home built pc disappointment

[jmichna]

badhrt...
Don't be too discouraged... success straight out of the box with the first build doesn't happen 100% of the time. This is beginning to sound more and more like a CPU defect. If you had an Athlon, I'd suspect a chipped/damaged core. Don't know if Intels can be damaged the same way.

[RayH]

I built four computers last year. Mine was the one with the hitch. I had to send back the mobo, video card, and hard drive. Each was bad from the gate. The other three went smoothly!

The moral is to buy from an entity that backs their products!

[RedFury]

BadHrt. Trying to troubleshoot a new system can be a real pain. I had a system that I built die on me while I was away at work. The wife says....it just shut off and won't start anymore.

I changed all the parts I had doubles of, vid card, sound, NIC, Modem, RAM...didn't want to pull the cpu out of the wifes system because "it couldn't be that, this is a new processor!"

Long story short, the motherboard fried for some reason and took the processor with it, or the other way around.

Fans spun, LED's lit..everything did what it was supposed to, except no video. From my experience, you have a high probability of a bad MOBO, and a possible bad CPU or both.

Any computer shop out there worth their beans will test your processor for you for nothing. Those that aren't shouldn't charge you more than a couple of bucks. Most likely, they have a couple of mobo's sitting on the bench already hooked up to everything for testing purposes.

[Bovon]

Looks like the ground has been covered pretty well... but I have a couple of questions still.. that I have not seen (read) asked.

#1, have you tried to fire the board up outside of the case with only the CPU & heatsink/fan, one stick of RAM, video card. No keyboard or mouse...no drives attached at all?

#2, the tower/case... does it have pre stamped and drilled standoffs where the motherboard attaches to the case?..or, did the case come with small brass stand offs that you first screw into the back plate..then mount the board to that?

[MikeHof]

I had the same problem earlier this week. The shop told me the motherboard was bad so I replaced it yet still it wouldn't post or anything. It seems one of the front panel connector wires had a short in it. Try just hooking up the power switch & see what happens.

[fpantovich]

actually, you don't even need to hook up the power switch...this is what I would do...

set the motherboard flat on a table on some foam or something for safety purposes, attach the power supply...put the video card, 1 stick of RAM, and CPU on, nothing else....hot wire the board by touching a flat head screw driver to the pins that connect to the Power Switch cables....if it just turns on the fans and doesn't display any vidoe, then try resetting the BIOS by pulling out the battery for about 5-10 seconds, then try it again....if it still doesn't work then try switching out the RAM stick....

odds are it still doesn't work, so try using a CPU from the other computer in this system (if possible), try again....nada, then try the video card from the other system....if still nothing then it's a bad motherboard...no biggie, it happens....happened to me when I built my wife's computer actually, heh, and it was an ASUS....anyways, good luck and don't let this experience stop you from future builds, sounds like you did a good job and no matter how good of a builder you are you will always come across some type of problem, be it software or hardware....good luck, ttyl...

[rrcn]

is the 4 prong power connector attached to the mobo?

[PC_Fanatic]

Does your motherboard have onboard video?
If so, did you disable the onboard video in the BIOS? I realize that this is a stretch, but perhaps there is a device contention with the graphics card and the onboard video.

[nodnerb2]

Hi,

Any updte on this?

Did you get it going /figure out the problem?

Cheers

Nodnerb2

[MadMan2k]

That's why you buy from newegg, or another reputable online retailer (or a local one if you can get decent prices)