Just finished putting together my friend's pc for the first time and it didn't work...

adamtwomey

Distinguished
Sep 14, 2009
8
0
18,510
The motherboard has a green light showing it has power.

However when pressing the power button which isn't lit up the cpu led goes green, the hdd activity light shows activity, and the case, gpu, and cpu fans spin, but after a couple seconds the cpu light goes red and then turns off as the fans turn off, with the green motherboard has power light still on.

At no point does the monitor receive signal either.

I did boot it at first with the clrtc cap off, however nothing changes when I try with the cap on in the correct position.


The 8 pin connector going from the psu to the cpu has the wrong shape on one of the prongs, I assume this doesn't effect anything?

I tried this without the ram, holding down the power button for 30 seconds, and without the dvi-d cable in but still no change.

Any help would be great!
 
this type of problem can be...

1) bad ram
2) bad motherboard
3) bad gpu
4) bad psu
5) bad cpu
6) power short/grounding
7) incompatable parts (most likely the wrong motherboard for the wrong cpu)
8) something not put in correctly/install error

since there are so many things that can cause this we'll eliminate the most likely culprates one at a time. SO

1) tell us the cpu and motherboard; lets not play games here
2) tell us the psu, i am very alarmed by the claim that there was a mishaped plug. nothing shouldn't fit right. so you either have a psu which doesn't have the right plugs for your motherboard, or you're plugging the wrong thing in, which will cause some serious power issues.
3) IF your cpu/apu/motherboard has an onboard gpu, pull out the video card and try the io port video plugs.
4) pull out all but 1 stick of ram, try to start the machine, if it doesn't work try another stick. if that doesn't work move the one stick to each of the ram slots.
5) try another psu
6) pull the whole thing appart, make sure there is nothing behind the motherboard tray, and the cpu is installed correctly, no bent pins in the socket or chip. reapply the thermal paste, and reinstall the motherboard.
7) clr_cmos

try all of that then let us know where you stand.