GA-H61N-USB3 - no POST, loop

[Dark Mantis]

I was going to just pull the CPU and look into that, but on a hunch I decided to try a graphics card first. Up until now I have only been using the on-board gfx (or trying to!).
So I nicked mf GFs PSU and dug up an old 8800 card and dropped it in and hey presto I can now POST and get to the bios on every single attempt.

Just check if this http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic,7701.0.html is a similar situation, solved using a single-rail bigger PSU (as already absic suggested). In my opinion, the 400W PSU that you tried may not be strong enough.

I would tend to agree with this as in my view the 200W requirement from the manual is ridiculous. I would say a minimum of 500W of a decent make and model would be safer.

[Urk]

I hear what you are saying, to be honest I am not used to working in this form factor, if this was one of my usual high end gaming rig builds then I would be more comfortable. This is my first ever small pc!

So in my innocence I relied on the Thermaltake PSU calculator for advice.
http://www.thermaltake.outervision.com/Power

I’ll reiterate the parts:

GA-H61N-usb3 (mini-itx board)
i32120 (with stock fan)
OZC vertex SSD
2X2G DDR3
No GFX card
No optical drive

That’s it, that is all there is to power and Thermaltake, whose PSU I am using recommend 141W for that little lot.

Are these power calculators any good at all then? Does anyone actually trust them and if not how do you reliably work out how much power you need other than pulling high numbers out of the air and picking a known brand?

It may turn out that I do need to get another PSU if this one aint up to it when I start actually using it, but I need to keep things small and I have looked and not found many (if any) small form factor GOOD PSUs….
Recommendations are most welcome!


Anyway, as I was saying before I realised I had another reply…. :-)

Thanks guys but I think I have pretty much cracked it now.

After I manually set the QPI/vtt voltage to be in synch with my memory voltage it got past post and to a boot attempt every go. From there I updated the bios with no problem.
Then I disconnected the GPU card and tried on-board gfx which also now suddenly worked (haven’t been back the GPU voltage, haven’t changed it either). Then I switched back to my 220W PSU and I was still in business!

So (touch wood) I think I might be ok from here on in, hardware wise.


I am having install issues with Ubuntu (actually XBMC live but it’s based on Ubuntu) which I’ll mention here just in case, but I’ll probably need to go elsewhere for at least some of it..

Problem the first is that I want to use AHCI, but my install method calls for booting from and installing from USB stick. When I use AHCI the installer crashes almost straight away. Should I be able to use AHCI and a ‘normal’ usb drive?
If I use IDE mode the installer does run…. But….

…the second problem is that it then gets to the partitioner and then hangs half way through starting it up. If I try booting the same ISO from a sata optical drive I can use AHCI, but then the partitioner still hangs!

Thanks for all the input guys I do appreciate it.

Rob

[Dark Mantis]

Cool! Sounds like you have got it cracked now then. So I was right about the QPI/Vtt being very low. Lucky it didn't damge the controller.

[Urk]

Yep, nice one DM that was the key that got things going.

Many thanks
Rob