Obviously it all went down hill by allowing the customer to watch. It would probably stress me out as well, leading to errors in thinking and sloppyness.
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Obviously it all went down hill by allowing the customer to watch. It would probably stress me out as well, leading to errors in thinking and sloppyness.
Shovel Ready
Yeah, what about it?Originally Posted by rossco
What about it?
You two are very close but haven't gathered the final piece of the puzzle.
Hint:
It is not defective.
"I am the one who knocks."- Heisenberg
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Set to the wrong voltage?
Shovel Ready
No.
Hint:
This not a problem you would have typically seen prior to the later platforms/hardware configs.
Maybe if you were running an A....naw, that would give it away.
"I am the one who knocks."- Heisenberg
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I love these type of puzzles.
CPU fan not plugged into the mobo?
Edit: I'd love to stick around to continue with the puzzle solving but unfortunately I must go...
Last edited by Virtualbody1234; 12-03-2005 at 05:19 PM.
we want your oil!
when you gotta type really fast so your mam doesn't see the porn in your history
woowoo
when you gotta type really fast so your mam doesn't see the porn in your history
woowoo
Wonder if it has something to do with these jumpers:
.
Well, I didn't hear anything about clearing the bios, or about testing the graphics card.
.Political correctness is based on the principle that it's possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.
Shovel Ready
Sorry, you're right.
We did both those things...I just didn't mention it.
OK, time's up.
<I apologize for the crappy pics...I was otherwise engaged trying to get the damn thing to run, so photography was not of paramount importance...>
Two shots of the case...
The screen I saw first thing yesterday morning...w00t! it passed!
What the customer sees when he first turns on the machine...
And the heart of the problem...
The Antec PSU comes with two dedicated PCI-e 6-pin video card connectors.
It also has two main trunk lines with Molexes and SATA connectors, each also has a floppy connector at the very end.
When we wired the box, one main trunk connected the video card, the motherboard Molex, the motherboard floppy connector AND the SATA HDD.
The other main line powered the two optical drives, the FDD and all the case fans.
Now you see?
We were pulling too much current through the one line, a problem which would not have happened if we could have used the dedicated PCI-e vid header instead of the molex (OR used an older, single rail PSU).
Also, if we had POSTED THE BOARD OUT OF THE CASE it prolly would have worked and we could have narrowed the search down much more quickly than we did (no puttering through rush hour, for instance).
But we were in a hurry, overconfident and well, stupid really.
Using adaptors we were able to balance the current draw between the two main lines and all the problems went away.
<...on Monday I'll order a set of NeoPower cables and we can fab up a single dedicated line just for the video card and all will be as it really should be, but as a jury rig fix it's fine and the customer got his PC as promised. He's gonna be coming back for upgraded cooling anyway, we can do the fix then. This will make my co-worker Eric very happy as he is a wiring freak and we had to cobble this one together pretty ugly. He'll relish the opportunity to make it look up to his standards.>
So, the two points I'd like to make in this screed are:
-ALWAYS POST THE BOARD BEFORE INSTALL!
Knowing that the board/RAM/CPU/video are working will make the focus on any later problems much narrower. We wasted several hours trying to test components that a simple prePOST would have shown to be good.
-EVERYBODY RUNS INTO PROBLEMS.
For the two of you currently building and those considering it...you are not alone, nor stupid.
The trick is not avoiding problems (although experience and smarts will eliminate most of them anyway), rather it's how you work your way through them. Being logical and systematic is important as is having the resources at hand to get the info you need (Lord knows the DFI and Antec manuals were totally useless).
Google really IS your friend.
So are the specialist fori where folks with similar hardware ramble on incessantly about every screwup under the sun.
No matter your issue, someone has run into it before and, with luck, they found the solution.
Cookies for those who risked a guess...
If there are any crumbs left the rest of you feel free, please.
"I am the one who knocks."- Heisenberg
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