Z77a-G45 - Won't light, No boot, Nothing

[TonyS.]

Hi everyone. I purchased the z77a-g45 maybe 2 1/2 years ago, and only used it maybe 9 months. The whole pc was unhooked, and placed into a closet, as i was moving. yesterday, i broke everything out now that im in my new house, hooked everything up, hit power, nothing.

i pulled everything out of the case this morning, and paper clip tested the power supply. fan spins, so thats not it. i hooked just the 21 pin power up to the board to see if i could get lights or something, and nothing. the power supply fan doesnt spin when plugged into the board, either.

iare there any other ways to test to see if this board is dead? i cant imagine it is, because it was used lightly, and for a pretty short time. it did sit for over a year, but it was inside a house. any help would be appreciated.

 

[badboy2k]

ok what have you tried exactly?

how did you start the board when you had it out the case?

also please list your system specs by following ths >>Posting Guide<<

 

[TonyS.]

Ive only tried to get it to show any signs of life, whatsoever. its out of the case, laying next to it, with the front case power,etc plugged in. nothing worked in the case, but it was just easier to see outside of the case. ive pulled the ram, removed the battery, unplugged and replugged everything.

is it possible to start the mobo without a case power button? could be the case, its old.

specs:
i5-2500k
hd 6670
4gb ddr3 gskill
z77a-g45
xfx 550 watt core edition
60gb crucial ssd

 

[badboy2k]

put the ram back in and connect the 24 and 8 or 4 pin power connections then:

unplug the power button and just touch the pins where the power button connects with the tip of a screw driver!

you just need a brief contact between the pins to see if it works (touching the pins with a screwdriver is very common to do with the board out a case where you have no power button (a power button is a momentary switch = connects while depressed and once you let go it breaks the connection))

 

[TonyS.]

good news and bad news. it was the power button on the case. i had to boot to bios, after crashing to the blue screen 4 times, while trying to load windows. bios reads the mobo of course, the processor, the hd.

i dont know where to go from here. tried to boot into safe mode, last good settings, and it crashes to the blue error screen that says "if this the first time youve seen this, you may have a virus etc" theres no virus. damn. i dont even know what to try now.

can i jump the reset the same way as the power button? i need a way to get around the bsod without hard powering off the psu.

 

[badboy2k]

as its been stood a while check the time and date is correct.

as you removed the battery on the board earlier go into BIOS and make sure your drive mode is correct and is the same as you installed the OS under!

(you can do the same with reset button if needed as they are the same type switch!)

 

[TonyS.]

how do i find out what drive mode its in? im trying to figure out how to change the date and time, as well.

**fixed the date and time. Tried to load windows, crashes to same error. I moved the hd to the first in line for boot sequence, but that didnt help.

 

[badboy2k]

whatever mode the drive is in like IDE-AHCI-RAID (typically IDE-AHCI are the 2 normals)

to get at drive mode as it may have defaulted to the wrong one so it will be reading your OS as gibberish like it was damaged by a virus so go int the bios by pressing delete:

now go to settings
go into Advanced
Integrated Peripherals
SATA Mode

if its in AHCI try IDE and Vies-versa then save and retry to boot !

let me know how it goes!

 

[TonyS.]

That's it! SATA mode was set to AHCI, and needed to be IDE. Booted right up, super fast, just like I remember. I can't believe this thing was able to be brought back from the dead. lol

**Side question. What's the difference between AHCI and IDE? Is there a difference for ssds?

 

[badboy2k]

that's good to hear! (seen that problem many times before of wrong drive mode so I suspected it as when you removed the CMOS battery you wiped the settings to default and was more then likely wrong and so it was BSODing as the data it was reading looked like it was corrupted by a virus as it was in the wrong format)

AHCI is a little better for a SSD as it will allow for the use of TRIM "allows the OS to delete files that are no longer in use ever and is a SSD thing to allow it to be basically cleaned of Fragmented data as a SSD can't be defraged in windows without it getting damaged and will slow over time as the cells will start to fail if standard defrag is used (TRIM is a computer based algorithm for TRASH REMOVAL to keep the data structure clean and fast without the need of de fragmenting)" and will make its Read/Write speed more consistent over time and more stable so it doesnt get slower and slower (NOTE if you want to use AHCI you need to format the drive and start over again from scratch so back up anything important to a external USB HDD first and then change drive mode to AHCI and reinstall the OS)

so yes there is a difference regarding IDE and AHCI. IDE is more meant for traditional Hard drives and Older OS's like windows XP (a SSD on XP will not allow AHCI without special drivers and doesn't support TRIM), AHCI is more for SSD's on windows 7 (SP1 and on Support TRIM) and newer (8, 8.1 and 10) as then you can use TRIM!