IRQ problem, maybe....help!

[Haervii]

Well, I built my first computer ever and I have everything installed. However, whenb I boot, it shows the intial screen, telling me to press delete to get into Bios, and telling me my IDE devices, yadda, yadda, yadda. Then it gives me a blank screen witha little DOS cursor. My handy-dandy DLED on my K7T pro2 mobo says that the code it shows means "assigning IRQs to PCI devices". It gives no explanation as to what it might be if it hangs there like that, except 3 asterisks that mean the motherboard might be damaged. However, I am optomisitic, because according to the DLED decoder, assingning IRQs to PCI devices is the last step before the operating system boots, therefore it has done a lot of stuff already that it wouldn't be able to do if it was damaged. Also, it got past this step fine before I put in the hard drive, cdrom and pci devices(SB live and ethernet card) Any ideas on what my problem is/what I should do? Thanks.

 

[Haervii]

The DLED code also means that it's trying to boot up. Has anyone used an old hard drive in a new system before? Can anyone help?

 

[obenton]

It's likely either a hardware conflict or an adapter in an imappropriate PCI slot. Add devices one by one and you'll see where the problem is. Put the NIC in PCI slot 2 or 3.

 

[Dameon]

1st rule when building a system -
Get 1st post / boot up to DOS with ONLY THE VIDEO CARD INSTALLED.
Don't get greedy and in a hurry.

System should ONLY be:
Motherboard
RAM
Case
Floppy Drive
Hard Drive
Video Card
Keyboard (PS2 if possible)
Mouse (PS2 if possible)

Stick to the basics. KISS = Keep it simple, stupid. All those wonderful sayings.
No soundcards, no NICs, no TV Tuners, no SCSI cards. Just get the basics functioning.
THEN move on to adding cards.

 

[Haervii]

Oh, its the hard drive. I've already tried that, removng stuff. How doI do a fresh install of Windows when I can't get IN to Windows?

 

[Haervii]

How do I get to DOS? When it has that little cursor, and nothing else, it won't et me type.