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Originally Posted by dustinwadams5  Do the standoffs cause a short by being screwed in too tight or what? and thanks for the helpful advice. |
Not to the case...the mobo tot the standoff.
Some motherboards are just not designed to use them all or are designed for round standoffs or the tolerance for lining them all up is slim so the standoff will short out a run on the mobo keeping it from posting (starting up). Sometimes the screws used to fix the motherboard to the standoffs on the top side are at fault.
Square headed screws with a corrogated under-surface are the most common computer screw, but should never be used as motherboard mounting screws. The smaller round smooth-headed screws should be used for this purpose to avoid grinding into the mobo and lessoning the chance of shorting a run on top. The motherboards these days aren't very forgiving and lack little in the way of extra clearnce around the mounting holes- on the top and especially on the bottom.
I have found it to be a common cause of PC's failing to post, especially in newly built scenarios.
Have you tried to get it to post outside the case? Here is what I do in this case; reduce the system to the minimum configuration OUTSIDE THE CASE. Lay the motherboard on something plastic, an insulator- not the foam sheet that comes with the motherboard as this is actually a conductive material. Then, with the processor installed, powersupply connected, one memory chip, and a speaker attached (no drives, no add-in cards) attempt to start the motherboard by shorting the two pins marked PWR on the multi connector. If you have trouble locating the correct pins, look at the motherboard manual in the first chapter.
You should get beeps....if you do get the beeps, this indicates logic from BOIS. If you do not get any beeps, reseat the CPU and try again. IF you still don't get any beeps then you may indeed have a bad mobo.
If that works proceed in adding memory and then add a video card (in seperate steps) and see if you get posting video.
If that works, then proceed in adding other add in cards and connecting the drives, ADDING ONE DEVICE AT A TIME.
Unless you've had a pro diagnose this and they've tried all this stuff, I would try to resist the diagnosis that the mobo is bad. If your replacement comes and you have the same results, I'd get a pro to help you look at other possibilities. The possible causes for a mobo not posting can be difficult to nail down.