no video output

gagomes

Just wanted to consult this forum for an issue I had with my recent build (part speced by some kind souls on this forum, thanks!)

To sum up:
Case: Fractal Design R5
CPU: I7 4790K
Cooler: Corsair H100i
Board: ASUS Z97-p
PSU: Be Quiet 350w
RAM: 32 gig (2x 2x8) ballistix

Everything connected, no video. There is no visual indicator of the code on the board and there is no speaker with this case.

I've tried using the onboard VGA and HDMI ports.


When I power the system, I get all fans working (PSU, cooler/radiator fans), the corsair logo on the 'cooler' lits up, the sata 3tb disk spins.

I have tried re-seating all RAM and even trying with just one stick (tried all the ram sticks individually)

I've unplugged USB connectors on the board.

I've reseated all the main power cables

None of this has helped or made a noticeable difference. The screen just doesn't get signal, but it seems that the rest of the system is going.

I tried HDMI on two different screens and VGA on one.

Would anyone have any idea as to how I can troubleshoot this?

I have bought all parts from amazon, so I would like to send the part that is broken back ASAP as it always takes a few days to receive the broken part, but I am not entirely sure how I can rule out the components, as I don't have spares to help me isolate the issue and logic is failing on this one. Would anyone have any idea of what could possibly be wrong that I may not have thought about?

I would be willing to pay to get this sorted ASAP.

Digital Solitude

Resetting the CMOS may work, its a little silver disk on the board, like a watch battery. Remove it for 10 seconds, and put it back in and see

gagomes

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Resetting the CMOS may work, its a little silver disk on the board, like a watch battery. Remove it for 10 seconds, and put it back in and see

I tried it by moving the jumper to the CLR position, as indicated in the manual. Would you feel removing the battery may be worth pursuing?

To be honest, I did not try to do it simply because the manual's procedure suggest that it be done via jumper.

Thanks DS!

Digital Solitude

Think it does the same thing, not sure of the ins and outs though

Xenoronin

Lets start from the top.

Does the monitor actually work?
Is it on the correct source (should auto detect but fiddle with the menu)?
Are there any bios beeps?
Can you access a GPU from anywhere to make sure it isn't the motherboard output that isn't working?
Both the VGA and the HDMI cable are working fine?
Is the CPU seated correctly?

deceit

Remove the battery with the plug out of the psu, using the jumper doesn't always work.
If this doesn't work place only one stick of ram in the pc and see if it boots.
If it does most likely its just timing/volts that are off.

If this doesn't work connect a system speaker to the baord, usually come with boards with no led display. The audible error should tell you the issue.

gagomes

Thanks for the sanity check guys, responses below

Xenoronin wrote: »

Lets start from the top.

Does the monitor actually work?
Is it on the correct source (should auto detect but fiddle with the menu)?
Are there any bios beeps?
Can you access a GPU from anywhere to make sure it isn't the motherboard output that isn't working?
Both the VGA and the HDMI cable are working fine?
Is the CPU seated correctly?

I tried using the telly (via hdmi) and an hp screen via HDMI and VGA. Both of them work with raspbery pi 1 and 2 (the latter with my macbook too, via hdmi).

The bios does not beep. There is no speaker in the R5 (nor there is a display of the error code on the board itself)

The gpu is the on-board one

The hdmi cable is working fine (tried 2 different ones, anyway) the VGA might be or might not be. I don't have a way to tell it right now, but I assume it works.

I haven't attempted to check the CPU because it has a corsair h100i attached to it which is a bit painful. I have a friend who is far more experienced in this matter coming up today with some thermal paste and we will assemble it outside the case too

deceit wrote: »

Remove the battery with the plug out of the psu, using the jumper doesn't always work.
If this doesn't work place only one stick of ram in the pc and see if it boots.
If it does most likely its just timing/volts that are off.

If this doesn't work connect a system speaker to the baord, usually come with boards with no led display. The audible error should tell you the issue.

I took out the battery, pulled the psu cable and waited 10seconds, reinserted it, no changes.

Did the ram configuration you indicate above, no joy.

There is no system speaker with an asus z97-p, nor with the case. Tried connecting headphones to the green input, as per indicated elsewhere, but no sound. Thanks for reminding me not to purchase off asus again.

I get corsair h100i cooler light, the fans on the PSU and radiator work and the ssd lits up and so does the frontpanel button when powered on.

gagomes

So a friend of mine (cros13 here) came over with 2 boards and a PSU and I'm on my way return a board, a cpu and 2/4 sticks of ram, all DoA

Would anyone have any advice on another z97-grade board to replace this one which I am seeking a refund on?

wotzgoingon

gagomes wrote: »

So a friend of mine (cros13 here) came over with 2 boards and a PSU and I'm on my way return a board, a cpu and 2/4 sticks of ram, all DoA

Would anyone have any advice on another z97-grade board to replace this one which I am seeking a refund on?

Jesus that was some luck. Fair amount of stuff to be DOA.

Digital Solitude

Good week to buy a lotto ticket, you couldn't possibly buy any more duds

Hope you get sorted okay anyways!

gagomes

To be honest, I'm not surprised at all. Amazon is known to do a pretty job with packing, but this time, it was a disaster. everything was loose inside a large box. Also, the cpu, the mobo and the ram, were sold by some company from their marketplace but stocked by amazon. I heard some stories about non-customer centric behaviours from such sellers.

I just bought cros13's Maximus VI Gene and gave me a loan of his cpu until I get my new one. I going to acquire a non-K cpu. I am not a gamer, my system is to run VMs, so the K version would drop the VT-d chipset, which I didn't account for in the heat of the moment (I picked the K not because I wanted to overclock, but because I needed a fast cpu which was in stock at the time I was placing the order for all parts)

I'm fairly happy now that I'm half the way done. To add to all the bad luck, my glasses broke

Xenoronin

Glad to hear you managed to locate the problem...problems... damn son that's just bad luck. Maybe someone got happy with a magnet around that box. :L

Gumbi

How exactly did you diagnose that they were all DoA? I am very skeptical that ALL the RAM (each stick???), which are small parts and hard to damage in transit, as well as the CPU (which are known to have very low failure rates in general).

Lu Tze

Gumbi wrote: »

How exactly did you diagnose that they were all DoA? I am very skeptical that ALL the RAM (each stick???), which are small parts and hard to damage in transit, as well as the CPU (which are known to have very low failure rates in general).

I bet an EMP device went off just as he was opening the door to the delivery guy, if Hollywood has thought me anything about these things!

gagomes

Gumbi wrote: »

How exactly did you diagnose that they were all DoA? I am very skeptical that ALL the RAM (each stick???), which are small parts and hard to damage in transit, as well as the CPU (which are known to have very low failure rates in general).

I said 2/4 ram sticks. I bought 2 packs (2 packs, with 2 sticks each).

We diagnosed it using the board memory diagnostics and tried each pair in two different boards. To be fair, it could be just a single of those two sticks that was DoA, but when making a return, these have to be sent back in a pair, so I didn't try to rule out if one was working or not.

As for the board/CPU, there's a pretty good chance the board fail and/or caused the cpu to fail. Not being an expert, I can't comment on it. The cpu didn't even initialize in the two boards, code 00.

TerrorFirmer

It would seem unlikely that all three would be DOA - are you sure you didn't buy a board that needed a bios update for haswell refresh?

gagomes

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

It would seem unlikely that all three would be DOA - are you sure you didn't buy a board that needed a bios update for haswell refresh?

I don't know if it's unlikely as I don't buy parts very often, but this was the first time I had a bitter experience purchasing parts/assembling a computer.

There's always a first. Even if it was me damaging it, I don't think I will arbiter in favour of the company for something I can't prove was already damaged - in transit or from factory. If it was me who damaged it during assembly, it is a pretty flaky product anyway and I am better off getting my refund.

As for update, I did not come across that while searching for solutions to my problem with the lack of display. I would have tried it, as I did try everything I found on the internet that seemed sensible. However, we have taken the specific board out of the equation and used two different boards (from different vendors) and still no improvements. We tried the diagnostics several times, the results were consistently the same - be it positive or negative. We tried each memory pair isolated in each board. One worked, the other didn't.