Help with homebuilt computer

[AR_Six]

My new home built PC has a problem. At first time startup, my monitor gets no signal from it. All the fans are running, the lights are good and the DVD drive will open and shut, but nothing is getting to the monitor. Everything is getting power, as far as I can tell. Any ideas?

 

[Piobaire]

Is the video card seated tightly? Is the HDD firing up? Are you getting that "beep" at the end of the POST test?

 

[AR_Six]

No beeps... no speakers, either. HDD seems to be humming along fine to my touch. I re-seated the video card twice and re-hooked-up the power cables to it as well. The video card's on board fan is also running full steam.

 

[Logan]

Is there a monitor output on your motherboard? Maybe you need to install a driver for the video card to work?

 

[Piobaire]

I've built a number of boxes but there are real experts here. Have you tried that monitor on another machine? If you're not getting the POST test beep, might be a bad MB.

 

[Shoe City Thinker]

Originally Posted by AR_Six

My new home built PC has a problem. At first time startup, my monitor gets no signal from it. All the fans are running, the lights are good and the DVD drive will open and shut, but nothing is getting to the monitor. Everything is getting power, as far as I can tell. Any ideas?

• Double check to make sure your DIMMs are seated properly in the slot. Another potential problem is that you didn't read the documentation for the motherboard and failed to install the DIMMs in the correct slots.
  
  
• There's a possibility that you connected the power switch lead backwards
  
  
• Again, check to make sure your video card is seated properly
  
  
• Check to make sure that your CPU fan is seated properly on the CPU and the CPU fan is connected to the motherboard.

 

[cross22]

When you press caps lock and/or num lock on the keyboard, do the indicator lights go on? If so your OS has booted fine and it's only a graphic card/monitor/cable issue.

 

[AR_Six]

The CPU fan was installed by someone who's better at this than me, and it's running full gun so I think it's okay. I just tried re-seating everything (DIMMs included; switched them to the other channel to see if that would help) to no avail.

 

[AR_Six]

Haha nevermind, I'm a moron. This mobo has a configuration where the ATX12v 4 pin power for the CPU itself is sort of hidden off in the corner and I just forgot to plug that in. It's working (or at least booting) now.

 

[whiteslashasian]

Originally Posted by AR_Six

Haha nevermind, I'm a moron. This mobo has a configuration where the ATX12v 4 pin power for the CPU itself is sort of hidden off in the corner and I just forgot to plug that in. It's working (or at least booting) now.

Sounds about right.

I was thinking it could have been that your Mobo BIOS doesn't support your CPU (happens with newer gen CPU's like the Thuban's from AMD and older AM2+ mobos) or the ram wasn't in properly.

Glad it's working now.

 

[Piobaire]

Originally Posted by AR_Six

Haha nevermind, I'm a moron. This mobo has a configuration where the ATX12v 4 pin power for the CPU itself is sort of hidden off in the corner and I just forgot to plug that in. It's working (or at least booting) now.

Yes, power always helps!

I hate having to play with the jumpers to get various things working properly. Always seems like there's one light, fan rpm monitor, or something you just can't get working right.

 

[skitlets]

Originally Posted by AR_Six

Haha nevermind, I'm a moron. This mobo has a configuration where the ATX12v 4 pin power for the CPU itself is sort of hidden off in the corner and I just forgot to plug that in. It's working (or at least booting) now.

Common mistake. Glad you got your PC working.

 

[AR_Six]

Yup, all good now. Currently humming along at 23C for mobo, 33-34C for CPU, about the same for the graphics, all fan-cooled for the moment (3x200mm + 1x120mm). I bought Dragon Age Origins just to give it a test and it'll run the thing with everything maxed and no problems. All's well that ends well. I was just worried the Ram or GPU were dead, getting a replacement video card would have been okay but finding a 2x4GB ram configuration in this country was enough of a treasure quest the first time around.