Tom's new build not quite working out...

[thomas.l.murphy]

Afternoon all,

Frustrated with a new build that is not quite working out. I was initially getting a red CPU-LED light and no boot but now nothing. Here are the specs:

Intel i7 2011 3820
Corsair H70 Watercooling block
Asus P9 x79 Pro
2x intel 520 120GB SSD (Planning RAID 0)
Asus GTX 680
2x 8gb Corsair Vengeance 1866Mhz
2x Seagate Barracuda 1TB - System drives (Planning RAID 0)
1x 3TB Seagate backup drive
Bluray drive
Iiyama Prolite 24" monitor
850W Power Supply (Corsair I think)

I am using an old full tower system case which is well up to the job as it has plenty of space and is ATX.

I took out all the old components apart from the power supply, installed the new mobo and mounted all the hard drives in their respective slots.

CPU installed with 'triangle" in correct corner. No sign of any bent pins. Waterblock installed using socket 2011 mounting plate. No rear plate needed according to instructions thankfully. Plugged in to CPU fan header. Two cables spare and not plugged in but I believe these relate to the Corsair fan speed management system they are planning on releasing.

Two RAM sticks installed in the bays suggested in the manual.

Graphics card installed in top PCI-E slot as instructed by manual.

Two Intel SSD's connected to RAID SATA 6 ports. Two HDD's connected to RAID SATA 3 ports. Backup drive and Bluray connected to SATA 6 ports. All HDD/SSD/Bluray power connected.

Only had a 6-pin so plugged that in to CPU power. ATX mobo power plugged in. Power supply cable in and turned on - Power (red) and Reset (green) LED's on mobo come on. No boot. Nothing spinning/pumping. Plugged CPU power out and attempted boot; GPU fan spins. HDD's spin. Waterblock is vibrating slightly so I am assuming that this is pumping but no boot. Tried 6+2 pin power to CPU but nothing even spins.

Bought an 8 pin and 4 pin adapter from MOLEX from Maplin yesterday. Tried 8 pin first and now HDD/GPU/waterblock are not even starting when I use either. Nothing happens with 4 pin and now nothing happens when I plug all power out from CPU.

I have re-seated CPU and waterblock - no pins bent as far as I can see. GPU has gone out and back in again and still nothing.

I have also flashed the bios and tried to boot with only one RAM stick.

Any troubleshootingn ideas are gratefully received.

Thanks,

Tom

[mroilfield]

Considering the amount of hardware you have and the fact that nothing worked when it was all hooked up but somethings worked when you unplugged some stuff are you sure you have a powerful enough power supply?

[thomas.l.murphy]

Fair point.

It is an 850W power supply so unless the power supply is not working it should be more than enough.

Quoting: http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-680/specifications

"Minimum System Power Req (W) - 550W"

Any ideas on how to test whether the PSU is working?

Thanks for your response.

[mroilfield]

You need to go off more then just the power requirements for the GPU. I am not exactly sure how to tell what your power requirements are but considering the amount of hardware you have there I feel fairly safe to say the PSU you are currently using isn't adequate.

If you know some one that has a higher wattage PSU you can borrow for testing purposes that will give you a place to start. Otherwise just wait a little bit and I am sure one of the more experienced hardware members will be along.

[hartbeatmr]

Good morning thomas.l.murphy

I was going thru the posts and seen this how did you ever make out with this system

I can tell you from past experience Intel's UEFI and solid state drive and be a royal pain even on retailed Intel MoBo's I am in no way picking on a great company like Asus I love there products.

I see from your post you are going to run 2 SSD in raid 0 and 2 seagate 1TB raid 0 again (for OS drives)

I would remove the 2 SSD and the 3 TB backup drive and leave the OS drives in place set that raid up and then install the OS and if that installs OK then put the 3TB drive back in and if all goes well again plug in and set up the last raid set on the SSD's

The last time I had a UEFI Intel MoBo I just went to there site DL the BIOS and thought all would be good I was wrong. I had to call Intel and the BIOS had to be flashed in certain fashion.  If the above doesn't help you get going you too may be calling tech support at Asus so they can instruct you on the proper BIOS upgrade steps. The one thing I can say about Intel's UEFI bios update takes forever and is not quick like the older BIOS's were we would DL and install the BIOS update and 1-2 min later be all done these take awhile to flash.

For the power supply test you can buy a ATX LCD tester for like 23$ well worth the investment. 

Also I would take the MoBo out of the case plug in memory, HD, video card,KB and mouse and fire it up see if it works or not. The MoBo may be shorting out on the case some where. Or maybe the MoBo is not getting a good solid ground connection thru the stand-offs / mounting posts 

I would be very interested what our fix was versus what my issues were. Mike   

Please don't take this the wrong way I am not trying to be wise guy at all I am just passing on my 2 cents on to you to help you.       

[thomas.l.murphy]

Turns out that the Power Supply WAS faulty. Thanks for the suggestion.

A friend took it to work where he was able to test it.

A new PSU has been purchased and installed and now I cannot seem to find the correct driver, now that I have set up the RAID 0 array for the system driver, to install the OS..

Again, any help gratefully received. 

Tom

[thomas.l.murphy]

Mike (hartbeatmr).

Thanks for your input.

I think I may be having one of the problems that you described below.

I replaced the power supply and got a 1000W one. Seems to be working well so far.

The issue that I am having now is locating the driver which allows the OS install to see the RAID array which is sucessfully set up using the Intel Storage Technology ports on the mobo. If I cannot find this then I cannot proceed with the install!

I have not flashed the BIOS yet but have not needed to.

Cheers,

Tom

[hartbeatmr]

Good afternoon thomas.l.murphy

I am happy to hear the issue was just a PS that is great.

OK hopefully I type this out correct so it sounds right (and i am not being a wise guy )

The Raid array also has to be set up in the BIOS and once it is enabled in the BIOS there is a raid array set up (i.e and example would be like during the boot hit "F11" to set up the raid configuration) say if you want raid 0 you would set that up in the config. (I know you said that you are set with this!)

Then during the windows set up you want the raid drivers. But please remember the raid driver will depend on which raid controller you are using. Your MoBo has 3 sata controllers (Intel® X79, Marvell® PCIe 9128 controller & ASMedia® ASM1061 controller). The controllers firmware is written for Intel but does not mean the driver will be labeled as Intel? The raid drivers should be in a folder on the CD that came with the board.

But what ever one / set you decide to use for raid make sure they are plugged in the correct port you want and you are using the correct drivers for that controller. Oh ya a couple of sata ports you have are e-sata and not reg sata! the e-sata ports by the manual are "green".   

I hope you don't run into a problem setting a raid array using SSD for the OS but it has been happening a lot with that BIOS. When i have set up the PC's using SSD's "Raid"(for OS) the OS would sometimes install but would do 1 of 2 things. 1 not see the raid or 2 would not install the OS it would just stall during the set up. So far every time I have had that happen is when the BIOS would have to be flashed.

Boy I hope I am putting this down in writing the correct way to get the point I am trying to make.

Hope this helps, Mike

PS once again, NICE rig 

[thomas.l.murphy]

Mike,

Thanks for your input. Your comment is greatly appreciated and you do not come across sounding like a "wiseguy" so not to worry.

I have set the BIOS to enable RAID and I have tried the install using both the Intel and Marvell RAID controllers. They are the top two and bottom two SATA ports on the board respectively.

I believe the issue I am having is locating the correct driver (64-bit) on the Asus motherboard driver disk to allow the Win 7 install to recognise the RAID array.

I have left it alone now for about a week as it is really starting to annoy me. I will flash the BIOS tonight to the latest version and see if that helps!

Thanks for the comments on the rig. It will be an awesome one when it is up and running!

Cheers.

T

[thomas.l.murphy]

OK.

I cannot seem to get any of the RAID controllers working so I have set up the machine with Windows 7 64 bit Ultimate install and everything is working an absolute treat. I do have an extra SSD hanging around though!

Windows Performance Index or whatever the scoring system is rates the machine at 7.7 which is being held back by two 7.7 scores for processor and RAM. A bit of tweaking in the future should sort that out.

If anyone knows how to set the RAID up then do drop me a message.

Cheers,

T

[hartbeatmr]

Good morning thomas.l.murphy and welcome back

I have been going through the manual for your MoBo and the raid set up is pretty straight forward and the manual is very nicely written

How are going to load the drivers for the raid controller "Floppy" or USB thumb drive?

If you are going to use a USB floppy don't forget to put the floppy drive ID on to the floppy disk in the text file.

If you are going to use a USB thumb drive just put the DVD drive in and look in the middle top of the main menu for "Make Disk Menu" this will make the Raid / AHCI drivers.

Also looking at the manual the (non-opitcal) raid drives should be plugged into the 2 left hand side (Grey) sata ports going off the manual (E1 & E2) the driver you will be looking for this set is the "Marvell 91xx Sata Controller"

Then build the raid array in the bios.
Plug in the USB thumb drive (I am assuming you are using a thumb drive) and put the W7 disk in and
1. During the OS installation, click Load Driver to allow you to select the installation media containing the RAID driver.
2. Insert the USB flash drive with RAID driver into the USB port or the support DVD into the optical drive, and then click Browse.
3. Click the name of the device you’ve inserted, go to Drivers > RAID, and then select the RAID driver for the corresponding OS version. Click OK.
4. Follow the succeeding screen instructions to complete the installation.

Then when it is done you should be able to continue the W7 install and all should be good.

Now if you want to build any other raid set's you can do them now. Just remember the driver you will need has to match what sata ports that you plugged the drives into. So lets say the next set you want to use is the Intel ports then you will need the IRST driver for that raid set

Also it is totally up to you but the system drives you may want to set for raid 1 (mirroring) this way if you loose a HD (goes bad) you buy another HD and tell the raid array to rebuild it self no OS installation needed. I know that you bought the HD's in pairs so you raid 0 for performance but this was just a thought that if you run raid 1 you have redundancy (no down time).

Hopefully this helps you, Mike

PS When ever I build a system I always start with the lowest port number (0 & 1 or 1 & 2) for the OS then add from there.

Also just in case this may help you on deciding on what raid you want http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2010/08/raid-levels-tutorial/