My venture into the DIY world of computer building hasn’t turned out so well. This is my first time building a computer, so I might have overlooked something really simple. Hopefully, someone can help.
The system is the same as this one, except no sound card and the RAM is DDR2 800 (which was cheaper with a rebate than the DDR2 667).
I believe I plugged everything in correctly. When I turn on the power supply the motherboard light turns green, but nothing happens when I press the power button on the case.
What’s weird is that it worked for a little while when I first turned it on, with a loud whining noise. The second time I turned it on it beeped once and then nothing. Now it doesn’t do anything.
Did you install the processor and heatsink and fan yourself?
Last time I did a build, I put the fan on wrong, it didn’t spin, the computer turned on once, fried itself and I had to send for a new processor and mobo.
Your “loud whirring noise” makes me suspect that that MIGHT have been your problem…and it is a very sad problem to have
It might be that or it might be something cheaper.
The first thing I do when I put together a computer is double (and triple) check that I wired the case to the motherboard correctly–all the fiddly little dongles, jumpers and pinouts tend to get mixed up easily. Then I reseat the memory.
Like my dad always tells me, check the cheap shit first.
After that, I try as much hardware as I can in other boxes that I know are working if I have them handy. The idea is to start out with the cheapest/easiest/most convenient things you can and then work your way methodically up the chain. Eventually you’ll narrow down whatever’s messing you up.
On my last build, something similar happened with almost identical results. Turned out Newegg shipped me a case with a broken power switch. D’oh.
ok, so right now the motherboard light is on while the system is powered down, correct? But when you press the power button you get nothing?
And the first time you tired this you heard a whiny noise?
First thing: Check the motherboard pin connectors to your case. Make sure you follow the directions in the mobo’s manual.
Then make sure your CPU fan is hooked up to the correct CPU fan plug. Make sure that if your video card requires extra power that it’s hooked up to the correct connector(s) on the Power supply. Re-seat the RAM sticks.
It sounds like you might have fried your processor
But I have been in a similar situation, where I incorrectly mounted a heatsink and the motherboard seemed to have some automatic shutdown after the processor got too hot. It certainly sounds like something’s broken though, seeing as it doesn’t work at all now.
One important thing when building computers is to take cooling seriously. Get some of that Arctic Silver (or whatever it’s called) thermal paste. Make sure you apply it liberally. There was some kind of weird type of conductive gum attached to the bottom of my heat sink, and I used that, which didn’t work. So the lesson is to make VERY sure you get the cooling situation worked out. In my situation, and this was years ago when they were even slower, the computer overheated in a matter of seconds. This was only with a substandard situation, not like I completely screwed it up. Did you wire the fan incorrectly?
Let me toss in two options I have seen a few times first the cheap one
Did you use standoffs when you mounted the board? IF so are they all lined up with a hole in the mobo. An incorrectly placed standoff could be grounding out part of your mobo to the case and causing it not to fire. I often make little squares of electrical tape to put over those prefab bumps thay put on many cases for mounting points to make sure. They are easy enough to drive a screw through and make sure you have zero metal on metal contact from board to case. I have also seen someone who pinned a screw between the case and the mobo acheiving the same result.
Second, many shops sell power supply testers for about $10-$15. PSU’s go bad all the time, you might have a bad lead on your PSU. I see those all the time, fans and drives sometimes even spin up but the 12v 4pin plug is dead and will not fire.
Do I need the CPU to be working in order for the fan to work? The fan is connected to the power supply, it should start when I press the power button on the case even if the CPU is dead right?
I’m thinking I should find a good computer technician.
I checked the PSU instead using this cheap method and it wouldn’t work. The fan on the power supply didn’t spin or anything.
Anyone every try that?
Though I’m wondering if the motherboard would have the light on even with a dead power supply. Maybe the PSU has enough power to turn on the little light bulb on the Motherboard and not much else?
