DOA motherboard?

[schapman]

I initially posted this in motherboards, but with little response I thought I'd try here:

So.. I'm kinda stumped by this problem and thought I'd turn to all you genius'.

Bought a new AMD a64 3000+ and the abit av8 third eye yesterday and hooked it all up. When I try and boot it, it starts to boot, doesnt POST and jsut resets itself.. then loops this behavior over and over until I cut the power.

My first thought was that I had left an extra standoff in there and it was shorting, so I pulled it all, and tried again.. There was one extra standoff but it wasnt touching anything (pulled it anyways to be sure). Tried booting, and it worked so I figured all was good. Hooked up the abit Uguru deal and my second 512 of ram.. rebooted and the problem starts again.

Thought.. OK, time to narrow this down.. booted w/ just vid card and RAM and didnt work. Cleared the CMOS, no good.

Theres the odd time I can get it to almost post, but fail just as the monitor is turning on and then it reboots again.

Yanked all the hardware again.. and it booted... YAY.. installed windows.. took it to a buddies.. plugged it in.. no good

We ripped it all apart again and saw some dust behind the board.. so we cleaned it up (on the odd chance it was shorting the board) and it booted. Problem solved right... Nope.

Brought it home.. plugged it in.. no good. Yanked all the hardware, reseated it all.. and it booted.

So right now, I am in windows (and posting here) but I have the knowledge that the second I do anything, its gonna FUBAR again.

As far as I can tell.. the motherboard came DOA. My buddy got the same one, and is running it in the same case w/ the same vid card.

Specs in box are as following (*note* all of this is the same as before the chip/board upgrade and was working, all I replaced was those)

A64 3000+ Socket 939
Abit Av8 3rd eye
1024 MB RAM (2x512MB Samsung DDR400 running 3-3-3-8, slow I know )
Radeon 9700pro
Creative Audigy2 ZS
Wester Digital 160GB hard drive
Pioneer 16x dvd burner
Lite-on 52x cd burner
Antec Sonata case w/ the stock truepower PSU (which is the same as my buddies so the power output shouldnt be affecting this)


Thanks for any input.

 

[Tigerbiten]

First:- What are your temps & voltages.
Your bubby may have got a good PSU and you a lemon.

Second:- Sound like something is loose in there.
Check that all connectors are pushed home fully, Cards are seated down fully in the slots, etc, etc.

Third:- Run Memtest86 to check your memory for errors.

You could try taking it out of the case and building it on a non-conductive surface.
If it works perfectly then there is some kind of short in the case.

Luck..........

 

[schapman]

Everything in the case other than the board an chip came from my working pc before. Never had a single issue with them.

I assumed at first that something wasnt seated right so I've re-installed everything a few times to make sure and its no good.

As far as the memory goes.. it was working before.. should work now

 

[schapman]

btw.. another odd issue has popped up since switching the board/chip

When the resolution changes (such as when firing up a game) I sometimes get this odd video effect that looks like double vision.

If I unplug/replug the vga connector, it seems to solve this issue.

I'm thinking something may be foobar'd w/ the agp slot and am hoping its not the vid card (still under warranty i think.. but oh the waiting times for the RMA! As fast as ATI is, no WoW makes me a sad panda)

 

[schapman]

Well.. I think I found the problem. Got home yesterday (after a weekend of the PC running fine). Turned on the computer, heard a pop, smelled some magic smoke. Turns out the bottom PCI slot shorted somewhere and I now have 3 awsome burn marks to match the 3 new ones in my audigy 2 zs.

Guess there was a problem with the board

Now I'm off today hoping to get both replaced.

/me prays.