gigabyte ga-7vaxp
 

I have a gigabyte ga-7vaxp board and an ati rage pro 128 video card
with a sempron 2600+ cpu.When I turn it on the fans start to turn and
the power led on the board lights up.I've tried a different power
supply and checked the power switch.I have no drives attached now but
did the same thing with them hooked up.Open for suggestions.

gigabyte ga-7vaxp
 

Are you getting the POST (Power On Self Test) bios beep when you power
the computer... this you will get even with the CD/DVD and hard drive
disconnected.

I will give a example, my mobo would POST boot ok but it would not
load the hard drive... kept asking for the disc, disc failure I
thought, still same when I borrowed another hard drive. As a last
resort I re-booted the bios by removing the battery, lo and behold
that cured the fault but everything in
the bios was set correctly including the time.

While the battery was out I checked it with a digital testmeter (don't
use the old pointer types - flatten the battery quicker you can shout
"boo"), it was down to 2.5 volts but it still worked ok, so
when the shops opened the next day I got a battery to be sure.

Was it the battery, a 'glitch' (a voltage spike) on the mains or a bug
I dunno, but been alright ever since.

Do note removing the bios will set the bios to it's default settings,
so if you take this route try and get into bios and try to take notes
of the settings..

Another cause maybe the graphic card, try re-inserting sometimes help,
could even be the power supply, these are the first thing I would
think about.

Just for the record.
One thing I did discover with mine was a couple of bad caps... as far
as I am aware this only applied to version 1 of this board, there are
two situated near the yellow socket 1200uF 6.3V (I used 1200uF 16V),
the tops was bulged, although the computer worked OK I decided to
change them to be on the safe side..... always use hi- temperature
types 105º C types, 125º C types are even better but are harder to
get they must be HF types with low ESR (Effective Series Resistance),
the gunge that they sometimes leak is very corrosive and will eat
away the copper circuit tracks. [b:98a3bf2707]Never use
standard types here.[/b:98a3bf2707]

As I understand these where changed in later versions, this only
applies to these Green Taiwan made caps in Version 1.

Just for an idea see-:
http://www.howtofixcomputers.com/bb/ftopic112758.html following the
links will show you what to look for.

Davy

gigabyte ga-7vaxp
 

It doesn't beep or even start to post so I can't enter bios.I removed
the battery and tried it,no difference.Haven't changed it or looked
at the cap. appreciate any other ideas. thanks.

gigabyte ga-7vaxp
 

May be check the bios battery, preferably by replacement, can you not
drop another power supply in just to confirm that this isn't the
fault.

The first goal is to get the bios to boot (you will get POST boot with
all the disc drives dis-connected hdd inc.), so look towards the bios
battery, power supply or graphic card, if possible check by
replacment all we are interested in is getting the mobo to boot.

Does the CPU fan feel's free and easy to turn.... if it's stiff it
could easily have damage the cpu by causing it to overheat
un-knowingly, but CPU's normally shut down with excess temperature's.


Also check the Northbridge fan, thats the one mounted flat on the gold
coloured heatsink on the mobo, this can become stiff, normally people
removed this fan and mount a larger passive heatsink on - just that I
was wondering if the Northbridge chip could have become damaged.

On a good mobo with no RAM installed you should get a series of beeps
(error code).

Note to reboot the bios, the battery needs to be removed for about 3~4
minutes, removing and re-inserting it 'may' not cause a bios reset.

Davy

gigabyte ga-7vaxp
 

I tried 2 different power supplies and changed the battery.I also
checked all the fans by putting them in pc's that are working fine
and had no problems.I took out all the ram and didn't get any
beeps,even changed the speaker and no diference.I tried an nvidia
video card but don't think it or my ati card are 8x only 2xor 4x.Does
it matter?THANKS!!

gigabyte ga-7vaxp
 

hardtimes wrote:
I tried 2 different power supplies and changed the battery.I also
checked all the fans by putting them in pc's that are working fine
and had no problems.I took out all the ram and didn't get any
beeps,even changed the speaker and no diference.I tried an nvidia
video card but don't think it or my ati card are 8x only 2xor 4x.Does
it matter?THANKS!!


CPU is toast???

gigabyte ga-7vaxp
 

It wasn't the cpu.I got an ep-8krai pro epox m/b that supports the
sempron cpu and everything works.I wondered if the bios on the
gigabyte m/b needed to be upgraded before it would support the
sempron cause I did find an upgrade at gigabyte for the sempron
cpu.Would like to know for sure.Thanks for all the help.

gigabyte ga-7vaxp
 

Sorry can't say, only ever used AMD's. Have a peep here, selecting the
relevant mobo series -:
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/M...yword=GA-7VAXP

Davy