• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

Problem with power connection to ECS nFORCE4M-A mobo

francis511 said:
ive got a sort of similar prob.when i turn on an asrock board with new hiper psu,everything seems to spin up, but doesnt post!!to get the pc to post,all i have to do is press teh reset button once.tried that ?:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Do you know for shure that you connected the power and the reset plug the right way.
I have a asrock board and i have the same when i plug the connector to the wrong pins.
 
Sounds like your processor is overheating.
Usually with a memory error you'll get a POST error code (series of beeps-check with the bios maker for what the codes are - or just google for ' BIOS POST error codes')
When a processor overheats it'll shut the system down FAST to avoid damage.
With no heatsink a processor will go from room temperature to 100 C in about a second.

Try removing the heatsink, cleaning it with high grade isopropyl alcohol (the higher the better), reapplying thermal grease and reseating the heatsink.
And it's got to be asked, did you use thermal grease on top of the heatsink's thermal tape?
Just checking :)

hth
 
The CPU came with a heat sink and a patch of thermal grease already applied to the heat sink. I had to peel off a little piece of plastic before placing the heatsink on the CPU.

I'm just having a hard time believing that the CPU could overheat so quickly. I mean if the power has been shut off from the board for a few days, and I turn it on, it literally shuts down within less than a second. And this is with the heat sink installed. Is it really possible it could heat up that fast??

I'm not sure what you mean by applying thermal grease on top of the thermal tape. I followed the instructions from AMD taht accompanied the CPU and heatsink.

I'm still leaning toward there being a memory incompatibility. How sensitive to memory types are these boards???
 
technicks said:
Do you know for shure that you connected the power and the reset plug the right way.
I have a asrock board and i have the same when i plug the connector to the wrong pins.
Click to expand...

mebbe i`ll check that,but i think somethings just fried.it worked perfectly till the psu blew,
then ,when i changed it = problemo:twitch:
 
Hi Rawskyb

Have you fixed your problem? I am running into the exact same prob with my asrock dual sata mobo. I have no idea what the issue is...:twitch:
 
francis511 said:
ive got a sort of similar prob.when i turn on an asrock board with new hiper psu,everything seems to spin up, but doesnt post!!to get the pc to post,all i have to do is press teh reset button once.tried that ?:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

francis, the ram dimms are in the wrong slots then if that occurs.
 
wtf

doubt it man ,theyre identical.aaaarrrgh.i hate it when pcs do stuff like this
 
tkpenalty said:
All you guys and your careless rig-building... rawskyb, get it replaced, that motherboard is gone.
Click to expand...

Did you actually read the whole thread? rawskyb replaced his motherboard and he is still running into the same problem?
 
Chiron-

Nope, I haven't gotten this working yet. But I've been traveling abroad the past few weeks, so I haven't been able to work on it since the end of October. As someone here suggested, I ordered a new cheap-o AMD Sempron CPU to try out, just to see if maybe it's a problem with the CPU. It was only about $60 shipped, and I can always eBay it after I'm done using it for my testing.

tkpenalty-

As was noted, I have already tried to get this working with a new ECS mobo, as well as two other mobos from other manufacturers (ASRock and MSI). On all 4 mobos, I get the exact same problem. And I've tried about 3 or 4 different Power Supplies so far, as well as some other SDRAM DIMMs. Everything yields the same problem, brief spin up of fans, then complete power down.

At this point, I really hope it's the CPU, because there isn't anything left to try switching out. That's the only component that I haven't changed at least once since day 1. I bought the CPU (AMD AM2 Athlon 64 X2 4200+) brand new from Newegg, so getting it replaced will hopefully not be a problem if it turns out to be the problem.

The new CPU should arrive tomorrow, so we'll give it a whirl tomorrow night - I'll let everyone know the results.

-Blayne
 
Well how about that??? The new Sempron CPU arrived today. I installed it on the original ECS nFroce4M-A mobo, both sticks of memory, and hit the power switch - We have boot!!! Yes, it appears the problem was indeed with the CPU after all, the one component that I was least likely to think could be the source of the problem.

So now I just have to figure out how to get the CPU replaced, and make sure that it isn't just some sort of weird incompatibility with that particular model of CPU.

Wooo-hoooo!!!:toast:

-Blayne
 
Just thought I would add one more comment here, hopefully to assist in the event anyone else runs into this problem. When I spoke to the AMD support rep, he immediately recognized my problem after I described the brief fan spin-up and then power down. He had some sort of name for it, and basically stated it is a fairly common problem.

I am sending the CPU back to AMD for replacement (NewEgg wouldn't provide a replacement since it has been more than 30 days).

Also, just to make sure it wasn't an incompatibility with this particular processor, I picked up the exact same Athlon 64 X2 4200+ from CompUSA to try it out. Sure enough, it powered right up. (CompUSA has a 21 return policy, so I am "borrowing" one from them until my replacement arrives from AMD.)

Thanks to all those who offered assistance. I'll probably be back with more questions along the way (like figuring out how to get my system to recognize the SATA HDD that has Windows XP installed on it. For some reason, after I updated the nvidia drivers on my mobo, it has now disappeared...???!!!)

-Blayne
 
Help with a similar problem

I just bought an nForce4M-A (V3.0), Bios 1.1k, w/ AM2 Athlon 3500+ CPU. This board POSTs with an error message saying:

CMOS Checksum Error – Defaults loaded
Warning! Now system is in Safe Mode
Please resetting CPU frequency in the CMOS Setup

I can enter the CMOS setup fine, and move around the various menus, but...

When I do anything else, the system cycles through POST, then off, then POST, then off, then POST... (all by itself)

Am I looking at a bad CPU, bad BIOS, mobo, or what?

Thanks
Rich Gitschalg
Tillamook, Ore.
 
Pin issue

Hey,

I have the manual and I'm not a newb. I'm a bit confused about how to
1)correctly plug in my USB spots (as far as I can tell its the RWGB 4 pin set)
and most importantly
2)how do I connect the case pwr, reset, etc. I see that it wants me to do so on the ATX1 group, but the pin names on my case do not at all correlate to those listed in the manual.

Can anyone give me a screen shot or tell me what my case wire such as RESET SW correlates to in the manual?
Thanks so much
Jules

I had this barebones system put together for me and something blew so I just got it back and finding it surprisingly hard to attach 10ish wires to the 2-3 spots I know where they are suppose to go.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top