[P6N SLI Platinum] black screen NO BOOT after D-bracket replug [RMA-SOLVED]

Question

Quick setup specs;
P6N SLI Platinum
E6600 (box/stock 2400mhz basic)
2x 1Gb DDR2 6400 Gskill HZ
Sapphire ATI X1600Pro (PCI-e basic)
Aerocool Zero DBA 620W
(2 HDs sata, 2 Hds pata, 2 optical pata at first -all OK at first, disconnected after, so irrelevant here ,( )
(XP Pro clean new install from start)
I tried to check the forum old posts before trying to write that new one, but could not find any really related totally adequate posts so far (or i missed them, sorry if so, then -?). I could already find very useful informations on first aid usual 'rebooting' procedures to follow with minimum new boot configurations, d-bracket new LED signals etc. But so far no luck, all same, nothing better, nothing cured here for the stuation here. ,(( Also excuse my english if not perfect, i am not english either. ,(
VERY bad & sad problem here... ,(((( :
All was working perfectly great during 5 days.. the P6N SLI platinum install went GREAT initially (as normal, not a first pc built, all normally happening, so far so good, etc).... all hardwares compatible together at first (dedicated ATX 'full' 8x8 pins connector too for the cpu only for ex -all working perfect at first try. quick tensions 5V/12V under msi dual core control tool perfect too etc), was great easy going/ great strong ultra-stability feeling on the hardware side.. i was just now concentrating on the software side (no special BIOS tweaks even attempted so far, all on basics-normal e6600/ddr2 auto-settings, apart at the end ddr2 quick test -when problem occured- on 450(900?)Mhz at 2.1V, far far easy under its possible specs max anyway.. and had been working perfect for 3 days with that little ddr2 boost try -no time for special bios further tweakings now, etc), reinstalling and transfering/reorganizing slowly my necessary files/hds/softwares from old to new setup, no oc, nothing special tempted (i was planning oc, new cpu more suited fan/silver6 etc only for the end..), LAN file sharing setup done, Realtek audio setup test done, etc ; installation had been so far one of the quickest and problem free ever... explaining maybe also my fatal lack of cautioun for just (too much) 3 sec in the end after 5/- days of perfect working new ring going on.. ,((( :
At first, i also tried to immediately install the D-Bracket too to check possible hardware install problems -very useful feature i of course thought too..and wanted to try too, "in case of"..- (installing it from quick reading of the printed manual..with no colour pic coding inside..and quick error coming from there thereafter with an initial mismatch usb/jbd1 inverted plugs connections.. *both* having the exact same pins numbers and dispositions, beeing side by side on mainboard layout.. and so able to connect both headers indifferently.. so i did not see it immediately (( .. and no way to see it otherwise as such, anyway.. ,( ), just to be sure all was ok. I noticed that LED were of course, never lightning (not normal).. but as EVERYTHING else was working fine (GLAN, sound, etc etc).. i did not bother more than that -- error checking not necessary.
Till that fatal clumsy day i wanted suddenly to.. check the D-bracket too. ((((
All was working well, XP pro opened for hours as usual etc..
i had not yet totally finished to install the motherboard in the pc-case (always on desk, free in sight..)... so i could always see the connections on it. ... and i noticed that ... the colour headers codes were NOT matching (usb=yellow..).. i had just stupidly initially badly connected the D-Bracket jdb1/usb adjacent plugs (inverting them), so... And still, all had ever worked perfect.. except the D-Bracket, of course, was sending back no lights then, obviously.. so i did the fatal error.. confident all was stable enough and strong if even that initial plug error had had no consequences at all.. i did the fatal bad move to try to UNPLUG the D-Bracket connectors and put them back in right orders WITHOUT switching OFF the power supply so... like an hot USB plug, sort of, in a way. fatal error.. :( :( :(
As soon as i began to remove the usb/jdb1 connectors and put them back in normal order... the system suddenly SHUT DOWN ... no special bad noise, no special smell.. just sudden SHUT DOWN.
From there.. impossible ever to boot back again the so far perfectly working machine (((((((((((( , always same till now :
i switch on the power supply.. orange led appears on motherboard (ok)... i switch on the motherboard.. green led on motherboard appears (ok)... CPU fan begins (ok), video fan begins (ok) .... and... NOTHING.. total black video screen. no more even possibility to see the BIOS. :( total dead startup .. and the fans are going on eternally, blocked eternally in that inital startup with leds on too (no sudden shut down after a few seconds.. just.. nothing)... :(
Suprem irony.. the D-bracket LED seems to 'work' now.. "of course". Just the PC no more booting at all ^. Only thing is that only green LEDs are appearing, no red ones... simply the sequence, from start and never changing :
1. GREEN   2. GREEN
3. GREEN   4. (---)    (not red, just nothing -?)
If i look in manual, it means "Testing RTC (real time clock)". I don't know exactly what it means *here*, but sounds to me it is the most basic initial first BIOS checking.. and BIOS can't be reached for even that so ; BIOS fried???? :( :(
I tried every 'standard' things recommanded usually here in older posts, for new boots recovery attempts thereafter in such 'boot errors' situations (clear cmos button pushed in every possible ways -quick, long, quick etc..-, removing little by little everything but the very minimal least energy taxing setup; keyboard, cpu, video, motherboard; 1 ddr2 nearest cpu slot.. point).. NOTHING. Worst, i tried to boot with one of those elements missing.. exact same D-Bracket lightning from start to.. eternally (123 GREEN 4-nothing). Even tried to remove the little (cmos?) KTS lithium battery for a few hours -that could work sometimes with the old already ultra-sensitive amd/nforce2 chipset bioses problems, so i tried there too-?-; same 3 green lights and fans running and nothing else happening from there.. ((
Always the same; total dead boot as above. black screen. no possible access to even bios panel. ,(((
So my desperate questions, now: of course, the origin is obvious here; all happened "by my fault" when i tried 'too quickly' to 'hot-plugging' replace correctly the D-BRACKET plugs *without* switching off the power supply... all shut down suddenly when i put back correctly the usb& jdb1 headers... :( ;
- do you think there could be any possible last HOPES to recover the situation that i had missed (a well known situation in such d-bracket handling 'common' (?) connection error, a simple trick to try i had missed ??)
- do you think i FRIED something in the process on the motherboard ?? :( :(
- do you think it is 'only' the BIOS (fried????) ?? :( :(
- do you think i could have fried a specifical external key component in the process (not necessarily motherboard) : ddr2 modules, cpu, video card????? :( :(
- is my only solution is to send the motherboard to RMA (no other ways now) ???
please, don't hesitate to give me any possible hints to try to avoid the RMA process.
can i avoid it, right now?
is that possible to fry an whole board just with such a D-Bracket 'hot plug switch' (on a so far perfectly working -light-  setup - no oc, little video card, etc) ???? :( :(
That is the only C2D Intel/ddr2 motherboard i have here around. No possibility to test elements by elements for precise error checking (cpu, ddr2 modules, video card or powersupply).
Only things i could check so far are;
- the power supply (aerocool 620W zeroDBA) ;
i tested it back on my old amd xp-m nforce2 setup.. always working apparently. NOT 'fried' so, apparently. but no way of course to test for exemple the special 8x8 (or 8x4) Intel ATX cpu connector on old xp-m motherboard. But power supply NOt fried at least, apparently -?
- the video card.
no way for me to really test the pci-e card on other motherboard around but.. i tried a very old PCI VGA card.. that one works on old setup.. and on P6N, no effect, doesn't improve the situation. So, not sure the new pci-e video card isn't fried.. but a new video card doesn't correct the dead boot problem.. (
No way for me to test the ddr2 or CPU directly though.
Do you think DDR2 or CPU could have been fried in the process too ???
or just, as i fear anyway, 'simply', the motherboard BIOS fried -??? :-(
Really, thx for any suggestions..
if there could be an 'hidden' trick i did not try yet to try to recover the (initially working perfectly!!! (( ) setup, WITHOUT engaging the motherboard RMA process (at least 2 or 3 weeks lost here to wait the return..online store etc..)....
please, suggest me.. ,((
i am *really* very sad of that stupid clumsy idea to want to 'enable' the D-Bracket.. all was working great so far.. and i lost all with just that stupid idea to try an hot plug bracket reconnection without switching off the power supply it seems.. can it be possible,sigh?? all seemed so stable before that, that i.. just lost my usual cautious just 3 sec too long it seems... :-(
Thanks in advance
hoping post not too long too, but i tried to expose the situation as precisely as possible; first time i ever had such a problem with a motherboard/system install.. that is quiet ironical knowing it was also the best and quickest/easiest easy going new built i ever had so far too.. till then ,( .. and all came from the 'helper' d-bracket 'luxury second hand possible boot helper diagnostic tool' checking in the end too, here.. really hoping i can avoid an RMA process.. and no other hardware elements (apart the motherboard?) could have been damaged in the process ? ,(((

Answer 1

hi, thx a lot for the quick answer. sorry for the length indeed (i did not know exactly how to describe the situation.. without omitting any later possibly important details).
Alas, i already tried that many times in following interesting asnwers on similar problems in old posts here; did NOTHING. ,(
But after your post, i tried it again, and removed for the remaining *hours* (6/8h?) the cmos battery as suggested again *too* so -pushed again the clear cmos button etc when battery out, then when in again, then replugging the powersupply etc; NOTHING better alas too. always same, no boot, black screen, no bios. ,(
Problem always the same, to sum up, for clarity:
power supply on => orange motherboard led is lightning up, motherboard on => green motherboard led is lightning up, cpu/video/case fans are working up as normal and.. that's all. nothing else forever. black screen. no signal. not a single chance to get again the bios setup screen.
another detail i omitted, maybe; keyboard lights are all lightnng up too.. and stay blocked in that state too. tested with 2 different keyboards, same. to shut down the leds, fans etc, only one solution, shut down the power supply button directly, at that stage.
right now, i test on barebone minimal system as recommanded too;
cpu, 1 dimm (closest cpu slot), video, keyboard. all rest disconnected.
i of course tried to reset the cmos with the 'magical red button' many times before, with power supply cable plugged out, pushed the button trying almost every possible way so far (quick, long, long sequences, short sequences etc etc)... changed NOTHING so far -is that thing working?? ,(. and right now, same after hours with cmos battery removed too. ,(
the d-bracket leds are always (now it is correctly plugged..) :
123 GREEN 4 (nothing)
"Testing RTC (real time clock)"
another 'interesting' detail is that; those leds are appearing IMMEDIATELY after the motherboard is switched on, from start (green led appearing on P6N). and it is staying as such till the end. nothing else. i tried to connect also the case speaker ; no bips, no sound signals at all too.
I also remind the system was WORKING like a dream during 5 days *before* i had that sudden TOTAL boot problem.... AND i touched almost nothing in the bios too all along, for initial security reasons too.. (i was concentrating on the software installs anyway right now, NOT on the oc side..). The ddr2 quick little change i did was also the ONLY change i tempted to simply test quickly some setting i already saw working without problem with that P6N and that kind of ram.. and it was working without problem so far too, so.. all the time idem. And it had been perfectly working for 3 days as such untouched from there; no problems at all (those memory modules have been seen on that motherboard largely at those specs, why i did that quick test anyway.. far under their possible max -micron chips). it was even working so well i forgot to put the setting back as default after that quick ram test.. so much it was stable too (even if i had not time to do real memtest test on that one - i did for many hours with the initial automatical default settings too, to check the ram quality, was perfect for many hours, so ok too, no bad ram initially too-; was so stable for all my XP software installs operations etc.. that i forgot it thereafter, to be true..why it stayed like that till that moment (incidently).. but i preferred to mention it 'just in case' though, yes. i also did not push at all the dimm voltages in the process, it was always far inside the specs at 2.05V to be exact -usual for that ram too up to those numbers easy for it. i did not push the ram voltages either so..).
The problem ONLY appears when i wanted to unplug the *initially* badly connected D-bracket headers so (inverted headers.. but that caused NO problems either so far too for the system stability.. only the LEDs were of course not working so far..) : i did the error to NOT switch off the power supply. :(
*then* immediately the system shut down... and above situation appeared. ,(
BUT all was working perfect before.. ram setting included so. ,((
So my simple questions now too ;
- do you know what means *exactly* the d-bracket message 'Testing RTC" (123 GREEN, 4 nothing).. initial bios problem, isn't it?? other ways to recover it now?? ,((
- is it a WELL KNOWN PROBLEM when we try to disconnect and replug too hastily the d-bracket headers without switching off the power supply (*my* main erorr here, it seems :( :( ) ????
... and of course, do you think it could have *fried* another key component (cpu, ram -?? why i reminded the setting, just in case-?-, video card? .. ) with that d-bracket initial disconnection error ... ,(
as i said, i have no secondary c2d/ddr2 motherboard here : no way to test the cpu and ddr2 modules on another motherboard to be sure too here. :( i absolutely can't know if they have been damaged or not, here.. :( :(
any other idea for the motherboard itself though ??? ,(
once again, thx a lot for any suggestions and precisions on that problem (is that a COMMON well known problem with the d-bracket, when we unplug and replug it without extrem care like i did -my main inattention error it seems.. mainly because all was so stable before too.. ((( - without shutting down the power supply/system FIRST ???? can it be possible 'only' that shut down all the system??? (( )
thx in advance again +