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I've just put together a system for my son. Got everything loaded and went to boot up and don't even get a POST. The monitor flashes the blue screen saying that the connection is good but the bios never comes up. One thing that I did notice when hooking up the DVD burner to the IDE slot which was pretty strange, or at least I thought it was.. If the ribbon cable is connected to both the MB and the drive, the DVD burner does not power up. I had another DVD Rom which I tried and netted the exact same results. However, if you pull the ribbon cable off, the drive powers up?? I went through the troubleshooting guide and tried all their suggestions with the same results. I'm suspecting a bad mobo but not sure if that is the case or maybe the CPU is bogus. These parts are all new with the exception of the DVD burner & Rom- here's the list:

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L(rev. 2.0)
Intel Core 2 Duo E4500, LGA775, 2.20 Ghz, 2Mb L2 cache, 800 Mhz FSB
G.Skill F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ
Thermaltake W0100RU: Purepower 500W PS ATX
NVidia GeForce 8600GT, 620M 256Mb DDR3 Dual DVI TV PCI-E XXX

Any thoughts??

Welcome to the forums...

remove all the IDE and SATA cables and see if it posts... You don't need a hard drive or optical drive for the system to post, so by removing them you can eliminate them as the cause of the problem.

If that doesn't work try to use just one memory module in various slots (try both memory sticks in case one module is bad)

If the system posts with the ide/sata cables removed you might want to see if a newer BIOS is available or if you can load setup defaults in the BIOS. Might just be a bad setting in the BIOS or an old BIOS that does not support what you are plugging into the board.

Apoptosis,

Thanks for the quick response. I just completed all your suggestions

-remove all the IDE & SATA cables: no change
-use just one memory module in various slots: I tried each stick of memory individually in each slot and still nothing

What do you think about that situation I explained about the DVD power not coming on while the IDE cable is plugged in? Would that be a bios deal or a mobo issue? I've never had that happen before.

Thanks

sorry for the delayed response, but I had to take my dog to vet...

As for the board... if removing all the drives and neither module installed will get it to post the outcome isn't looking too good. Do you have a volt meter? If you have one you can turn it on and check the +12V and +5V voltage rails with a volt meter. This will tell you if something is very wrong with the PSU. If that's not it then I'd RMA the board and/or processor. If you had another system you could try your processor in it to see if it still works.

It sounds like you are experiencing a similar problem from another Gigabyte P35 model.

http://forums.tweaktown.com/showthread.php?t=25051

I ended up RMA'ing the board. I don't have another one available to check out the processor, all my other boards are AMD. I thought about the processor but thought the chances were lower for a bad CPU vs Mobo and that situation with the DVD not powering up with the IDE cable attached pushed me to thinking it was probably the board. So, I didn't do the processor, which in hindsight may have been a mistake. I'll let you know what the outcome is once I get the replacement. I appreciate all the information that you've supplied to date. Best regards -