K8N no boot....

[stevo1210]

I was given another computer today for free.

Only problem is that it does not boot. The motherboard is an Asus K8N with an nvidia chipset. The original PSU was a Raidmax and had 2 bad caps in it.... in fact one cap blew its can off!.
The cap that blew its can off is a 10V JEE cap which I can't see the capacitance. Another cap that went bad inside the PSU was a Rulycon 1000uf 6.3V IIRC.

The CPU is an AMD Athlon 64 3400+ socket 754 and the RAM is two Super Talent 512MB sticks.
Both optical drives wont work and are probably dead.
So I replaced the Radimax P.O.S with an FSP FSP200-60ATV and I still get no boot from the PC. There are no beeps either.

The light on the motherboard is green and not red.... which I think means the board is functioning? I once had an Asus board that died and emitted a red light instead.
The motherboard on the other hand has a bad 1000uf 6.3V Ltec cap right next to the Northbridge/ Southbridge combo chipset.
I have a feeling that could be the problem but I guess that the motherboard would have to emit some beeps or something....

The Chipset does get pretty warm after about a minute.... not burning hot, but it is indeed hot enough that I have to take my fingers off it.... so I don't think that it is internally shorted like a few Intel ICH5 soutbridges running off bad DEER PSUs.

Any ideas what could be wrong?

Thanks.

[acstech]

Re: K8N no boot....

I guess the first thing I would do is get all good brand caps on it. Then, if it's still not functioning, you can start playing taps.

Bad PSU caps can wreak all sorts of havok.

[PedroDaGr8]

Re: K8N no boot....

I was given another computer today for free.

The Chipset does get pretty warm after about a minute.... not burning hot, but it is indeed hot enough that I have to take my fingers off it.... so I don't think that it is internally shorted like a few Intel ICH5 soutbridges running off bad DEER PSUs.

Thanks.

Or bestec blow em up specials (Emachines I am looking at you)

[Harvey]

Re: K8N no boot....

Have you tested the RAM and CPU in another board?

I don't like the sound of both optical drives being shot though, and if the PSU surged enough to zap 'em, I wouldn't hold out much hope of anything surviving.

[kc8adu]

Re: K8N no boot....

that fsp200 likely doesnt have enough omph to run that board.
something that old and low powered may not have enough on +12 or might not even have a p4 +12.
get out a 350+ that you know is good.
your opticals may not work if there is no pg or the board is in reset.
unplug/pull anything not needed to post and try again.
simple no post troubleshooting 101.

[stevo1210]

Re: K8N no boot....

I tested the 1GB of Super talent brand DDR RAM in the system in another PC and they worked without any issues. I also tested the 128MB MX4000 AGP graphics card and that was also fine. I can't test the CPU because I don't have another socket 754 motherboard.

that fsp200 likely doesnt have enough omph to run that board.
something that old and low powered may not have enough on +12 or might not even have a p4 +12.
get out a 350+ that you know is good.

The FSP200 series PSU has a 12V P4 plug.... but I have the same feeling that it may not be powerful enough.... but I also tried the board out of the box and only installed a CPU, board, graphics card, but the it still won't boot.... so I think I'll have to look for a more powerful PSU somewhere beause this is the only PSU I have available for now.

Thanks.

[Logistics]

Re: K8N no boot....

Anyone else think this thread was about air filters just before they clicked?

[zandrax]

Re: K8N no boot....

@ stevo: nForce 3 chipsets are quite warm, sometimes hot, because they have both northbridge and southbridge in the same chip: I think they require a good airflow and it's quite strange Asus didn't put a fan on its heat sink.
The green led should mean the board detects the power good signal, so at least the Asus hardware monitor should be working.
The 200w Fortron can be a bit too low on 12v rails, so try a different psu.
Basic troubleshooting:
- do you cleared the cmos? Sometimes Asus board refuses to boot with a corrupted bios;
- do fans spin, or the hard drive start when you swich on the board?
- does the vrm function properly? (Amok's test)
- are other caps looking good?

@ Logistic: nope. I drive my byclycle, not sport cars

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: K8N no boot....

@ stevo: nForce 3 chipsets are quite warm, sometimes hot, because they have both northbridge and southbridge in the same chip: I think they require a good airflow and it's quite strange Asus didn't put a fan on its heat sink.
The green led should mean the board detects the power good signal, so at least the Asus hardware monitor should be working.
The 200w Fortron can be a bit too low on 12v rails, so try a different psu.
Basic troubleshooting:
- do you cleared the cmos? Sometimes Asus board refuses to boot with a corrupted bios;
- do fans spin, or the hard drive start when you swich on the board?
- does the vrm function properly? (Amok's test)
- are other caps looking good?

@ Logistic: nope. I drive my byclycle, not sport cars

You're screwed if the BIOS is corrupted. If the BIOS is corrupted, expect BIOS access to be impossible!

If clearing the CMOS helps, then it's just a corrupted CMOS at the worst.

The symptom of a weak CMOS battery may be the following:

You're required to always clear the CMOS for it to boot or prevent Windows from giving you a nonsense message about the HDD or IDE controller firmware in the event log.

----------------------------------------------------------------

A weak CMOS battery may cause Windows 2000 and later to give you a nonsense message about your HDD firmware or IDE controller firmware being outdated in the event log!

[stevo1210]

Re: K8N no boot....

The green led should mean the board detects the power good signal, so at least the Asus hardware monitor should be working.
The 200w Fortron can be a bit too low on 12v rails, so try a different psu.
Basic troubleshooting:
- do you cleared the cmos? Sometimes Asus board refuses to boot with a corrupted bios;
- do fans spin, or the hard drive start when you swich on the board?
- does the vrm function properly? (Amok's test)
- are other caps looking good?

I havent cleared the BIOS yet.... so I will have to try that soon.
When the motherboard is booted up, all of the fans spin and the LED on the board is green. I haven't tested the VRM.... but I will look into that as well. Regarding the capacitors, there is only one bulging cap from what I can see.... the other caps look like they are still good. The caps on the CPU VRM output are 1500uf 6.3V Elite brand caps.... a brand that I haven't heard of before. The VRM input caps are Rubycon MBZ 1000uf 6.3V.
Every other cap on the board is Ltec 1000uf 6.3V and lower. Oh and i'll also look for a more powerful PSU than the 200w Fortron I currently have.

Thanks.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: K8N no boot....

Elite is bad.
I have an inverter full of bloated/vented ones.

.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: K8N no boot....

I doubt the FSP has enough juice.
That CPU pulls like 90 watts all by itself.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: K8N no boot....

Might try with bare minimum.
No drives, one stick of RAM.
Might have just enough PSU to get into a BIOS screen that way.

[stevo1210]

Re: K8N no boot....

Might try with bare minimum.
No drives, one stick of RAM.
Might have just enough PSU to get into a BIOS screen that way.

I tried that as well, but it still won't boot.... so I'm going to find a higher wattage PSU that will pump out around 300W.

[zandrax]

Re: K8N no boot....

@ RJARRRPCGP: You're right, I meant a corrupted cmos of course - a corrupted bios is much more worse.

@ stevo: test the vrm before plugging another psu. It seems the board it's half functioning (fans do spin, so the hardware monitor didn't cut the current at boot and nothing important seems shorted), but I fear vrm's capacitors are almost dead.

Zandrax

[stevo1210]

Re: K8N no boot....

I have another question regarding the PSU.... the original PSU was a 500W Raidmax which in my opinion probably only pumps 200W at max strength?.... how did it manage to power the whole system in the first places? I'm surprised....

Also I had a close look at the Raidmax PSU and the input caps look pretty OK becuase they are 680uf caps.... though the are Jee brand.... it's the first time I've seen a China made PSU with input caps over 470uf....

[PCBONEZ]

Re: K8N no boot....

I usually see 330 or 470 but I've seen 680 and my 'otherwise piece of crap' Antecs have 1200's there.

[stevo1210]

Re: K8N no boot....

I just had a thought.... I think I know why the optical drives won't start up.... I think it's because the FSP doesn't have enough power.... well looks like I've sorted out one problem.... well at least I think I have .

[PCBONEZ]

Re: K8N no boot....

Ah, yeah, that's why I said no drives in this post way back there.

>>>>>>>
Might try with bare minimum.
No drives, one stick of RAM.
Might have just enough PSU to get into a BIOS screen that way.
<<<<<<<

[stevo1210]

Re: K8N no boot....

I tried this configuration still without any luck....

1x AMD64 3400+ CPU and HSF
1x K8N motherboard
1x 512MB DDR RAM
1x nvidia MX4000 128MB
1x FSP 200W PSU.

I have a Dell/ Delta 250W PSU coming in at about 2 weeks. It has 17A on the 12V rail.... will that be enough yet? or will I need something more powerful like the Thermaltake XP480NP 430W PSU that's currently powering my gaming rig at home.