Building a Core2 Duo system

What happens when you try to boot with a basic system (PSU, mobo, CPU, memory, video and keyboard only)?

Any parts you can swap (e.g. memory, video card)?

If it won't boot with a basic system, either you have another dud motherboard or one of the other basic components is faulty.

But firstly I personally never use ECS M'Boards I've had to fix plenty of computers with these M'Boards in them and it seems to be a matter of changing the M'Board till you get one to work and then hope for the best once it goes out the door. I've personally seen several of these M'Boards fail on a [b]Burn In Test.[/b] So unless they are UG at the time that I receive them I try to get the owner to purchase another brand M'Board.

Also I never fit anything into a case till I know that it's working so I bench test everything before I waste my time assembling something only to have to pull it apart when it doesn't work. All that is required here is to fit a CPU some RAM and a Video Card and a Power Supply and then start up the unit by shorting the Start Pins out. If it doesn't work I replace the M'Board with a known good one and try again. Or if I'm working with a unknown M'Board I test with known good components and generally with Base Line CPU's and RAM so I can first thing Flash the BIOS to the latest Available and then try it with the higher end products.

I personally only use Name Brand M'Boards like Gigabyte, ABit, ASUS or the like now days and even now I'm not using too many Gigabyte M'Boards mainly because the main wholesaler who I buy from no longer sells these and the fact that I had some problems with some of the original P4's on these M'Boards didn't help either. Having a 3 week old machine fail and then being told that I would have to wait anything up to 6 weeks to get a replacement M'Board doesn't sit well with me so I stopped using them at that point. Occasionally I'll use Intel M'Boards or Tyan personally I find that the Intel M'Boards are not all that great unless you are looking at a Server Board then they are very good but the Desktop Boards leave a lot to be desired. The Tyan's work a treat but at the upper end of the price market are not for everyone and again they make some excellent Server Boards that if anything are better than the Intel made boards.

But since you are stuck with the ECS M'Board see if they will at the very least Flash the BIOS to the Latest available maybe then you just might have a chance of it working. Depending on who you brought it from it's also possible that you have been sent a returned M'Board that didn't work and they are attempting to get rid of a problem M'Board in the hope that it will work for you. That's something that I've seen many times now with returned faulty M'Boards they pass of something that doesn't work properly because they can and secondly they make the person building the system believe that they don't know what it is that they are doing so when they get one that sort of works they stick to it and hope for the best.

But I would return it now and if you just must have another ECS M'Board keep hitting them till you get one that works and then hit it with one of the Burn In Testers for at least 100 Hours if it works properly for that length of time it's likely to keep working. But before you assemble anything test it out of the case to save you the time & effort of fitting it only to have to remove it latter and repack it to return it.

Col

Knew it wouldn't boot up.
Wanted to see what beep code errors I got.
Unfortunately didn't get any, which increased the mystery.

What they are saying is that that M'Board supports Core 2 Intel CPU's but not necessarily the CPU that you have bought. That may require a BIOS Update to support or at the very least work correctly.

I remember a M'Board that I bought several years ago now for a client that supported AMD CPU's and it worked a charm but for the first 2 months it caused the CPU Overheat Alarm to sound while it booted up. Immediately Windows Opened it stopped but it was a nuisance to say the least. The next BIOS Update cured the problem but for 2 months I had an [b]Old Woman[/b] constantly complaining that their new computer didn't work right. :D

I can't really blame them but when they [i]One of His Friends[/i] selected the components and just wanted it assembled it was my fault that the bits that they selected didn't work properly together. With a slower CPU it worked perfectly but with the CPU that he wanted it caused the Over Heat Alarm to Sound till the next BIOS Version was released. That was the first time that I've actually been sweating on something new to hit the streets. But eventually when it was working fine he forgot about the teething problems and now considers it as his [b]Big Computer[/b] when I've built latter a faster one for him as a backup system. I also get to chose the components so it makes life that much easier as well.

The problems with things like this is the rapid pace of development in CPU's by both Intel and AMD who are constantly trying to build better & Faster units on the same Die so sometimes things don't work quite right till you get the latest available BIOS though the older components still support that type of CPU they just may not support the latest version of that CPU till you get the BIOS Updated. The problems can range from something minor and annoying like an alarm sounding to the unit not actually working at all. Though to be honest with this brand of M'Board I would be looking at a faulty M'Board as the first option.

Col