Maximum PC

Parts:
ASUS Sabertooth 990FX
FX-8150 with stock heatsink
Seasonic X Series 750 W
AMD Radeon 5850
G. Skill RipJaws 1866
LanBoy Air

The problem I'm having is that I cannot get my computer to POST at all. Once I hit the power button, the fans turn on, and then a red LED CPU light comes on. I have no HDD's, SSD's, or optical drive plugged in. I checked the wiring job thousands of times and its good. I reapplied the thermal paste from the stock paste to some Artic paste which I did clean correctly. I'm not sure what else to try other than to call ASUS support and to RMA the board.
One thing to note is that the stock heatsink takes a ton of pressure to get it to hook on. I may have pushed to hard the first time round...

Suggestions?

It's entirely possible that your motherboard requires a BIOS update to be fully compatible with AMD's new FX series CPU's. If that's the case, the only way to spin that would be to install an older AM3 CPU temporarily to perform the update.

Sadly I do not have any spare CPU's to work with. Nor do I know anyone with another AMD CPU.

Try resetting the cmos using the jumper, then put it back into the run position.

Did you plug in the power for the cpu, it is an eight pin connector. If this isn't plugged in it won't boot.

Are there any beep codes?

Make sure you don't have the PCI-E power cord mixed up with the CPU power cord.

Nasty

The CPU cable is plugged in, its not mixed up with the PCI-E one.

The motherboard did not come with an on-board speaker so I can't tell if there are any beep codes

I will try resetting the jumper one more time.

I cleared the RTC RAM using the jumper and same still. I also tried the memory in the other slots and still the same.

When you installed the cpu cooler did you have the cam in the open condition, hook the square openings on the cpu socket lugs, then rotate the cam over 180 degrees? Did you do this outside of the case on an insulated surface or in the pc mounted? It should be done on a flat table so you can apply the necessary pressure to hook the lugs, then rotate the cam lever. If you touched the traces under the board you may have fried a chip with static electricity from your body.

I would call the motherboard manufacture and see what they say about the no boot condition you have. That board should boot with the Bulldozer cpu right out of the box with no flash....how do I know...I have the same board sitting by me right now and the manual says the board was made for the FX series 8 core cpu.

Nasty

The case I have is a LanBoy Air, so how when I installed the CPU cooler the motherboard was mounted on the slide out motherboard tray with all 9 standoff screws in. And I did turn the latch 180 degrees.

I tried booting the system one more time by shorting out the pwr pins on the motherboard using the tip of my screw driver, and still the same thing.

When I build I always load the cpu and cooler on a flat insulated surface, like a wood table because of all the pressure that needs to be applied. This keeps the board from bending during the install of the cooler. Sitting on the 9 supports lets the board bend and you could have opened a solder trace on the back of the board.

Take the board out of the case and place it on an insulated surface, install one stick of ram,video card and all power cords that are required to run the machine including the video card power. If it posts in this condition, you have a short when you mounted the board in the case.

I would give the motherboard manufacture a call if it don't post.



Nasty

Tried the memory in different slot, or slots? If you haven't already, just try the bare essentials which is just one stick in one slot. Repeat if it fails with one stick in the other slot. If that fails, you might try another memory speed if you have those around or know someone that does. DDR3 1333 of any size isn't bad to have around as a piece of trouble shooting equipment BTW. More often than not around here, basic memory at basic speeds get a system up to go further with the initial BOOT process.

So i put the motherboard on my wooden desk with the CPU, GPU, and one stick of RAM installed. I powered it on and still the same thing. I'm just going to RMA the board. Hopefully it doesn't take too long...

Just a quick double check before the process:

There's only 3, so the one's you have carry these exact P/N's? You've reset the BIOS and all that? Tried several times?

If you return the board, the luck you're hoping for is for the next board to have the latest BIOS installed. The issue here is that it won't and you still have a board that needs a BIOS to make that CPU work. The CPU LED is lit, not anything else. To me, that's the mismatch. The board's getting the basic signals to do the soft power on to the system, but no processing via the CPU/bridge/memory loop somewhere to do anything other than that.

My memory does not appear on the list, but on Newegg, people have used this memory with the same motherboard I have and it works. Also what really makes memory more optimized for AMD or Intel platforms? Its just specs.

The BIOS may be outdated, but should that really prevent me from POSTing?

The CPU is the first component that is checked (according to this motherboard), and since it can't get past that means something is amiss with the CPU or socket.

3 reviews on Newegg for the FX-8150 and ASUS Sabertooth 990FX say that they had to update their BIOS with an older generation AMD chip in order to get the FX chip working. So I guess you were right.

Well I shipped my board out today, and hopefully it will come back with the newer BIOS already on.

To answer your earlier question, of course in incompatible BIOS would prevent the system from POSTing. And to bask in the glory of a correct (if quite easy) diagnosis...of course I was right! Heh, good luck!

... Quit your bragging... and thx.

Hee hee...no prob...hope you get everything worked out. Enjoy Bulldozer. A buddy of mine has the 8120 (I think) overclocked to 5.1+Ghz right now without a hiccup. Hell of a chip!

*drooling....*

Glad I came across this thread as I have the same issue. I'll try updating the BIOS.

hi welcome to MaximumPC. updating the BIOS did fix my issue.