And then, all at once, nothing. Sort of. (A computer story)

Odinious

My brother attempted to build his own computer, and failed miserably. He assembled everything and it failed to produce any video signal. I discovered the root of his initial problem: he bought a motherboard (Foxconn 915A01-P-8EKRS2) that wasn't compatible with the Intel Core 2 Duo he was attempting to use. At least that's what I found on Wikipedia.

So, while in the process of returning the original mobo, he bought a Jetway 775GT4-G thinking that that would work with the C2D. So this time we reassemble everything, and then the fans power up and... nothing. No video signal, no beeps, nothing. The fans continue to run.

I am at my wit's end. I have a couple questions for you guys. Did the first motherboard provide the incorrect voltage to the processor and burn it out? Is the new motherboard even compatible with the Core 2 Duo? Is the video card bad? Is the RAM bad? I don't know, and we welcome your suggestions.

PC Stats
Case: COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW
New Mobo: Jetway 775GT4-G
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6300
Video Card: BFG Tech Geforce 7900GS 256MB
Power Supply: COOLER MASTER eXtreme Power RP-650-PCAR 650W
RAM: BUFFALO Firestix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory

Sony DVD Drive
Seagate Barracuda 320GB SATA hard drive

Yikes.

Mothercruncher

These things can be fragile. If everything looks right and nothing is still hapenning. Then he probably bricked it. I'd return the processor ASAP anyway. Get it replaced.

robaal

I don't think that motherboard supports Core 2 Duos either. Getting any information on it is fairly hard, but newegg shows 3 motherboards based on the Intel version of the nforce4, and 2 of them don't list C2Ds as compatible, and the one that is, is and expensive SLI x16 ASUS 'board.

The memory might also be incompatible, theoretically, it should just work at the motherboard-supported DDR2-667, but the automatic settings might still be wrongly detected.


You can still try reseating the RAM modules, video card and possibly CPU and power connections, which would be the most likely cause if everything is compatible.


Motherboards that are pretty much guaranteed to work with C2Ds are based on the 965-series of Intel chipsets and the new nforce 650i and 680i motherboards. I think you can get some decent P965 motherboards for ~$100; Anandtech liked the Biostar.
If you want a lower price then some 945-based motherboards should also work.


I don't think that the CPU is dead - Prescotts seem to use 1,6V max, and some people run overclocked C2Ds at such voltages, so it shouldn't kill it.

Odinious

That's what I was afraid of. The guys at the store where we bought the second motherboard said that it would work with the C2D and that we could bring it back if we found that it wasn't the right one. Details were sketchy on it, but all I found out afterward was that it had the nForce4 chipset, which didn't have C2D compatibility across the line.

Well, thanks. This is why I make the computer decisions around here!