I plugged in my 20+4 pin and the +5vSB is the only one that lit up, when I tested another power supply, the 3.3 v -12v -5v etc all lit up and the cpu fans went on, unlike mine :/

I think its good news, now i need to find a computer shop where I can buy a new power supply, unless Im making some sort of mistake


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## Jamin43 (Nov 25, 2009)

smoothforprez said:


> screws usually come with the case and cables come with the motherboards



+1


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## smoothforprez (Nov 25, 2009)

mtb211 said:


> so prez! i have good news, well kinda... for you at least hehe (since you recommended these parts)
> 
> I just had someone give me a power supply tester at work, I plugged in my 20+4 pin and the +5vSB is the only one that lit up, when I tested another power supply, the 3.3 v -12v -5v etc all lit up and the cpu fans went on, unlike mine :/
> 
> I think its good news, now i need to find a computer shop where I can buy a new power supply, unless Im making some sort of mistake




Sweet so now you finally no what the problem is.  

Do you have a microcenter nearby?


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## mtb211 (Nov 25, 2009)

nah man i dont! I think there is one closer to my house but not really on the way, there is a best buy in wilmington Deleware (tax free) which I might just go spend 120 dollars on some overpriced corsair, I really just cant wait until monday or tuesday for it to be shipped. 

Thanks for sticking it out with me, now well just hope it boots up without the bios needing to be flashed or something stupid


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