Grrr issues

[saltynay]

So my G-skill pi blacks arrived DOA confirmed by memtest(I am never going to buy a computer product with "black" in the name again as my black edition gfx card was also DOA previously) so I am RMAing without issue. At the weekend I kept getting BSODs so I reinstalled vista and took out 2 sticks of ram and its been relatively stable have been a couple of hiccups. Problems started seriously today I put in my new Q9550 and Seagate 7200.12 and it froze whilst I was in the bios setup. It normally freezes at the enter setup splash screen occasionally getting just past there to the part where it searches for hardware and asks me whether to proceed as I have cleared the CMOS and a couple of times I have got into the setup but only for a couple of seconds. I HAVE to get into the bios setup to set dvd drive as boot so that I can install win 7.

I instantly thought memory is dodgy so I have 6 sticks of memory including the g-skills, I was fairly sure the 2 were ok, 2 are iffy and the 2 g-skills didn't pass memtest however I hadn't had a chance to test them individually only as a pair so one may work and be bringing the other down. I have tried every stick in as a single stick with no successful access to the bios. Is it the cpu not seated on the heatsink possibly can't see how I could of done that but for me it seems the next step. The cpu appears centred and I added my normal amount of arctic silver 5, its a thermaltake ultra 120 extreme so hardly inadequate.

Ideas?

 

[Asylum]

Thats pretty strange that you cant even get into bios!!
I know you said you reset the CMOS but did you disconnect the power cable and then take out the battery. Press the power on button to disapate all electricity and let sit 5 minutes then replace battery and power cable and see what you have!!
Only other thing you can do is check to make sure the jumper is in the correct position!!

 

[saltynay]

My motherboard is the asus striker 2 formula there is a convenient button which clears the cmos completely as its a designed for benchmarking and extreme overclocking, It also has a power on and reset switch on board which is convenient when testing a new build.

 

[synergy]

Even with a "reset" you should try what Asylum suggested though. That will leave no doubt that the CMOS is cleared.

I had similar issues and it turned out I had a little loose screw that was contacting my mobo and shorting it out. I found this out only after removing everything one at a time. It was excruciating! Anyway, try that too.

Lastly, make sure you don't have any weird USB devices hooked up. You might be getting some weird interference with a card reader or something if you have one.

 

[saltynay]

It comes up after the boot splash screen (whenever I get that far) "cmos cleared loading default settings press F1 to continue press del to enter setup"

I doubt its a loose screw as I haven't add anything all I have done is taken off cpu heatsink, cleaned it, taken out cpu, thermal pasted, replaced heatsink using same screws, slotted the hdd into the drive rails and moved a power cable to power it.

Only devices connected are the basics; monitor, power, keyboard and mouse nothing else is in the back I had the same thought .

 

[synergy]

I dunno then....that's weird that you can't get into the BIOS really.

I doesn't have to be a loose screw necessarily, but can be anything that may be grounding out your mobo.

You tried the memory one at a time, but did you try them one at a time in each slot? When I was having that grounding issue that was a suggestion EVGA tech support made (before I knew it was a grounding issue).

 

[saltynay]

touch wood its fixed itself magically......... just managed to get into bios and now loading up windows installler. Problem now is I won't know if its stopped working or if the installer is just being slow....

 

[saltynay]

Nope freak luck that it worked. I think it might be because I tightened the cpu heatsink too much just loosened it up and looking good . Nope no good. Great looks like I will be doing a complete rebuild tomorrow atleast it gives me a chance to work on my cable management.

 

[philbar71]

you couls just run it out of the case, just to be sure that there is no shorts any where. like put it on a wood table or something.

 

[kobe24]

the only thing i would suggest is like others mentioned, rebuild making sure everything is fine as you build. good luck going to take awhile.