New motherboard won't boot

[Tom Hill]

I am unable to boot a new ASRock K7VM3 motherboard that I am installing in
an
e-machines H2482 computer case.
I am using an Athlon XP 2400 CPU and 512-meg of DDR RAM, which both were
working correctly in another computer.
After installing the RAM, CPU and CPU fan, and connecting a 300 watt power
supply, I:

1. Connected the power cable to the motherboard
2. Connected a monitor
3. Connected the front panel power switch
4. Turned on the power switch on the power supply
5. Turned on the front panel power switch

The first time I followed these steps, the monitor did indicate the
motherboard was booting (startup routines, prompting to insert boot floppy).

I then did the following:

1. Turned off the power supply switch
2. Conncted the Hard Drive, Floppy Drive, CD Burner and CD ROM to the
mother board with ribbon cables
3. Connected the power supply cables to the Hard Drive, Floppy Drive, CD
Burner and CD ROM
4. Turned on the power switch on the power supply
5. Turned on the front panel power switch

At this point the CPU fan began spinning, but the motherboard would not
boot - nothing would appear on the monitor screen.

Then I did the following:

1. Disconnected everything from the motherboard except the monitor and the
power supply
2. Turned on the power supply switch
3. Shorted the power switch pins on the Front Panel Connector.

Again, the CPU fan began spinning but the motherboard would not boot -
nothing would appear on the monitor screen.

I tried resetting the CMOS but this had no impact.

Any ideas on what's going on here?

[Bubba Gump]

"Tom Hill" <Tom...@Sympatico.ca> wrote in
news:9jwZe.25$l03....@news20.bellglobal.com:

> I am unable to boot a new ASRock K7VM3 motherboard that I am
> installing in an e-machines H2482 computer case.
>

> <snip>

>
> The first time I followed these steps, the monitor did indicate the
> motherboard was booting (startup routines, prompting to insert boot
> floppy).
>
> I then did the following:
>
> 1. Turned off the power supply switch
> 2. Conncted the Hard Drive, Floppy Drive, CD Burner and CD ROM to the
> mother board with ribbon cables
> 3. Connected the power supply cables to the Hard Drive, Floppy Drive,
> CD Burner and CD ROM
> 4. Turned on the power switch on the power supply
> 5. Turned on the front panel power switch
>
> At this point the CPU fan began spinning, but the motherboard would
> not boot - nothing would appear on the monitor screen.
>

> <snip>

>
> Again, the CPU fan began spinning but the motherboard would not boot -
> nothing would appear on the monitor screen.

Hey Tom,
I'd pretty much bet you blew the tiny power supply (300watt is just
TOO small nowadays). I've heard this problem numerous times. Just enough
power to drive the CPU fan, but nothing else.
Capacitors in the PSU probably blew when you put the extra load on it
(the drives, etc.) Sniff around the PSU and see if you detect a "burnt"
smell.

The cpu fan barely requires 5 watts, so even a blown PSU can trickle out
enough power to spin it. But that's it.
Try a new PSU (min 450watt IMHO) and see if that does it. If not, let
me know.

--
-*- Bubba -*-