fans spin, not much else happens

[agroupofletters]

This is my first time building a computer and obviously i've run into some problems.

I have a brand new mobo, cpu (stock intel heatsink and fan), ram, PS and am using a less than 1 year old 8600gt graphics card, and less than 3 month old wd hard drive.

I managed to put everything together in what i thought was the right way but then when i went to power it on the fans spun for about 12 seconds, all the lights on the case lit up, so did the light on my optical drive and i was able to open and close the tray, but then it just shut off, and a few seconds went by then it would do the same thing over and over until i shut off the power supply. I' tried removing the cpu and heat sink and when i did that the computer stayed on but i didn't get any output on my monitor. I know it's probably a very stupid question but does a computer still post without a processor? i figured id get some type of bios screen. So now i'm thinking that both my processor and video card are bad. Can anyone with some experience give me some advice?

[endrien]

Quote:

Originally Posted by agroupofletters

This is my first time building a computer and obviously i've run into some problems.

I have a brand new mobo, cpu (stock intel heatsink and fan), ram, PS and am using a less than 1 year old 8600gt graphics card, and less than 3 month old wd hard drive.

I managed to put everything together in what i thought was the right way but then when i went to power it on the fans spun for about 12 seconds, all the lights on the case lit up, so did the light on my optical drive and i was able to open and close the tray, but then it just shut off, and a few seconds went by then it would do the same thing over and over until i shut off the power supply. I' tried removing the cpu and heat sink and when i did that the computer stayed on but i didn't get any output on my monitor. I know it's probably a very stupid question but does a computer still post without a processor? i figured id get some type of bios screen. So now i'm thinking that both my processor and video card are bad. Can anyone with some experience give me some advice?

Make sure EVERYTHING is connected. When I cleaned out my computer I forgot to plug one small cable into the motherboard and all it did when I powered on was rev the fans/dvd drive.

[agroupofletters]

i checked, and to the best of my knowledge everything is plugged in. there are very few empty connections left on my motherboard.

[Aaron_8015]

Take the whole system out of the case, assemble on a no conductive surface and try to boot with minimum components. I.e. Mobo, CPU, PSU, 1 stick of memory, use on-board video if you have it. NO DVD or HDD drive.

Also a list of exact parts will be helpfull, (PSU importantly).