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Just built my first machine. Thought I had followed the manual as close as possible, hit the power button only to hear a continuous beeping with nothing really happening...
Any ideas?
Simplify.
Start with the most basic bootable configuration then add stuff in to find out which part is causing the problems.
The most basic bootable configuration is a motherboard with CPU, ram, 1 videocard and psu (no drives or anything else plugged in except screen and keyboard obviously). Even remove all the front panel plugs (hd led etc) except for the power switch connector.
That should be as minimal as you can get but be enough to at least power up into bios.
If even that won't boot, do the following steps, using the most minimal set up you can. Check bootability after each stage if you change anything even slightly:
0: Work in a static-free environment. Your problem may be because you have already blown-up something if you're not using a wrist strap, especially if you didn't ground yourself and you built your PC in a carpetted area.
1: Check the PSU is rated for a sufficiently high wattage for your system. Then check the all the rails in the PSU are supplying power to the system. If the 12v rail is dead no fans will run. If the 5v rail is dead, you might get pretty much what you describe and any leds on the motherboard or DVD drives etc won't ever flash or light up. Look to see if you have any led's on your system and if they ever light up (even momentarily) or not.
2: Make sure all the PSU connectors necessary are plugged in properly. some Mobos require a big ATX power connector and also a liittle 4-pin square connector that can be easily overlooked. Also some Video cards require one or two extra power connectors too.
3: remove the motherboard from the case. Put it somewhere where there is definately no risk of anything shorting out anything on the back, and plug only the minimal necessary to boot it up outside the case. The reason wer'e doing this is to make sure nothing in the case is shorting out stuff on the back of the mobo, like sometimes the little mounting posts can.
4: Check your ram is in the right slots and doens't have a bad connectiion ( remove and reinstall the ram). Do the same with the CPU.
5: find the way to reset the cmos to defaults on your motherboard and do it. It may be by temporarily removing the small battery or temporarily shorting a connector out. It should say in the manual.
If its still not booting by now, its probable that the memory is inompatable, you've zapped something with static, or bent a pin somewhere, such as the cpu socket. I had a similar problem as yours with an ASRock 775 Dual-VSTA mobo. By default it uses low memory voltage settings in the bios which wouldn't work with the PQI turbo memory I had. I couldn't even get it to boot as far as the bios to change the setting. I had to RMA the memory and buy a different brand.
If you have access to another PC such as a friend with one, swap your memory, video card, CPU and PSU with the ones in the other PC (one at a time) to at least prove one or more of those components aren't fried.