Asus P5B-E doesn't start up

Yesterday me and my friend put together my new rig. Specs:

Asus P5B-E
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300
OCZ ModStream 450w
G.Skill 2gb PC2-6400 4-4-4-12
Gainward 7900GT 512mb

This all in a nice and shiny Antec Solo case.

But after connecting everything the system does not boot. The motherboard does not post, make any sounds, show any sign of activity. The fans aren't running, the disks aren't spinning, there is no video output signal. All I do know is that the motherboard power led is on; the motherboard is supposedly receiving power.

I also tried to jumpstart it to make sure it wasn't the power button. And I removed and re-seated the battery in the motherboard. My friend also had some advanced tricks up his sleeve that I can't recall. Tried various combinations of connected hardware, double checked all of the cables. The only thing we haven't tried yet, is to take everything out and boot it out of the case on wood/cardboard or whatever so I'm not excluding the motherboard shorting with the chassis but I can't see any sign of that being case.

The power supply has a big fan and a big LED; so it's clear that this one isn't activated when I try to boot the system. There is power, but where it all goes, I don't know. What I do know is that the psu is making a very soft yet audible cracking noise. Almost sounding like static / interference or something. I wouldn't know, I'm not that great a technician.

The memory is compatible with the motherboard. It doesn't boot with one or no memory sticks; it doesn't boot with a PC3200 one either.

Can anybody help this poor man? :/

I just set the same board up yesterday and had the same problem. Initially it booted fine with the original bios so I updated the board to the latest bios and then nada, dead as a door nail same as yours. I found out it's a ram issue (I'm using OCZ Platinum) and an unbelievably stupid bios setting on the part of Asus I might add. Here is what got me back in the game:

1. Make sure you have a speaker connected to the MB so you can hear the beeps.
2. Remove all the ram and start up the system. If you hear error beeps then good, the motherboard is probably working fine. If no beeps then you have other problems that I can't help you with.
3. Try a single stick of your ram in the slot furthest from the cpu and see if that works.
4. If it does work then go into the bios settings and take the mem voltage from "auto" to 2.0 volts. Then your ram should all work again normally.
5. If it doesn't fire up with your single stick of ram then you have the same issue as my OCZ and you will need to get a single slow stick of ram that only requires 1.8 volts to start. I had to go and purchase a cheap 256 meg stick of DDR2-533 ram and used that by itself to start up the system. VOILA! Once it booted it made the change from Auto to 2.0 volts on the bios setting for ram voltage and then rebooted the computer again with my OCZ ram instead of the the DDR2-533 and everything worked fine from that point.

Hopefully that works for you and with any luck Asus will fix this in their next bios. Love the board so far and have an e6400 running at 3.0ghz so far with stock settings and solid as a rock. Pretty sure I have lots more room to go on the overclock but I'll let it burn in first. Pretty darn pleased so far other than the above bios quirk. Good Luck!

You might be onto something because the G.Skill memory I have is rated at 1.9-2.0V and I had heard possibilities that it wouldn't boot at all by default. I initially figured that, since the motherboard is compatible with my memory, that component wasn't the problem. But I suppose the people who have tested that memory didn't have the BIOS version that comes with the newest P5B boards.

One problem is that I don't have a case speaker, although I could go out and buy one somewhere... I did not get any video output signal although that might change when I put the memory in the last slot like you recommended. I'll try booting with one stick first and connect a mb speaker to it. If that doesn't work I'll get a cheap 533mhz stick.

I'll let you know how I get on. Thanks for the help!



EDIT: no luck with putting the memory in the DIMM-B2 slot. I'll go to the pc store as planned and let them test with 1.8V rated memory. Buying the cheapest of that stuff would cost as much as getting my pc checked, anyway. But even with non-working memory that doesn't boot, that gives no reasons for the fans (cpu, two case fans, psu fan) not to spin, would it?

As I mentioned, mine was the exact same as yours, absolutely dead. Pulled the ram and then I got the system beeps and fans so I knew my bios flash was ok. I would highly recommend that you do pick up a cheap stick of 1.8 ram anyways. I only paid $39 Cdn (about $35 U.S.) for a stick of Kingston 256 meg DDR2-533.

Reason being to purchase is that if you have to reset the cmos again down the road then you are going to be right back at square one with a non-starting system unless Asus figures out what the bug is in their bios and how to fix it. You'll need the 1.8v ram to get it started again and reset the voltage for your fast ram. Cheers!

Yeah but I'd like to see first if it would really solve the problem. If it appears to be memory bound as you say, then I can always pick up a 533Mhz stick afterwards.

oh man i'm having the exact same problem, i called up the local frys and they dont have any 256mb

atleast now i know what the problem is, but it looks like i'm gonna have to order ram online.

do you guys think crappy ram like this would work on the mobo?
http://www.komusa.com/kofcodd66753.html

Well, it appears that both the motherboard and the power supply were dead on arrival. No life out of it at all. The voltmeter doesn't give any power on the psu and the motherboard doesn't do anything with any type of memory.

Sending both parts RMA but I've just seen two possibly bent socket pins on the P5B-E, that certainly wasn't my doing. I'm not saying they are bent as they don't look like they are, but they reflect differently when you shine light on it. I reckon my retailer will do everything to use this as an excuse to void my warranty, let's hope not though.

well i bought the cheap kingston 256mb ram that was listed in the compability list and used that to oc the ram voltage to 2V and then replaced it with my OCZ ram. the computer started up normal and everything went fine

too bad if i cant use the OC software since it would probably underclock the ram voltage and crash the computer (already happened once when i try to use the AI suite)