Sapphire 4830 boot-up question

Greetings all,

I have just built a system using some components I have left over from the past. It's the first time I built one totally from scratch (ie, including motherboard installation) and it was an interesting experience. I am having a couple problems though and as most of the components have been unused in the past I have no idea what might be causing them (if they are problems at all).

First, I have a Sapphire HD 4830 card in the system. When I press the power button to get the system started, a LED that is on the "top" side of it (not the side with the fan) flashes a few times. If I read the letters on the card correctly, those are LEDs about "OVER TEMP PROTECTION".

At the same time it appears that the fan gets started and its speed fluctuates. It then stabilises. Until then, the screen is blank. Once the fan gets properly going and the LEDs stop flashing, the system boots and the screen comes alive. This whole process takes about 12 seconds.

As a Nvidia user in the past, I wonder if 1) this is normal with the LED flashing and 2) this whole thing is the substitute of the time a Nvidia would have you looking at the screen telling you the card's bios and watching it check its RAM size (the more RAM the longer it took - it did take 11.5 seconds with my 7600GT AGP at 256 MB). Is the screen blank in the case of ATIs?

As a side question, I wonder if it would be normal for my keyboard's numlock light to be illuminated and able to be turned on and off from the keyboard even the computer is powered off (with the PSU switch on the I position and the keyboard connected). I haven't noticed this on any of my other computers but here it looks like it...

System specs
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe (old I know but does its job)
alternating between AMD Athlon 64 3500+ and 4200+ X2
Sapphire HD 4830
Enermax 525W Modu82+

Thanks for all the help you can provide.

There's a molex connector right by the PCIE slot, try connecting some power to it. Even though the 4830s have a 6-pin connector they seem to like a bit more power from the PCIE slot then it likes to provide. I've noticed that problem on quite a few 4830s and connecting the power always solves it.

I tried that. no joy (unless I didn't put the molex in properly, but I will try again just in case). After looking at it more carefully, it looks like the CPU fan also has the same spin-up problem. I tested the voltage on the PSU and did not appear to have a boot-up problem. I wonder if I have a faulty motherboard? But it did boot fine to a hard drive I had with WinXP 64 installed. I flashed the BIOS and now screen goes blank after all the boot-up tests (I get the first page with the ram, processor, drives etc, then the second page with all the information, ACPI, drives etc) and then it goes blank. Haven't installed anything from scratch yet though, will try when I find a CD-ROM cable somewhere...

I thought it might be the video card draws too much startup power and that is why the CPU fan is also affected, but this shouldn't be, as they are on a different 12v rail. Plus even if they were on the same rail, this PSU should have more than enough power to deal with it.

I am at a loss.

Well, I tried booting without the video card plugged in, just to see what the CPU fan would do. Indeed, it does not spin up to full speed immediately. Suspecting a motherboard or PSU problem. Will try with another PSU when I get a chance..

Well, I now have tested with another PSU that I have, and again, I've got the same problem and I can't for the life of me understand what's causing it. A faulty motherboard I guess? But then, wouldn't I get some kind of error?

On that motherboard, make sure the cpu fan is hooked to the right header on the motherboard... I believe the northbridge fan also needs to be hooked to the correct header as well (unless this is the heat pipe edition). Basically there are fan speed sensors that the bios needs to see running at a certain speed in order for the board to post. I never had the delux, but the asus a8n-sli edition of the board.

Also make sure the ram is in the right slots, I think on my board the b2 slot needed to be populated to post. Weird I know.... As for the power supply are you using a 20 or a 24 pin atx connector... mine would sometimes freak out when using a 20 pin connoctor, a cheap 20 to 24 pin adapter solved those problems.

Lastly if you installed this mother board in a new case un bolt it and make sure that nothing is shorting the board, for example a rouge standoff that is touching the board somewhere.

I do remember seeing a bios fix that solved some ati compatibility problems (like way old) so you may want to try putting in a cheepie video card to see if you can at least get it to post and update the bios to the latest one.

I hope this helps.

The fans do get running, it's just their speed fluctuates before the motherboard gets to POST, before I get to see anything at all in the screen. Once it stabilises, I see the screens and it appears to work. This happens to the CPU fan first and foremost - I tried powering on without the gfx card and it did the same thing. To that effect it appears as though the ATI fan is just following suit..

It's like...I press the power button..fans spin up...then their RPM reduces a bit (meanwhile the ATI's over temp protection LED is flashing)........then it spins up again, stabilises, and the system boots.

I just checked and all the fans are installed to the proper connectors.

I have flashed the bios to the latest one. I do manage to get POST and even got into windows xp 64-bit once (I plugged a HDD with a copy of them installed, and it booted straight from the box, did not even search for drivers. Ever since, however many times I have tried, it does not boot. Probably because I flashed the BIOS, but in the past I've done that and I could still boot...

I will try again tomorrow and keep you posted. Thanks for all the help.

P.S. I am using a 24-pin ATX connector that comes straight from the PSU (no converter).

Well...boot up gradually became slower and now it ain't booting at all. Dead mobo I guess. Fans do spin up..hopefully this had no consequences on the other parts.