Recently, I bought a barebones PC from mwave. The main components were an MSI K9N6PGM2-V2 motherboard with nVidia Geforce 6150 SE integrated graphics, an AMD Athlon II X2 245 CPU with heatsink/fan, a Logisys 480w power supply, a Gigabyte ATX case, and a 2 GB RAM chip. All of these parts were assembled before shipment, including thermal compound application, etc.
When I received the barebones computer, I added a Radeon HD 4770 graphics card, a 120 MM fan, a 2 GB RAM chip which was incidentally about twice as large as the other despite having the same specs, a 600w OCZ ModXStream Pro PSU, a Hitachi 1 TB hard drive, and an LG DVD Burner.
I had never reconfigured a computer before, but I thought that I took adequate precautions to protect the parts from ESD. I wore all non-synthetic materials, I laid the computer on a flat surface, and I touched the metal on the case and power supply frequently, if not constantly. I connected the DVD burner and HDD to the PSU with a daisy chain SATA cable and to the motherboard with separate SATA cables. I connected the graphics card to the PSU with a 6 pin molex cable. I connected the PSU to the motherboard with the 24 pin cable, and 4 pin CPU cable. I've checked to make sure that the RAM chips and graphics card are properly seated. And, I've tried connecting the computer to a functioning monitor with a VGA cable through both the integrated graphics output and the PCI express x16 graphics card output. Still, when I power on the computer, there is no video signal. All fans run including the CPU fan which, as far as I know, should indicate that the motherboard is receiving power, and the DVD drive is operational, but there are no BIOS error sounds, and the BIOS doesn't appear on screen. The power supply doesn't have a switch for changing voltage from 110-240 volts, so apparently that can't be the cause of this problem.
I've been trying to figure this out for a couple days now, and I'm starting to feel hopeless. I wanted to get this system up and running as soon as possible, so I'm reluctant to RMA. But, this computer won't be very useful as a doorstop, so if I can't find a solution soon, it might be my only option. I've already done some research about computers failing to POST, but it's still not clear to me how I should start...uh... troubleshooting. Would defective parts preclude a computer from booting, even if they aren't essential to the process? Should I try uninstalling the hard drive and DVD drive, to start? More importantly, are there any other factors I might have overlooked?
When I received the barebones computer, I added a Radeon HD 4770 graphics card, a 120 MM fan, a 2 GB RAM chip which was incidentally about twice as large as the other despite having the same specs, a 600w OCZ ModXStream Pro PSU, a Hitachi 1 TB hard drive, and an LG DVD Burner.
I had never reconfigured a computer before, but I thought that I took adequate precautions to protect the parts from ESD. I wore all non-synthetic materials, I laid the computer on a flat surface, and I touched the metal on the case and power supply frequently, if not constantly. I connected the DVD burner and HDD to the PSU with a daisy chain SATA cable and to the motherboard with separate SATA cables. I connected the graphics card to the PSU with a 6 pin molex cable. I connected the PSU to the motherboard with the 24 pin cable, and 4 pin CPU cable. I've checked to make sure that the RAM chips and graphics card are properly seated. And, I've tried connecting the computer to a functioning monitor with a VGA cable through both the integrated graphics output and the PCI express x16 graphics card output. Still, when I power on the computer, there is no video signal. All fans run including the CPU fan which, as far as I know, should indicate that the motherboard is receiving power, and the DVD drive is operational, but there are no BIOS error sounds, and the BIOS doesn't appear on screen. The power supply doesn't have a switch for changing voltage from 110-240 volts, so apparently that can't be the cause of this problem.
I've been trying to figure this out for a couple days now, and I'm starting to feel hopeless. I wanted to get this system up and running as soon as possible, so I'm reluctant to RMA. But, this computer won't be very useful as a doorstop, so if I can't find a solution soon, it might be my only option. I've already done some research about computers failing to POST, but it's still not clear to me how I should start...uh... troubleshooting. Would defective parts preclude a computer from booting, even if they aren't essential to the process? Should I try uninstalling the hard drive and DVD drive, to start? More importantly, are there any other factors I might have overlooked?
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