Legit Reviews

Hello,

I am really scratching my head with this one. A buddy of mine in Denver is putting a rig together and it will not POST. I tried talking him through some troubleshooting over the phone but could not come up with anything conclusive.

Hardware (all components are new):
MB: Intel - D975XBXLKR -- AA D27094-302

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 1.86GHz / 2MB Cache / 1066MHz FSB / Dual-Core / Socket 775 / Processor with Fan (CP1-DUO-E6300)

RAM: Corsair TWINX Dual Channel 2048MB PC5400 DDR2 667MHz Memory (2 x 1024MB) (C13-3022)

PSU: Ultra 600W X-Finity

Video: XFX GeForce 7600 GT XXX / 256MB GDDR3 / SLI / PCI Express / Dual DVI / HDTV / Video Card (P450-7834)

This is all of the relevant hardware needed to POST, I had him unplug everything else (e.g. hard drive, optical drives).

When he powers it up:
Fans come on, lights come on. Screen is blank, never hits POST. Also, there are no beeps from the motherboard. I had him go back through all of the case connectors to the motherboard and he verified each one.

I had him reseat the video card. I also had him reseat the RAM. I then had him try one stick of RAM in each slot, then the same with other stick. (of course after each of these steps I had him power back up to see)

I read somewhere that some boards my need to have the BIOS flashed before a Conroe CPU can be used. I'm still gathering info on the board to find out if this is the case, if so I have a 775 Celeron that I will send him so that he can hit POST and upgrade the BIOS. I am hoping that this is what the problem is.

Unfortunately I don't have any friends out there with the same technology to verify if the Vid and RAM are working. Any thoughts?

I honestly can't remember if my board needed a flash or not to support Conroe... If he bought the board new it should have the right BIOS in it by now! It could be a bunch of things since everything is new... could be a dead CPU, dead mobo, BIOS update or a number of things really... Good idea on sending the processor.

If he bought the board new it should have the right BIOS in it by now!

That was my initial thought, but you never know how long it sat on the shelf. I am still waiting to hear back regarding the board from a friend, but I will probably go ahead and pull the Celeron out of my MAME box and ship it.

Thanks for the quick post.

um Nate, IIRC 302 boards do not support conroe, you need a 304 board


Yup from here http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/sho ... ad+Axe+302

Its a thread to mod 303 Boards and lower for conroe support. So basically it won't post because the processor isn't supported.

If you want to stick with that board, you need a revision 304 or higher.

OK, thanks for that advice. I'll let my buddy know and see what he wants to do.

oh geez.. I didn't even catch it was a 302 board... good eye

If he just purchased the board get him to return it for a 304 board. No BIOS update can make the 302 board Conroe ready!

http://www.intel.com/design/motherbd/bx/bx_proc.htm

I guess I missed that in the "notes" column, now I really feel like a dummy.

Thanks again!

nope no dummy on your part... Intel should have made sure the board was really C2D ready before they made it public...

My buddy contacted Tiger and they're drop shipping him a new board. Hopefully not the same thing, as that wouldn't solve any problems. Thanks to everyone for their help.

Update.

My buddy got his board (rev 306) last night, I talked him through a couple of issues and windows installed just fine.

I had to look at previous posts, I mentioned that Tiger was going to drop-ship him a new board on Dec 15. Yesterday (Jan 9) is when he finally received the new board. I have never had any problems with Tiger in the past and have recommended them. The way they handled his problem was completely horrible, I don't know how many times he had to call people that either made empty promises or gave him the runaround. Just an fyi to anyone ordering from them - hopefully this was an isolated issue.

My thanks for the help with this issue.