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Problems with 'old' board
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Posted by: Seamus
As I've upgraded my machine I have decided to give my old motherboard to my
brother (a chaintech 6BTML) and my old processor a P3 550Mhz with 128Mb
SDRAM but I cant know get it to boot. When I power the system on I get the
usually fans start spinning the hard disks doing their usual spin up but I
get no further no screen output no beep. The graphics card is a ATI Rage Pro
8Mb. Any ideas of how to solve this or what it is doing/not doing.
Thanks
Seamus
Posted by: Tweaker
Remove absolutely *everything* from the system board--the memory modules, the CPU, the hard drive, all adapter cards, EVERYTHING.
TIPS:
Don't disconnect the hard drive from the power supply. Power supplies require a minimum load on their +12V output rail. Without such a load, most power supplies will burn out or will become otherwise damaged. Some really nice power supplies have protection circuitry that shuts them off during no-load conditions and some are even self-loading, but to make sure you're not damaging the power supply, keep the hard drive plugged into the power supply (but disconnect the drive's data cable from the motherboard). You'll need the HDD to properly load the power supply.
With everything disconnected, connect the power supply to the hard drive (the hard drive should not be connected to the motherboard) and to the motherboard.
Connect the speaker to the motherboard (unless the motherboard has a piezo-electric element built in) so you can hear POST beeps. With some hardware, it may actually be necessary to connect powered speakers to connectors for audio hardware built into the motherboard. Just make sure you've got a speaker or something hooked up whatever way it needs to be connected for you to hear any beeps.
Power the system on and listen.
If you get any beeps at all, that's good. Write down how many beeps you get and whether they're long or short. (e.g., three short beeps, two long beeps and one short beep, etc.) If you get no beeps, that's not necessarily bad--some system boards won't beep if there's no CPU plugged in.
Power the system down and plug in the CPU.
Power the system on and listen.
If you get any beeps--great! If not, power down the system and plug in the video display adapter.
After plugging the video card back in, hook up the monitor, turn the monitor on, power the system on, and listen for beeps and watch the monitor.
If the system gives you some beeps and reports a memory failure, then GREAT! At this point, you can assume the power supply, motherboard, CPU, and video display adapter are okay.
Power the system down, plug in one memory module, turn the system on, and see what happens. If you get a single beep and the system successfully completes the POST (but fails to boot, of course, as the hard drive isn't connected), fantastic. Power the system down and add any remaining memory modules, powering the system back on to see if it POSTs okay.
If the memory's all okay, try adding any adapter cards you might have removed and see if the system suddenly fails to POST. If you don't encounter any problems, reconnect the hard drive.
This sort of systematic, methodical trouble-shooting may seem anal and may be time consuming, but it can definitely help you determine what's going on. With any luck, this sort of procedure should help you pinpoint the problem.
If, at any point during troubleshooting, you get POST beeps, make a note of them and check them against whatever documented POST beep error codes you can find for your motherboard.
Hope this helps. 
Posted by: Seamus
Thanks for that though I have followed your instructions through up to the stage where I have the CPU, and video card are insterted and no video output and no post. So to me all that is left is the motherboard though I can't see this being a problem as the case in both systems is the same so I just took the bracket holding the board out of one case and put it in the other so I have not even handled the motherboard. Any other ideas/suggestion.
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