Still Can't Get New Motherboard To Power Up

[james33440 10+ year member]

Okay, some of ya'll may remember that I was having trouble trying to power up my new Epox EP-8RDA+ motherboard. Well, the front Power On/Off Buttons had different connectors because of the Dell OEM case I was going to use. So, I bought this case, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811129155 ...

Now, I installed everything and reinstalled time and time again. I can't get the motherboard to power up. I know the motherboard takes the 20-pin connector so I seperate the 24-pin to 20-pin so do I not worry about the other 4-pin connector now? I have a few other connectors left but this case has a power supply with Dual 12V so I believe that I am using all that I need.

Also, the Power On/Off Buttons on the front of the case match up, finally, with the motherboard. However, the PC still doesn't come on. Which way am I suppose to have the Reset connector, HDD LED connector, Power SW connector, etc? I mean does the words go on top or on the bottom?

Please, I really need help. I hope that my motherboard isn't screwed up.... I guess that could be a possibility. I do hear the power supply making a little noise once I disconnect the power plug from it...

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[vosschs 5,000+ posts]

are you talking about where the power supply connects to the main board, 20 pins?

 

[brad 10+ year member]

The 20-pin(P1) connects to the main power connector on the motherboard, the 24-pin adapter isn't needed for your board, and the 4-pin molex is the connector is the P4 power connector, use it if you have a pentium 4 processor; this will plug in near the P1 power connector.

It appears that is an AMD board, so the small 4-pin connector won't be needed.

Another thing to try is to change around the power jumpers to different positions, the manufacturer may have changed the jumper settings, without printing a new manuel, so try different settings until it turms on.

 

[AznRevlAzn 10+ year member]

Another thing to try is to change around the power jumpers to different positions, the manufacturer may have changed the jumper settings, without printing a new manuel, so try different settings until it turms on.

I HATE THAT, when i had my sony vaio i replaced the board and had to rearrange pins, it was annoying as hell. Wish companies and manufacturer's had a global/universal configuration for there boards and harness's.

 

[Justin89T 10+ year member]

you said dell case.... did you use a dell power supply?

for a few years dell switched the +12 and (-) pins on their power supplies. Tha means if you plug an aftermarket board into the supply.... FWWOOOMP!

 

[AznRevlAzn 10+ year member]

ditto, the factory power and board were ment to be one with each other, lol. It is just enough to power the board and cpu and acc. but if your gonna upgrade your computer or replace something with an non oem board your gonna have to replace almost everything else minus the ram, HD, disk drives and pci/agp/pci express cards you currently have.

 

[Raven 10+ year member]

All else fails, jump it. Use a small flathead screwdriver to connect the jumpers that the power button would attach to. It will let you know right away if the motherboard will power up or not.

 

[brad 10+ year member]

I assumed you had a new power supply also, I would look into replacing the power supply with something that puts out at least 400watts. The dell power supply probalby doesn't put out enough power to operate upgraded components.

Unless the computer is very old the power 12v-5v pin shouldn't be switched, dell hasn't switched power connectors for at least 5 years now, but best to check.

Speaking of ram, dell usually uses RIMM sticks, which means that there will always have to be an even number of sticks to make a memory bank, most retail boards don't use RIMM memory, therefore you will most likely have to change ram also.

 

[brad 10+ year member]

and if the board has a 4 pin connector by the cpu you have to plug it in. most new boards have it and its not for p4s. i have an amd64 3400+ and it has it. my board wont power up without it.

Didn't realise that it was used for AMD boards used this connector also, my hardware troubleshooting book specifically specifies that: "Athlon power supplies do not have the P4 or auxillary power connectors seen on power supplies designed for Pentium 4 CPU's. However it's very common to see an Athlon system using a Pentium 4 power supply--it just doesn't use the P4 and the auxiliary connectors." I guess that the AMD boards must have just recently started using the P4 power connector.

I don't know if this is true for AMD boards, but most pentium boards have a 6-pin (P8/P9) power connector that plugs directly into the main board, but usually required for the computer to operate; it's just an extra auxillary power connector to give an extra boost if required.

Another thing to try, sometimes if a component is incorrectly plugged in, the power supply goes into a protection mode. Make sure that all of the connectors are plugged in the correct way. A good rule to follow when plugging in devices is "red to red, or your dead" meaning the red wire of the IDE cables should be facing the red wire of the power molex; on the main board the red wire of the IDE cable should be facing pin 1(labeled on the board).

 

[HiAmplidude 10+ year member]

Sounds to me like you've done all the right things. Did you already try "flipping" the +/- on the "power" jumper plug, to see if it's backwards? (shouldn't matter, but eh...)

I know this may sound like a stupid question, but, is there a power-on switch on the back of the power supply? Is it turned on?

Yea, if you have the 4-pin plug on your board, definitely plug in that part of the power supply cable.

If all else fails, you may have a bad board. When I had an MSI Neo FIS2R 875P board fail, it wouldn't power on either, but the fans would "jerk" like they were trying, and I got a capacitor whine from the PSU. Turned out to be a fried board (probably due to the significant overclock I had on it, but hey...)

 

[abcheng 10+ year member]

If it's a 24 pin power connector, just use the 20 that fits into the power socket on the motherboard (only fits one way unless you really force it in). It doens't matter which way you plug in the power switch and the reset switch. Power and hdd led can be fixed by seeing whether if the led is on or not. Try turning it on outside the case and make sure your motherboard posts are mounted correctly. Also, make sure the cpu heatsink is attatched properly and the fan is connected to CPU_FAN on the motherboard. If all that doesn't work, you may have a dead mobo. Also, if you haven't tried it without anything but the cpu, memory, and video card connected to the motherboard, try that.

 

[james33440 10+ year member]

And, I get nothing when I try to power up. No lights or anything except the noise from the power supply wants the power is disconnected or turned off with the rocker switch behind the power supply.

Also, the PS is in 115V mode.

I'll try to power up with only the hard drive and see what happens. Oh, and someone suggested that I tried to swap the Reset SW and Power SW and try that....

 

[james33440 10+ year member]

BTW, here is a pic of my exact motherboard....

 

[james33440 10+ year member]

I noticed that when I unplug the front USB cable, the motherboard comes on and then it gives an error code on the LED readout.

I'm downloading the owner's manual now off of EPOX's site to see what the error code is....

 

[james33440 10+ year member]

Okay, I double checked everything and I noticed that once I remove the front USB connector from the motherboard, the motherboard turns on. However, once it powers up, the LED readout shows error code C1 and then changes to FF before fading away and there is a slight noise in the power supply (I assume).

Now, as I said I downloaded the manual from Epox's site but the specific error code isn't listed. I just emailed them now and hopefully they will reply back soon. Does anyone have an idea of the problem code?