Here is another couple of photos of the power supply working and powering the case fans using the paper clip method and also of the case connectors hooked up to the motherboard header.

Do you have another PSU you could try?

When I get a new board I use a conservative CPU, like an Intel processor. I then study the manual and put all jumpers to default settings. I double and triple check any voltage / multi / clock settings / jumpers / switches.

I then remove the battery, clear the CMOS and using RAM and GPU I know that work in a range of boards I turn it on. Oh and I also hook up a PC Speaker pieco thingy.

I don't connect any headers, just use a screwdriver to short the power button pins.

philscomputerlab wrote:

I don't connect any headers, just use a screwdriver to short the power button pins.

Which is exactly how I've brought death to 3-4 motherboards' pin headers :p

I think the PSU is to new.
I have plenty of old ATX boards that wont work with some new PSUs.

GeorgeMan wrote:

Which is exactly how I've brought death to 3-4 motherboards' pin headers :p

That's not good 😊

I only do it to ensure it works. Once I use it a bit more I have these front header gadgets from eBay. It's just a bunch of wires with two LEDs and a button. I use it on all my test benches.

Skyscraper wrote:

I think the PSU is to new.
I have plenty of old ATX boards that wont work with some new PSUs.

I don't think the PSU is too new for the board as I've used many new PSU's with older boards going all the way back to a 486 (with an ATX to AT adaptor of course).

philscomputerlab wrote:

Do you have another PSU you could try?

All my ATX PSU's are being used in their cases. Don't really want to remove them due to all the cable management. I do have a Startech AT 230watt PSU I could try as that PSU is also new in box and it's not connected to anything at this stage.

Going by the photos, can anyone see any mistakes in my header connections? Is there anything else that could cause the motherboard not to power on besides the PSU or the board itself?

Searched for the manual and ..... it sucks.

When i look at your pictures it seems to me that the powerbutton must be connected to the 2 pins above ``pw``. not the lower ones but the upper ones above ``pw``.

Exactly the ones you did not hook up to anything according to your picture.... hope it works.

edit: looking at the manual on the gigabyte site makes much more sense, and what i said above should work. Use their site for the other connectors as well.

meljor wrote:

Searched for the manual and ..... it sucks. […]
Show full quote

Searched for the manual and ..... it sucks.

When i look at your pictures it seems to me that the powerbutton must be connected to the 2 pins above ``pw``. not the lower ones but the upper ones above ``pw``.

Exactly the ones you did not hook up to anything according to your picture.... hope it works.

edit: looking at the manual on the gigabyte site makes much more sense, and what i said above should work. Use their site for the other connectors as well.

Are you referring to this manual because if so, the pin layout is different to my board. I went to the gigabyte website but for some reason the manual download is not for my board.

http://download.gigabyte.us/FileList/Manual/m … ation_guide.pdf

I don't have 2 pins above PW as shown in the photo. In this manual, where PW is, my board has the pins for the reset switch.

My manual is this one: http://www.manualslib.com/manual/271160/Gigab … ?page=12#manual

Ok, even though the pin out was different I removed the "soft power connector" as its referred to in the manual from the 2 far left pins and placed the connector onto the 2 pins above as you suggested and it powered on. Now I've run into another issue...firstly my pin modded Pentium 3 1.4ghz Tualatin cpu is reporting its speed as 0498Mhz, I'm guessing this is due to this board not normally supporting Tualatin speeds let alone speeds in excess of 1ghz? The main issue though is that my PS2 keyboard won't work. Works perfectly with my other builds.

I've tried another brand new microsoft PS2 keyboard which didn't work either. Also tried swapping back and forth between the 2 PS2 ports. Any suggestions?

EDIT: just tried my new Logitech USB keyboard using the USB connector as well as with a PS2 adapter and that didn't working either. I also noticed that each keyboard doesn't receive power at all as none of the LED's light up at all, not even for a second. Hmmm...

Is this with both boards? Be careful with PS/2 and hot plugging. I believe it's not recommended.

For USB keyboard to work there is a BIOS option usually. It's not enabled by default.

I always update the latest BIOS when I get a board. The Gigabyte website is quite good in that regard.

philscomputerlab wrote:

Is this with both boards? Be careful with PS/2 and hot plugging. I believe it's not recommended.

For USB keyboard to work there is a BIOS option usually. It's not enabled by default.

I always update the latest BIOS when I get a board. The Gigabyte website is quite good in that regard.

I hooked up the other board but it just froze on the initial graphics card boot screen where it shows the details for the graphics card. Didn't even get to the next screen like the first board 🙁

I'd update the Bios but without keyboard access I'm going to have to count that out for now. I'm sure there's another thing I'm missing as I doubt both boards have suddenly died.

Since my previous post, I've also attempted to reset the cmos but that has now resulted in the boot screen saying "Check System Health !" as opposed to it originally saying "Check System Health OK" before the reset.

EDIT: just checked and the guy who sold them to me already updated both the Bios' for me to the latest version being F5. Visible in the boot screen screenshot above.

Is this with the Tualatin that has been modded?

Can you try a normal processor that is on the support list?

philscomputerlab wrote:

Is this with the Tualatin that has been modded?

Can you try a normal processor that is on the support list?

Yeah it is Phil. I do have a P3 1ghz 133FSB cpu which is on the support list. Do you think it could be the cpu causing these issues though?

It's the first thing I would try. Eliminate as many variables.

What I do:

- Reset / check jumpers to default with manual
- Using conservative parts that are compatible and known to work
- Just CPU, RAM and graphics cards
- Remove batter and use clear CMOS button
- Use screwdriver or front header cable to power the board

Alright, I changed over the cpu to a 1ghz P3 and now it's working. Great news but it seems to lag for around 2 minutes before anything starts up, lags in the initial boot screen. Even if I press delete to enter the Bios, it doesn't recognise the key press for again around 2 minutes. Any reason for this delay?

The other problem is that the keyboard is only recognised after a shutdown and then power on, not after a restart. Control-Alt-Delete also doesn't work unless I power down and power on again. After this power off/power on cycle, I'm able to enter the Bios. After I leave the Bios is where my problem starts...?

EDIT: now it's not recognising the keyboard again. Guess it had nothing to do with the cpu. How could it work, not work, work and then not work again?

Alright, working a lot better now. Just having a little trouble getting the IDE hard drive to be recognised. Geez this motherboards a pain in the butt! I'm sure it will be fine once everything's setup ok but for now...I hate you Gigabyte! Grrrr... Wait, hate is such a strong word...we'll go with "strongly dislike".

Good to hear you got it working.

Make sure the other connectors are on the right headers as well or just disconnect them all until you got the board working right.
Connectors for led etc. on the wrong headers can give very strange behaviour so maybe that is the problem for the board acting up?

Your manual is wrong. Just by looking at the mobo picture you posted, I can see that its connector pin out is exactly the same as many other Gigabyte boards of the same era. You can use this picture below to connect your case switches and leds:

The selller - this is me - FGB aka AmoRetro 😉
I randomly found this thread on Vogons, the buyer didn't inform me about the thread but contacted me via E-Mail for support.

So I will share my thoughs on this topic:

Please connect just the minimum required components, namely:

- CPU and CPU Fan connected to the corresponding header (But Good lord: Please do not use any pin- or whatnot modded Tualatin CPU on this board! This board doesn't support Tualatins. It's intended to run coppermine CPUs! A false CPU can cause you loads of trouble and may harm your board! I tested the boards for stability with 1000MHz coppermine CPUs at 133MHz though, they are working well and give you good speed to power your games, including V2 SLI (The chipsets divider gives you 33Mhz PCI clock when set to 133MHz FSB.).
- A good SDRAM stick, preferably PC133 (I found double sided infineon sticks working great on this mobo) but set the FSB to 100MHz for testing. I tested the boards with 133MHz bus but it also depends on the graphics cards you use because many cards are not capable to cope with the extra MHz. So you will be safe in that department if you set the FSB to the in spec 100MHz.
- Connect the VGA card
- Use only the standard IDE connectors for testing, not the connectors on the extra RAID controller.
- Connect nothing else

Generally: The BX7+ is a really good board. Yes, it may be a jumpers graveyard and there is no "Soft Menu" ala Abit but I promise you you don't need to set the jumpers once you tweaked your system well. Beside the jumpers it is a really good, very easy to set up, stable and performant board. I think I sold 7 of these boards (kept one for my collection) and got only positive feedback. And every single board I sold was tested also for stable 133Mhz operation including testing the overclocked AGP port with GF2 MX / Ti, Geforce 3 and Geforce FX cards. The board is known for its stability and overclockability. It is able to drive the BX chipset to its limits. I can show you stable 145MHz bus speed without increasing the voltages. Also that board is one of the first blue PCB boards which I consider as "cool" when you put it into some nice white or metal coloured case.

I hope the thingies work when you replace your CPUs with proper ones.
Best of luck!

Best regards
Fabian