New Computer Won't Boot

[Virtra]

I just finished putting together my first build today, and needless to say I was excited. I turned the power switch on (the one at the back), and then with a shaking finger pushed the power button. At this point the fans started humming and the LEDs went on like Christmas lights. However, my monitor wouldn't recognize that my computer was on (the yellow standby light on my monitor was on).

Before I go on, I know this is my first build and all, but I'd like to say that I have done my homework... lots of it. So while I defiantely could have made a rookie mistake somewhere, the problem isn't that my monitor wasn't connected to my computer.

Anyway, so I turned the power switch off and checked all the wiring and connections but didn't see anything wrong. After that I switched to another monitor, but still got the problem. I then noticed that my video card was in the PCIEXP2 slot and not the PCIEXP1 slot (stupid). So I switched it over (also switching the shadow card), however I still had the same problem. I thought then that the hard drive might not be working, but when I would leave the computer on for a little while (like 15 seconds) I could feel it starting to warm up. Other than that, I tried a few minor rewiring attempts, but to no avail. Anyway, if someone could even point me in the right direction that would be awesome... Please? Thanks!

Here's my setup:

COOLER MASTER Centurion 532 RC-532-SKN1 Black Aluminum bezel, SECC chassis ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

NEC 16X DVD±R DVD Burner

SAMSUNG SpinPoint P Series SP2504C 250GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit System Memory

ABIT AT8 Socket 939 ATI Radeon XPRESS 200 CrossFire ATX AMD CrossFire Motherboard

Rosewill RV500S ATX 2.01 500W Power Supply

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice 2000MHz HT 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 E3 Processor

ATI Radeon X1800 CrossFrire Edition PCI Express 512MB DDR3 Video Card w/Dual DVI & VIVO

 

[mechBgon]

My first thought is ewwww, a Rosewill power supply

Other than that, make sure all three power plugs are connected: 24-pin main, 4-pin ATX12V, and the four-pin one just above the top PCI-Express slot.

Also make sure your video card has its PCI-Express power cable firmly plugged in. It's not a credit to your power supply that it apparently lacks a PCI-Express power plug... if it were me, I'd be putting an Antec TruePower II 550 in there, but I'm crazy like that :evil:

 

[Virtra]

Yeah, all the power plugs are in and secure. That's the first thing I checked since there are so many of them, I thought I might have missed one. But nope, they're all good. I've tried starting up with just the mobo, power supply, CPU, hard drive, memory, and video card. Is there a way that I can narrow down the problem at all, because at the moment I don't even know where the problem is.

As for the PSU, yeah I know, I skimped, heh heh. It'll probably be the first thing I replace, ah well.

 

[mechBgon]

If you have an old PCI video card, like a Voodoo3 or even a Cirrus Logic, you could try that in place of your nice card, as a fact-finding step. If that works, then either the card is bad, the PCI-E setup is incorrect, or the power supply can't tow the boat.

 

[Quodus]

Does the machine post ? i mean does it beep ? it should beep once. it could be a whole host of things like cpu not seated correctly (easily done ) all the fans / lights will do is tell you that there is power going through the board! I very much doubt that it's the psu at such an early stage! budget or no budget it should work for atleast a day. try running just the essentials first like 1 memory module unplug all usb devices and give it a whirl. but i would check the processor first off. Is there onboard vga - you could try that after removing the graphics card!

 

[framerateuk]

Have you got some speakers connected to the PC? A lot of BIOS' dont beep, they give audio messages via the onboard sound, so try hooking some speakers up to that.

 

[Quodus]

lol yeah - i thought it might need something like that - i am old skool i like my motherboard to beep

 

[framerateuk]

Originally posted by: Quodus
lol yeah - i thought it might need something like that - i am old skool i like my motherboard to beep

Same here, i almost had a heart attack when i was putting together a pc for someone, and it spoke to me when i turned it on