No announcement yet.

Asrock x58 Extreme + Xeon X5660 won't post

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Asrock x58 Extreme + Xeon X5660 won't post

    Hi,
    I tried everything on the won't post troubleshooting checklistlist but my sytem won't post. The diagnostic Led (DR. Bios) shows error 68 and the screen stays blank.

    Motherboard : ASrock x58 Extreme
    CPU : Xeon X 5660
    RAM : Samsung DDR3-800 2gb x3
    GPU : AMD Radeon RX480 8gb Ref


    The system was working fine with an i7 920 but not with the Xeon. Looking at my motherboard's FAQ, it tells me that error 68 is a chipset error and to clear the cmos which is what I did by setting the clear cmos jumper appropriately, removing the battery and waiting 8 hours but still no luck.

    Here is a recap of all the steps I took to isolate the error.
    -I took the mb out of the case to rule out any short circuit.
    -I only connected the CPU, RAM and GPU to rule out any sata or usb error
    -I double checked that the 12V ATX on the motherboard is connected
    -I cleared cmos with the clear cmos button and by using the jumper + battery removal and waiting overnight
    -I tried without ram and it would beep so the PSU seems to work.
    -I tried with just 1 RAM stick in each dimm slot

    So I m thinking that
    1) either the cpu is dead (I bought it second hand and the seller affirms it s working fine, he is a prefoessional specialized in used pc parts with a lots of positive review so I don t think he would lie). The cpu might have been damaged during shipping or because of my mishandling during installation. I was careful and didn't touch the pins and put it genlty in place but who knows
    2) the motherboard is not compatible with the xeon, which is not officially supported but I read numerous reports on the net that it still works .
    3) the ram is not supported by the xeon because it s too slow (DDR3-800)? That would be strange. I bought a 16gb set anyways because I wanted to upgrade from 6gb. I ll try these too. First with one stick only in each slot.

    So my last hope is is that I read that sometimes, putting back the i7 920 and resetting everything in the bios then swapping back the xeon seems to make the xeon work. I would have thought that clearing the cmos would have the same effect but who knows. I d rather avoid taking out the Xeon if someone has another suggestion because I don t want to mess with the thermal paste.

    Also if anyone has a story of Xeon NOT working with an X58 I would be interested to know their error code. If it s the same as me at least I ll know that it is 100% because my motherboard is not compatible and have peace of mind.

    I wouldn't have thought that getting in the X58 Xeon club was so hard!

    Any feedback is appreciated!
Working...
X