CAN’T GET SABERTOOTH Z97 Mark 1 to even BOOT / POST ? … PLEASE HELP !

[LA_Kings_Fan]

OK, I need some help and answers …

I’m trying to help my friend build his computer, unfortunately he’s up in Washington state and I’m in California, so I don’t see if he’s doing things exactly as I describe to him, but he’s not an idiot and has helped build his last computer before, about six years ago … so I assume he’s following the basic instructions correctly, but he’s now on his THIRD Motherboard, 2nd CPU, and 2nd set of RAM … and he still can NOT get his build to seemingly boot / post properly ?

With just a basic bread board set-up ( PSU, MoBo, CPU and 1 stick RAM ) each time he’s got the Power light on MoBo to come on, the MoBo fans &/or Case fans to spin momentarily, but never stay on spinning, and none of the MoBo LED’s to ever come on issuing any Error messages or codes.

The first MoBo he sent back NewEgg confirmed his RMA saying yeah it was a defective board, the second he decided to just ask for an upgrade from the Sabertooth Mark 2 Z87 boards to a newer Sabertooth Mark 1 Z97 board. He returned the first sticks of Corsair RAM, for these newer Corsair Vengeance Pro RAM that we made sure this time were on ASUS’s QVL for the MoBo, and since there was a risk our attempts at a BiOS flash upgrade may not worked, I bought and shipped him a Basic Celeron CPU that should bypass the need for any BiOS update to run the Devils’ Canyon i5 refresh chip. But alas, he powered it up last night and same damn thing, power light comes on, fans spin for a second and then off, and nothing … like somehow it’s only getting a temporary burst of power but not enough to ever boot / post !

It’s to the point I’ve considered sending him $100 or $200 to take it into a local computer shop and have them build it for him, but he’s a proud guy and won’t take that, and want’s to get this build up himself … so any advice ? or is he just so unlucky that he’s got THREE DOA Asus Sabertooth motherboards from NewEgg in a row ?


Spec’s of the Build ;

MoBo – ASUS SABERTOOTH Z97 MARK 1 LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132124

Planned 24/7 CPU – INTEL Core i5-4690K Devil's Canyon Quad-Core 3.5GHz LGA 1150 #BX80646I54690K Processor w/ Intel HD Graphics 4600
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117372
Start-Up Assist Only CPU – INTEL Celeron G1840 Haswell Dual-Core 2.8GHz LGA 1150 #BX80646G1840 Processor w/ Intel HD Graphics
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117301

CPU Cooler – CORSAIR Hydro Series H100 #CWCH100 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181038

RAM Memory – CORSAIR Vengeance Pro 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133 Memory Model #CMY8GX3M2A2133C11R
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233528

PSU – SEASONIC's X-750 750W 80 Plus Gold Atx12V / Eps12V Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4CP1GG2143

Case – CORSAIR Carbide Series 500R Arctic White Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Gaming Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139010

GPU – EVGA GTX 750 Ti FTW Edition 2GB #02G-P4-3757-KR G-SYNC Support GeForce 128-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 w/ ACX Cooling Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487028

HDD / SSD – Seagate 500 GB from old, new WD 1 TB and Crucial 120 GB SSD … but doesn’t matter, he’s never got the system to BOOT to even connect them YET.

OS – Win 8 Pro … but doesn’t matter, never got system to BOOT to even LOAD it on new SSD YET.

[Chino]

Three DOAs in a row? Not likely. He probably overlooked something or another piece of equipment is defective. Have him confirm that he's connecting the 8 pin power cable to the motherboard header at the top left.