Heh–no worries.
It’s a bit juvenile to just post in a thread without even reading the OP for comprehension. It’s obvious he was talking about a PC.
I don’t even have a bone in this fight (since my girlfriend and I have PS3, 360, and a gaming PC) and I agree with the rest of the posters that you’re post added nothing. It doesn’t just “look that way”. It is that way.
Woot! It’s here, and I’m happily putting it together. So far so good: PSU, CPU, RAM, mobo all installed.
Before I continue I have a question that’s going to come up, though. I bought the copy of Windows 7 recommended above, and the box says:
Have folks used an OEM system builder pack before? I don’t want to open it only to discover that I need some special license to do it. Poking around on the website makes me about 95% sure I’ll be all right, but that 5% has screwed me before.
Okay, off to bed. Tomorrow, BIOS setup and software installation!
You won’t need anything special. I’m running 2 oem installs here at home.
I bought the OEM installer pack of Windows 7 Pro, installed it with no issues on the computer I’m typing on right now. Really, as long as your hardware is set up right, it should boot right from the CD and install in less than 30 minutes. Near as I can tell, the difference between the OEM system builder software and the “full” version is that the OEM version comes with no manuals and no support from Microsoft. Apart from that, you get the same system, same updates, same everything.
That’s not the only difference. An OEM installation is tied to the motherboard so you cannot upgrade that component or move the W7 license to a different machine.
I think the OP should have purchased a regular retail upgrade disc instead (and I think it’s even cheaper, to boot), but whatever.
No, the retail version of windows is almost twice the price.
And as for it being tied to your mobo, that’s sort of true. You’ll need to call microsoft if you upgrade your motherboard in the future in order to re-register your OEM copy. But I have done this twice now and have had no problems whatsoever. You just give them the info on the screen and let them know you onl have this copy installed on one PC.
Well, fuck a duck.
It looks as though I may have a faulty component.
After doing my best to put everything together, reading all the directions I could find, i’ve got a case that lights up with pretty blue lights, a CPU fan that whirs, and a power-supply fan that whirs. The CPU won’t post, a nifty term I just learned, and nothing I do seems to make a difference. I’ve uninstalled everything but the CPU, fan, and 1 stick of RAM, and I’ve laid the mobo on a piece of cardboard, to no avail.
I was very careful installing the CPU. I probably switched the positive and negative wires when plugging the case into the CPU originally (they’re not marked, and they’re all tiny and separate, and it didn’t occur to me to figure it out until too late)–is it possible I shorted something? Right now the case isn’t even attached to the mobo, though: following an online instruction, I turned the mobo on by shorting the power switch pins with a screwdriver.
given my lack of other appropriate components to test with, except possibly a power supply (my old machine’s PSU is 300W, I think), is there any way I can determine what component is at fault?
My first guess would be that it posted just fine but you had it set to use the onboard video instead of the 5770 that you had your monitor connected to. Is that possible?
Also, what do you mean the wires from the case to the CPU? The power/reset button wires from the front panel to the motherboard?
Connect the case’s speaker to the mobo and see if you hear any error beeps.
You’ll probably have to mount the mobo in the case for this.
The case’s speaker is a freestanding doohickey and it doesn’t make any noise.
Although, now that I think about it, I think that at some point in the last few days it did make noise. I need to mess around with that a little bit more, I guess…
I removed the GPU and plugged the monitor into the mobo directly–is that the right approach? The wires I was talking about were the front panel wires: power, reset, HDD light.
Connecting the front panel wires backwards won’t damage anything. It’ll just prevent those things from functioning. That isn’t usually a big deal, but in your situation, you’ll want to make sure that the PC speaker is properly connected to its header so you’ll get a beep code, if any. It’s probably a good idea to properly connect the power switch too so you don’t need to short it any longer, but shorting it to start it won’t damage it.
Connecting directly to the motherboard’s video port is probably a good idea for troubleshooting purposes, since it eliminates the video card. I’d pull the CMOS battery for a few seconds as well, just to reset it to the port if it wasn’t already there. If you’re connected to the motherboard’s video port and have the PC speaker connected properly, but not getting any video signal or beep code, you almost certainly have a short somewhere or missed a power connection or a dead motherboard.
If it’s just setting out in the air with everything plugged into it, can you take some high resolution pictures from two angles? Might provide a clue.
Taking pictures…interesting idea. I’ll see if I can do that tomorrow, and will also work on the speaker. I shorted the CMOS with the screwdriver, but I’ll take the battery out just in case.
Could it be a dead motherboard if the CPU fan is spinning?
Thanks for the ideas!
Yeah, a dead board may still pass power. The only thing I cared about in the picture was that you had both the 24pin ATX connector and the 4pin 12v connector connected and didn’t do something stupid like forget the CPU cooler or didn’t use standoffs or have it sitting on something metal right now. Trying your other PSU is a pretty good idea. It has plenty of power without the video card connected. It’s either the PSU or your board… or both. Assuming that the speaker is connected and it doesn’t power up enough to get to a beep code.
Is it possible it’s the CPU?
Yes, but bad CPUs are extremely rare.
Bad CPU is possible, but unlikely. Of course, if you totally jacked the CPU install somehow, I suppose it could have overheated; they say that modern CPUs can overheat and be damaged in about 10 seconds if they’re not properly connected to the heat sink. Sounds like scare tactics to me, but still: you didn’t accidentally get thermal grease anywhere you shouldn’t have, did you? Or omit the thermal grease? Or somehow omit the heat sink entirely? Or bend any pins during the install? AMD CPUs are made to fit one way, without any forcing or effort at all. If you had to push to seat the CPU, it wasn’t oriented correctly.
Just taking wild stabs here, I don’t mean to insult you with any of this…
Max, the only one of those things that’s possible is getting the grease somewhere it wasn’t supposed to be. I spent about 10 minutes spreading and respreading the grease atop the CPU using an index card, and I spread it almost to the edges but not quite; I’d be very surprised if it got somewhere it shouldn’t have been, but I guess it’s possible that too much glooped out the side. It definitely had the heat sink atop it, and it settled into the mobo just as it should’ve, so I don’t think it could be those.
At least if it’s narrowed down to the bad motherboard, I’ll know my next step.
You don’t have to,well actually, shouldn’t spread out the thermal grease on the CPU. The thermal contact is a circle right at the center. Just put a pea sized blob in the middle and plunk down the heatsink. It will do the spreading for you.
That probably has nothing to do with your issue though.
Good to know–last year when I bought it, the guy who sold it to me explained that I should spread it out. But it was a pain to do, and I definitely won’t repeat it if it’s unnecessary.