Tyan Thunder K7 won't POST

[NTguru]

Here's the bottom line, it simply won't POST when I start it, this is the specifications.

-Tyan Thunder K7
-2x 1.53 Athlon MP
-2x Crucial 512MB Registered DDR + 2x Mushkin 512MB Registered DDR RAM
-Asus V8200 Geforce 3
-Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum
-Tekram U360 SCSI Controller card
-Adaptec 2100S SCSI Raid controller card (32 meg cache, 128 meg stick wouldn't POST either! w/ 4 device 68 pin Cable terminated)
-2x Quantum Atlas10k SCSI 36.4GB HD
-Plextor UltraWide 40x SCSI CD-ROM
-Plextor PlexWrite 12x/10x/32x SCSI CD-RW Burner (50 pin with Startech 50-68 pin adapter[terminated])
-3x Delta 80mm 68CMF fans
-Sunon 120mm 109CFM fan
-2x Thermalright SK-6 w/ 80mm fan adapter using Delta 80mm 68CFM fans
-Panasonic 1.44 3.5" Floppy drive with 32" floppy cable (the Tyan Thunder K7 has the floppy connector at the bottom of the board and my floppy goes on top of the tower case)
-In-Win 500 Full tower server case w/ Delta 460W AMD approved Power supply.

Ok, enough with the specs, time to move on to what I did, and now what its doing. (Which is nothing)
I finally put up and booted the system for the first time friday and I've been working hard on getting it working, with no success. I turned it on and setup my Raid to use my 2 quantum drives in RAID-0, I then went into the Tekram bios setup to make sure it was setup properly and it was. Next thing I did was go into the main BIOS and disabled IDE, changed the AGP memory and boot order options so CD-ROM was first in line. I then put in my Windows 2000 Professional CD in my CD-ROM and booted from it correctly, I hit F6 on load up and then put in my tekram and adaptec floppy's in and it seemed to detect them correctly. I partionion my disk to make 1 partion and then formated it (in the blue screen, not FDISK as DOS cannot see my SCSI card or support RAID). It then copied all files to the HD (phase one: dos copying). After that it booted and started detecting PNP items. When it hits the section where it adds start menu items it prompted me 3 times for the Windows 2000 CD, which it was already in there, it went th
rough copying those fine after hiting ok, then the next step went fine (registering components), but when it came to saving settings it froze mid way (the mouse would still move and numlock on KB worked, but it wouldn't save anymore... and I left it there for 2 hours). I then decided to try and reboot the system and retry that section, but this time it froze up 1/4th the way on the same step. so I thought I would try again... but this time it couldn't detect my cd-rom anymore so I had to restart the whole installation.

I then restarted the installation by formating the partition and copy the dos files back onto the HD, but this time it gave me a blue screen of death half way done copying, so I said to myself "uh oh", and I then tried the same thing again 2 more times giving me the same error. I tried removing the sound card and geforce and then use the built-in video card and it still did the same thing. So I then thought of trying Windows XP, and this one gave me the same error, except this one got to 98% done copying files until the BSOD came up. I then tried windows 2000 again, but this time it wouldn't boot off the Cd-rom or floppy, it said IO disk error, so I tried getting a new set of floppy disks and it said the exact same thing, so I tried using a known good floppy drive and it still gave me the same error. I then went into the BIOS to re-enable IDE and then rebooted the system and turned it off to unhook the tekram and raid card so that I had no peripherals causing any havok. I plugged in my known good Pioneer 16x
DVD-ROM drive and tried booting from that and it still said IO disk error, so I took out the IDE CD-ROM and put the tekram and raid card back in and tried booting up and it wouldn't turn on or POST. So I unplugged the floppy drive from the board thinking this is what was causing the problem because of the IO disk error, so sure enough I unplug it and turn it on and it POST's and boots up, but I wanted to go into setup to disable IDE because I have no need for it. It went through the POST for both the raid card and tekram and then it froze up on entering setup for the BIOS, so I had no choice but to reboot it and try again, but this time I got into the BIOS setup and then went down a few options down to disk type support and hit enter to view the available options and it froze right in the BIOS, so once again I had no choice but to reboot and try again, but it wouldn't POST this time. So I unplugged the tekram and raid card and tried again, but it still wouldn't POST. I then unplugged the extra fans and hard d
rive power outlets and cd-rom's thinking it was sucking up too much juice, but it still wouldn't boot or POST. What I mean by not booting or POST'ing is that there is no video or keyboard responce. I then looked in the Tyan Thunder K7 manual and found out that jumper J21 to reset the CMOS battery is supposed to be defaulted on 1-2 for normal, but my board was defaulted at 2-3 for clear. So I decided to try to put it back to 1-2 were it should be and then bring it to 2-3 for 3 seconds back to 1-2 to reset the CMOS (Keep in mind that the computer was completely unplugged, video, mouse, kb and power as the manual suggests) and it still would not POST. I then though maybe the board was shorting out (which wouldn't explain why it worked before but ok, I still tried it) I removed several mounted screws from the back panel and it still wouldn't POST (as I thought it wouldn't).

And that's where I am now... Stuck in limbo not knowing what else I could try. I think I received a lemon (a dud board), but that's just my professional opinion.

If anyone has any comments or know what else I could try I would be glad to hear them out.

P.S I am at work right now and I have planned to try to remove the 4 sticks of ram and use only 1 processor to see if it will post, if not then I will ask for an RMA from the OEM I got it from unless someone else has any other suggestions as to what else I can do.

 

[Pabster]

Thunder K7 allows only 6 banks of RAM. Likely with those 4 sticks, you're populating 8 banks. Try removing one DIMM and see if that does the trick.

 

[acidtear]

Btw, what case do you got (just curious)



and, nice setup btw.

 

[NTguru]

Pabster, this would not explain why it worked at first and now it will not POST at all. In either case like I said in my post, once I get back from work tonight I will try using 1 stick of ram to see if it will POST, but if it doesn't then I will replace the motherboard.

Acidtear, its an IW-Q500 with a 120mm fan hole at the top for my Sunon fan.

 

[Dually]

Try the Crucial Ram only then the other stuff.

 

[NTguru]

At first glance, when I put the pc together I thought the ram "could" cause a conflict seeing how they are from different manufacturor's, so that's the first thing I am checking when I get back from work, so my post indicated
If however, this does not fix it, then I will keep you guys posted... In either case I'll let ya'll know how it turns out

 

[Pariah]

Whether or not the RAM is the problem, I would strongly suggest returning the Crucial memory and getting something else. There is an apparent known conflict between Tyan AMD SMP MB's and Crucial RAM. I have had all sorts of memory errors with the Crucial I have and plan on requesting an RMA tomorrow and getting something else.

Just to add, I would recommend getting something on Tyan's recommended list, note that Crucial is not on it:
Tyan

Here's some more info on the Crucial situation:

What Tyan says
What Crucial says

 

[NTguru]

Only time will tell in my case, but this might not even fix the problem. In either case, I won't go out like you and get an RMA on the crusial ram until I myself know its the one at fault for any problems.
My 2 cents

 

[NTguru]

Just wanted to let ya'll know that I figured out what the problem was. I took out my case fan to pull the case back lid a little bit to look at the ram, because I was going to try to use just one and then I noticed that the data cable that goes from my audigy livebay to sound card had been caught in one of the ram modules and it seemed to have dislodged it a little bit so I then made sure they were seated in properly. I then decided "what the hell", and turned on the pc and it POST'ed and booted up, but I didn't have the keyboard plugged in this time, so I had to turn it off again to plug in the keyboard. Once plugged in, I went into the BIOS (yes it allowed me to enter it this time) and then moved around and disabled IDE once again (the BIOS was reset by the CMOS reset jumper that I had done earlyer). I then turned around to look at my laptop for 15 seconds and then went back to my computer and it was frozen there, so I thought "Uh oh, not again". The computer was still turned on, and as I was bringing my hand towards the mid bar of my case I noticed the fan on one of the heatsinks wasn't blowing any air, so I turned off the computer, fastenned and checked the power connectors (mind you none of them seemed loose) and then turned on the computer again. It hasn't been giving me any problems up to date, I am currently formatting the partition for Windows 2000 and about to begin installation.

 

[rmblam]

Good deal. I was just about to suggest you strip it to bare bones, yank the RAM and reseat it (especially the middle of each stick), and try again.

You are not the only user to have issues with the seating of RAM on those boards. It has been a common problem so far it seems.

I have the Tiger with 1 gig of crucial RAM (4 x 256mb) without issue.

 

[XMan]

Thunder K7 allows only 6 banks of RAM. Likely with those 4 sticks, you're populating 8 banks. Try removing one DIMM and see if that does the trick.

Not if they're registered, which they are.

 

[Pabster]

Xerox Man wrote:

"Not if they're registered, which they are."

According to Tyan, Registered are the only modules supported. And the 6 bank limitation stands.

 

[NTguru]

I'm still having problems with it not POST'ing. It was not the RAM or CPU issue. Something is either fried or not getting enough ventilation (which I can't figure out how this would be possible). I finally had Windows 2000 actually installed last night and had WinAmp playing tunes... but when I wanted to try to run 3dMark2001 it would give me a BSOD when I loaded up the program. So I then decided to install Quake 3, and it would give me another BSOD mid way through installing the game. So I tried rebooting, installing all microsoft updates and still nothing would help it. It came to the point where Win2k wouldn't boot anymore and give me a BSOD right away, so I tried re-installing it. I formated it and tried installing it again, but this time it stopped 1/3 through the dos file copy and said it couldn't copy or locate the file... I hit enter a few times and re-entered the CD-ROM and still nothing worked so I had to ESC out of the file and it did it for every single file so I cancelled setup. I went to reboot and it wouldn't POST. I tried the same thing I did yesterday, checked for loose cabling, ram lodging and its still not booting. Once again, I am confused on the BIOS setting because apparently it was set on 2-3 again... 2-3 is clear, 1-2 is normal. I have it normal right now and its not booting. Could it be a Tyan ERRETA? Anyway, I am going to try to do a few more things.

 

[NTguru]

I finally got the system to boot up. One of the fans for the CPU was giving connection problems, so I replaced it and now its working fine. I then installed Windows 2000 and received a few dozen BSOD's so I removed the sound blaster audigy and now it works fine, but I'll try to put the audigy in another pci slot tonight to see if it still works.