Building A COmputer

[Crimson]

My dad just recently started buying parts to make a new computer and he finally got everything in the other day and he got everything together. When he went to turn the computer on the screen is just blank, it doesn't do anything like its not reading anything. Anyone have any suggestions? Anything will help.

[MyndFyre]

My dad just recently started buying parts to make a new computer and he finally got everything in the other day and he got everything together. When he went to turn the computer on the screen is just blank, it doesn't do anything like its not reading anything. Anyone have any suggestions? Anything will help.

Chances are good that 1 or more memory chips or processors are not seated properly.  Ensure that the memory and processors are seated property and press the power key to continue...

[Crimson]

The memory chips are in correctly, I've already checked those.

[Adron]

Does it make noise? What exactly happens when you turn it on? Do fans start? Do leds go on? Do stuff spin? Does the monitor go out of power save? Tell us *exactly* what happens...

Edit:
Assuming that nothing happens at all, I'd suggest checking that you've inserted the power cable correctly, set the p/s for the right voltage, turned on all power switches, connected the power button correctly and connected the m/b power cables correctly.

[Crimson]

Everything comes on, the LEDs, the cooling fans spin, just nothing comes up it just sits there.

[Stealth]

My first guess would be a motherboard failure, such that the BIOS isn't starting up. Or, something to do with the graphics card such that you can't see the BIOS starting up.

[iago]

Make sure the pc speaker is hooked up so if it beeps, you can hear.  Different patterns of beeps mean different things.

[Grok]

1)  Take EVERYTHING out except the CPU+Fan.

Take out:
- memory
- video adapter
- sound card
- network adapter
- modem
- video capture card
- disconnect all drives (hard disk, cdrom, floppy, dvd, ...)
- etc

Basically, anything that occupies a slot, remove it!

Plug in:
- pc speaker  (need this to troubleshoot)
- keyboard

2)  Power up.
* You should SEE the fans on power supply and CPU spinning.
* You should HEAR a series of beeps from the speaker.
* Power off.

3)  Add one stick of memory in the 0 (zero) slot.  Power up.
* You should hear a different number of beeps, I think 3 meaning no video adapter.
* Power off

4) Add video adapter.  Power up.
* System should now boot without beeping, and you should have a display.

*** IF you still have NO display at this point, the problem is not one of the add-in cards, it is with something currently attached (motherboard, cpu, power supply, memory, video).

5) If you saw a display on the monitor, the problem is with one of the peripherals.  Continue rebooting between each, and try this order.

a) Floppy drive (a Win98 boot floppy w/cdrom support is a good idea)
b) CDROM
c) Hard Disk

At this point you should be able to boot into Windows.

As you can see, the goal is to isolate the broken component, one change at a time.  If you make too many changes, it is harder to figure out what is wrong.  Unless you like logic puzzles, that is.  "The banker lives in the blue house across the street from the person who likes Mozart, and is friends with the woman whose basement flooded on Thursday."

[beta_chris]

man grok, you're elite.

He probably wanted to use all of his standoffs though

[quasi-modo]

I love the motherboard leds, instead of pc speaker it will light up any of 4 leds to give you an error message (on my mobo) and it is a lot nicer then counting beeps. This could always be a hardware compadability problem. What kind of processor is it, what is the core, front side bus, cache, and what is the motherboard model. If you bought the parts online provide links to all of the essential ones (video card, motherboard, processor, memory)

[Grok]

man grok, you're elite.

He probably wanted to use all of his standoffs though

hi player, ltns.

[Adron]

I love the motherboard leds, instead of pc speaker it will light up any of 4 leds to give you an error message (on my mobo) and it is a lot nicer then counting beeps.

If you have a machine designed for this, so the leds are visible from the outside it's good. It's annoying when there are leds hiding inside the machine so you have to open it up to see the error message.

[quasi-modo]

I love the motherboard leds, instead of pc speaker it will light up any of 4 leds to give you an error message (on my mobo) and it is a lot nicer then counting beeps.

If you have a machine designed for this, so the leds are visible from the outside it's good. It's annoying when there are leds hiding inside the machine so you have to open it up to see the error message.

well I have 4 of them on a bar which I can put in a pci slot on the back, you know the opening. So they were be sitting on the outside of my bax. I should really plug that back in....

[beta_chris]

 those msi d-brackets aren't very accurate - especially if the board is tweaked.

ltns?

[quasi-modo]

those msi d-brackets aren't very accurate - especially if the board is tweaked.

ltns?

How would they be any less accurate then a speaker. They seemed to help me figure out my ram incompadabilities last month. Nope apparently I can't run a 2.5 cas gold dragon side by side with a hyperx with a 2.0 cas... I should have been able to figure that one out easily. I just put the d-bracket back in my box... 4 green lights, that means my system works, i might not have known that without the d-bracket!