Help on first build

[mnbvcxz358]

After putting together my first build, I powered on and was so happy when all the case lights and fan lights came on and the CPU fan started spinning and the video card fan was spinning.......except that was it. Afert that nothing, monitor stays blank, and I don't get a POST test. I've tried pressing all the f1's, f2's and the delete key, but still nothing. Anybody have any ideas?

[Kov-Ice]

You should try HAL's troubleshooting guide found HERE. This will help you isolate the problem. Just be sure everything is reseated firmly, and then let us know here how it goes.

[Kareeser]

Make sure that all power connectors are plugged into the motherboard.

There's the twenty-pin connector, and a four-pin connector, if your motherboard accepts that.

There is also another 4 pin power connector (a 12V 2-by-2 plug) that you will need to plug into the slot which sits near the CPU.

[jayb1234]

If you post a full list of the brands and models of all the components you used, it will be a lot easier for us to help you track down the problem.

[mnbvcxz358]

here are the system specs (all parts from newegg):

-ASPIRE X-Infinity ATXB6KLW-BK/420 Black Steel ATX Mid Tower
-SAMSUNG SpinPoint P Series SP2504C 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
-CORSAIR XMS 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit
-AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Manchester 2000MHz HT Socket 939 Dual Core
-eVGA 256-P2-N553-AX Geforce 7600GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16
-Gigabyte GA-K8N Pro-SLI Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard
- (not sure of my exact DVD drive but it's a regular ide dvd drive)

one more thing: I don't have a sound card, but I think the MB has integrated sound, or am I wrong?

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by mnbvcxz358 one more thing: I don't have a sound card, but I think the MB has integrated sound, or am I wrong?

No, you are right...the motherboard has on-board sound.

Cricket

[mnbvcxz358]

I've finally figured out the probelm. It seems the motherboard is shorting inside the case. I got it to post outside of the case ( 1 beep) and the BIOS comes up. Now what do I do?

[Cricket]

Now you need to make sure that all the standoffs are installed in the proper holes in the motherboard mounting tray...the standoffs should all match up to the mounting holes in the motherboard (the holes with the metal ring). Any standoff that doesn't match up to a mounting hole should be removed from the mounting tray.

Cricket

[mnbvcxz358]

Before I put everything back in, I'm testing to see if all the parts work, and it seems everything does except the hard drive. In the CMOS, it recognizes the hard drive, but it keeps telling me that it "failed to detect system disk, insert system disk and press enter".

[flanzig1]

That means that the BIOS is not seeing an OS installed yet. So now you get to install XP.

[mnbvcxz358]

Actually, I can't install windows because, the system is not detecting my hard drive. I've tried autodetecting, but still nothing. I'm sure everything is plugged in correctly; The power is in and the SATA cable is plugged in. That is everything right? I don't hear anything from the hard drive though.

Harddrive = SAMSUNG SpinPoint P Series SP2504C 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

[Kareeser]

That's alright. Just place the Windows XP CD into your optical drive, and reboot. As long as the computer boot order is set to read the CD-ROM first, the program will load up, and you can install Windows XP.

[Marke522]

Check the jumper settings and make sure you don't have it set to slave. I had that problem once, I was reading the settings upside down, because the sticker was on sideways, and I had trouble figuring out which side was which.

Another thing to do, is put the drive into another pc as a slave, to make sure it works, or put a known working harddrive into the new build.

EDIT -- Just noticed it's SATA, no jumpers.

Make sure you have SATA enabled in the BIOS. It might be set to boot from PATA, IDE

[mnbvcxz358]

I've tried installing windows. But it tells me that it can't install because there is no hard disk.

[Cricket]

Make sure you have the SATA hard drive plugged into the right SATA connection on the motherboard. Check the motherboard manual and it should tell you which connection is the main SATA connection.

Cricket

[Kareeser]

Perhaps you need to load the RAID/SATA drivers from the floppy. Some motherboards need that.

I forget where the thread is.

[mnbvcxz358]

Thanks everybody for their help, but now I'm officially giving up. I'm going to hit the Best Buy tommorrow and give it to the Geek Squad.

[glc]

Before you do that, does the POST screen recognize the hard drive? If so, all you need is a driver floppy to install XP.

[mnbvcxz358]

No, POST screen does not recognize hard drive. I've even tried detecting it manually by putting in the Cylinder, Head and Sector, but still nothing.

[glc]

If the SATA controllers are all turned on in the bios, then you probably have a defective hard drive. It wouldn't surprise me - no hard drive manufacturers are perfect and Samsung is not a leader in hard drive quality control.