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First PC build, need help please!

english724

Junior Member
I just built my first PC. I used an Asus P5W DH mobo, e6600 processor, 7800 GT video card, 2x1gb Patriot DDR 800 RAM (cas: 4). I'm pretty sure I plugged everything in to the motherboard correctly, too. I put in all the front case power switch and reset switches, etc according to the manual. I plugged the SATA hard drive into the RAID 1 port on the mobo. Put in the video card along with power cable to the video card. Power to the mobo and case fans and CD/DVD drive. CD/DVD drive into the IDE slot on the right side of the board.

I plugged in the mouse and keyboard to the USB ports in the back, along with the DVI input from my LCD TV. Put the TV on the PC Digital display, and then turned on the power supply (at which point I could see the green light on the motherboard turned on) and then pushed the power button.

The fans come on, the CD drive opens, the red light on the front of the case turned on. But I waited, and nothing came up on the monitor. The optical mouse doesn't light up like it usually does when plugged in either. The TV says the computer is in power save mode or off. I don't think anything is loose, and I was wondering if anyone had any idea what was going on? I haven't actually built a computer up piece by piece before, but I researched all the parts with help from friends who have and I think I have a good grasp on how it all works.

If the ram was incompatible, would this prevent any type of boot up? I can't even get to the bios screen or anything. Second, should the mouse light be on if the computer is on? Third, do I have the hard drive in the right port? It's in RAID 1, will it work here or should I move it to SATA 1 or something?

I was thinking it was either the RAM or a loose connection or something, but could it be that the motherboard just isn't getting flipped on when I hit the power button? How would I fix this and how can I futher diagnose the problem?

Thanks for your help!
 
Put the hdd in sata 1 (actually an sataII port) unless you have 2 hdd's, in which case your problem lies elsewhere. If that doesn't work, your psu could be to blame, which one do you have?
 
I have the ANTEC Smart Power PSU 500W with the smart cable system. Should be a pretty quality PSU. Would the HDD in the wrong port prevent me from accessing the BIOS and everything?
 
it'll prevent you from running anything from the hdd, so you should still be able to get to the bios, in fact that's the only thing you should be able to do. The antec is probably not the source of the problem, though it's far from one of the best psus... not quality like you say. I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years, you need to dump that thing. But w/e, welcome to the forums!😀 Did you plug it into the right port yet?
 
I'm at school right now, and won't be able to start messing with it until around 5:00. I'm trying to get a grasp on what the issue could be though. I'll make a reply here tonight when I can get on it, though. THanks!
 
Yea so I figured it out, the 4 pin 12V connector wasn't plugged in. However, once I got it up and running at the BIOS, I started to smell a burning, then the power went out, and when I unplugged it smoke came out of the PSU. I'm not sure if the PSU fans were running for sure or not, but all the other ones were (including CPU and video card). I removed it from the computer and plugged it in alone and turned it to the ON (I) position without it being hooked up to anything. It was making some wierd like squeeking noise and it seemed like the front fan was trying to spin, but failing. I don't know what happened. Looks like it's RMA time.
 
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