ET's Info-Stew

I've been on somewhat of a spending spree lately. However, unlike before when I needed to buy the latest and greatest technology, I've come down to earth and decided to purchase darn good technology instead. For computer components there is a price "bump". The latest technology is the most expensive, the next older generation is pretty expensive, but after that the price starts to go down rapidly. So if you know where that bump is, you can buy great components for relatively cheap. That's what I've been doing. My purchases have all been stuff that is already fairly cheap, but then is also on sale. It's taken a couple weeks to get everything together, and I only have two purchases left. Here is what I have so far, in addition to what I had before:

EVGA nForce 790i SLI FTW
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400
Corsair TX850W PSU
4GB Patriot Viper PC3-10666 DDR3 Kit

I also purchased fairly cheap and unremarkable harddrive and CD/DVD drives. The motherboard is perhaps the biggest splurge, even though it was a great on-sale price. It has the specs to allow me to upgrade components for years to come. I'll be able to upgrade to the next generation of 32-bit processors (1600 MHz FSB), DDR3-2000, and faster PCI-e video cards. I'll get some pictures taken and post them, but first I need to get things situated.

I spent last night installing the components (except the drives) into the case. I had even purchased a high performance CPU fan (it was on clearance), but it doesn't fit in the motherboard. I had a spare cheapo PCI-e video card to make sure things worked correctly. My biggest fear was the memory, which I purchased in California and only have 15 days from date of purchase to return if they are bad. After everything was installed I plugged it all in, pressed the power button and ... nothing. Well almost nothing. All the motherboard lights that were supposed to light up lit up. All the fans were going. And the LCD POST code panel read FF. But there were no beeps, and the video wasn't working.

I jiggled stuff around and made sure things were seated properly, but I still couldn't get it to boot. I looked this problem up online and a common response was to make sure to clear the CMOS. So I tried that several times to no avail. I decided to call it a night, taking out the CMOS battery in case the CMOS clear button wasn't working.

This morning I took a different approach. I cleaned off my desk, removed all the components from the case, and assembled the components on my desktop. Doing this outside the case is more convenient because it allows easier access to the components without all the wires getting in the way. So now I know that in the future I'll do this to make sure everything works before putting it in the case.

I put the battery back in and tried to boot up. No luck. I read online that the Post code LCD should start at FF, cycle rapidly through other post codes, then land back on FF. In my case, it stayed on FF. I went to the EVGA website to find a tech support phone number. I found a tech support FAQ area, so I looked my problem up there instead. My first search led me to the problem I was having: my nForce board was showing code FF but wasn't booting. The FAQ answer said to first check to make sure the power was plugged in properly. Done. Then it said to make sure the CPU was properly seated. Done. Then it said if the code starts and stays at FF, the board is not posting, and I need to get a new board.

So that settles it. I put all the motherboard stuff back in its box and plan to exchange it this morning. I'll be taking back the CPU fan while I'm at it. If I'm lucky, the board really is bad and the replacement will work just fine. Otherwise, this is going to get ugly.