Just got my hands on two Pentium 4 boards. One is a ASUS P4T-E (Socket 478), the other is a MSI 850 Pro2 (Socket 423).
I've tested with two different PSU's. They won't turn on. Not even the fans are turning on. The sign of life is the LED light on the motherboard lighting up.
Any idea what might be wrong? Cant see any bad capacitors on the them.
If it is exactly the same issue with both boards I would try a third PSU.
The Asus board tend to be picky when it comes to memory and often refuse to post but the green led should always work if the board has power.
Is the CPU working? If there is a short circuit, perhaps from to much old silver paste in the socket or on the backside of the CPU this would happen?
New PC: i9 12900K @5GHz all cores @1.2v. MSI PRO Z690-A. 32GB DDR4 3600 CL14. 3070Ti.
Old PC: Dual Xeon X5690@4.6GHz, EVGA SR-2, 48GB DDR3R@2000MHz, Intel X25-M. GTX 980ti.
Older PC: K6-3+ 400@600MHz, PC-Chips M577, 256MB SDRAM, AWE64, Voodoo Banshee.
Atm I'm not worrying about memory and stuff. I need the board to power up and the fans to start spinning before I know if the RAM is a problem.
Using two different CPU's, so strange that both of them should be dead. I havent experienced a bad CPU to halt power on of the motherboard.
Lots of strange things can happen.
But I agree that its very strange that two boards with different CPUs and PSUs show exactly the same issue.
It makes you wonder what the common denominator is.
New PC: i9 12900K @5GHz all cores @1.2v. MSI PRO Z690-A. 32GB DDR4 3600 CL14. 3070Ti.
Old PC: Dual Xeon X5690@4.6GHz, EVGA SR-2, 48GB DDR3R@2000MHz, Intel X25-M. GTX 980ti.
Older PC: K6-3+ 400@600MHz, PC-Chips M577, 256MB SDRAM, AWE64, Voodoo Banshee.
The PSU's was just tested with a Socket 939 board I got with the Pentium 4 boards. Both worked as normal
Even if I remove the CPU from the Pentium 4 boards they should still power on the fans (ofc no POST or picture), right? If that is not happening there must be some sort of short in the boards, or?
Random thought for one board:
I have a Willamette (180nm) Pentium 4, but it's a Socket 478 (normally these are 423 chips) - if I put it into a "modern" 478 board, the thing will behave as you described, and absolutely nothing happens. Is that potentially the case here?
Regarding the 423 board I have less ideas - does it need RD-RAM and is it missing C-RIMMs?
Other generic ideas: are any jumpers set wrong or not set at all? How are the CMOS batteries? Is a CMOS clear jumper engaged? (Some boards will refuse to start in that situation)
As far as booting with no CPU - I've never experienced a board to properly start-up without a CPU, at least that I can remember. I'm guessing there isn't an "all in one" rule of thumb for that though - some may work fine, some may not.
I got an Asus board that does this number but got the odd idea of just pulling the cmos battery while the machine was plugged in and the moment I did this it powered up. Behaved normally after for a few days but haven't bothered with it in more than a month. So give that a try, if the led does come on there is life in there. If anything there is a way to force it on through the atx connector.
On a far away planet reading your posts in the year 10,191.
wrote:I got an Asus board that does this number but got the odd idea of just pulling the cmos battery while the machine was plugged in and the moment I did this it powered up. Behaved normally after for a few days but haven't bothered with it in more than a month. So give that a try, if the led does come on there is life in there. If anything there is a way to force it on through the atx connector.
Why not just remove it when it is powered down and unplugged? I always test untested boards that way and only add a battery if it fails to power on.
Personally I don't like messing with hardware while it is running, I might brake something 🤣!
