What's suppose to happen at the first power up?

[shortymike]

So I've built my computer and plugged in everything (I think) and then turned the power on. The fans start spinning but I don't see anything on the monitor. What sequence of events should I be expecting? Are boot up discs necessary at this point?

Almost Running:
ASPIRE X-QPACK
ThermalTake TWV 500w
ASUS A8N-VM CSM
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
Kingston ValueRAM 1GB
3xSeagate Barracuda 7200.9 300GB
NEC-3550A
U.S. Robotics USR5417

 

[mcgruff]

Apparently there's a problem with some PSU's - particularly energy efficient models - which expect a certain minimum current at startup and low power systems (eg onboard video) which cannot provide this. More info here: silentpcreview

If you've got any extra fans or PCI cards to plug in that might get the current up. Just something to try - I couldn't say for sure this is the problem you're having.

 

[tyr86]

Did you check the obvious things?
Power to monitor?
Loose cable(s)?
VGA or DVI cable not all the way in?
VGA or DVI cable has bent pins?
Video card not seated properly?
Video card's molex connector is not plugged into the PSU?
Keyboard and/or mouse not plugged in?
Video card is not "sharing" a molex connector with a fan or HDD is it? As in, those extenders or by passes, as I have had video cards need their own direct connection in order to work.
CPU is seated properly?

Hope that helps. If it "whirs" up, I think it is probably one of the issues from above.

 

[waylander]

First of all, like the other post said make sure everything is connected.

What should happen is that your fans all come on, your optical drive spins up and your hard drive spins up for a couple of seconds then you should hear a single short "beep" which means your POST (power on start test) was successful.

The most common problems with a failed POST are

1. loose connections (make sure you have plugged in the extra 4 pin power connector plugged into the motherboard at the top left of the CPU, this is easy to miss)
2. bad ram (reseat these)
3 low power (again check all connections)

Try to start up with the minimum required.
1. motherboard
2. cpu
3. 1 stick of ram
4. 1 hard drive