first build........please help.

[billdaju]

The follwoings are the hardwares I have and the fan runs, front panel light is on, power switch works, donot hear the beep codes, and donot display.

1. Ultra Wizard Black Mid Tower Case
2. Antec Basiq 350W Power Supply
3. MB GIGABYTE GA-965G-DS3 G965 775
4. Core(tm) 2 Duo Processor E4300
5. 2xPNY 1GB PC-4300 533MHz 240-PIN DDR2 DIMM Model D1GX43OPT
6. PNY GeForce FX 5200 256MB PCI Graphics Card
7. Envision 17" LCD monitor
8.Maxtor Ultra 200GB ATA Internal Hard Drive
9. Memorex® Internal CD-RW Drive

I put the box in a small wooden table, used the electrostatic wrist band, laid down parts, started assembling...power supply, broken the i/o plate from case, used i/o from motherboard, standoffs, screw the board, placed CPU (of course it only fits in one position with an arrow and two small cuts ), the heat sink (came with cpu), 1 GB memory in 1st slot, hard drive, CD RW drive (used the flat cable it the baord came with to conenct board, hard drive and one more, which I used CD RW), connected the LCD, connected the front panel switches/powers/LEDs/speaker etc. Connected the power to board pin, turned on the power, monitor goes power save mode(no activity for dispaly I believe), donot hear beep, the fans run, the LEDs on front panel are bright, power switch from front panel works.

tried with the display onboard it came with.....the same , ( I took the PCI video card out this time.)
tried putting two 1 GB in slot 1 and 3.....no improvement
tried w/o hard drive and cd rw.......same

What went wrong ?
I am not a gamer, but wanted a mid size , low cost , good speed PC, and here I come.
Can someone help me please, I am missing the very basic.

I can share the model numbers of the hardwares I am using if the above list is not enough.
Appreciate you guru's help.

 

[Newf]

Check to see that both the 24 pin main power cable AND the square 4 pin 12v cpu power cables are installed. Without the 4 pin cable you will not have any luck running your system.
Use the on-board graphics until you get the system running.
BTW, it's better than the FX5200 card anyway.
Your first step is to get the system through POST (power on self test).
Use 1 memory stick and make sure it is seated so that the end-clips flip up into place. This can take more down-force pressure than you might think.
One other common mistake we all have done:
To many standoff studs on the motherboard tray. Any extras will short your board.
Leave your drives and the power to them disconnected. Try to get a POST using only your motherboard, monitor, ram and cpu. Take out any expansion cards you have in the PCI slots.
If this does not work, switch the ram sticks to see if one bad one might be the problem. Use only one at a time.
If this does not work, remove the cpu heatsink/fan. Remove the cpu and look to see if you bent any motherboard socket pins. If you do find any you need a new mobo.
Keep in mind that the first thing you should see on your screen is the motherboard BIOS identifying your video BIOS. Without a working cpu or ram, it will not even get this far.
I have listed the potential fixes in order of most common to least. Give them a try...

I'm sure that at some point someone here will mention your power supply. It is not the best choice, but should also not be the cause of your not getting a POST. It has enough output to run your system as you have listed it, but for about $60 you could get a much more reliable and powerful FSP 450 watt unit.

 

[alcattle]

do the light stay on? or only for 5 secs? You did not mention thermal paste?
You have tried some of the things, but not the right one yet, or it would work

 

[billdaju]

the lights stay on .........
the power switch works, if I press for few seconds, the system goes down and if I press back, turns on.
I am not familiar with the 'thermal paste' what is it, do I MUST do it?I saw a thin layer on bottom of heat sink (not covering the whole plate).is that it ?
I will report after 5PM, after few tries.
Most probably, I put all the standoffs screws wherever I see holes except where the board seats on top of four protruding up like a small hump and hole in it. I put the screws on top of those 4. The standoffs...the golden looking, do they short ?Do I have to take all out ? what is their use or say where should I screw them ?

Thanks

 

[heltoupee]

Motherboard standoffs look like this:

some cheap cases will have a few of these permanently attached to the backplane (part that you screw the motherboard down to). In your case, those humps with holes in them are what I'm talking about. Those will all line up with holes in the motherboard. you should try to get standoffs (either the ones permanently attached to the backplane or ones you can screw in) under as many of the motherboard holes as you can. Basically, you don't want anything touching the back of the motherboard, except where those standoffs line up with screw holes in the motherboard.

If your heatsink had that small pad on the bottom of it that lines up with the processor when you mount it, then you don't need thermal paste. This would be the case if you bought your heatsink and processor in a retail box together.

To be sure you're not shorting out on the case, take the motherboard out of the case, and set it on a table. put the static-shield bag and the piece of padding that was packed with the motherboard underneath the motherboard (between the motherboard and the table). mount the processor and heatsink. install 1 stick of ram in the first DIMM socket (usually labelled DIMM1 on the motherboard). Plug the power supply in (you may have to take it out of the case, too). go through the motherboard manual and check you have all your jumpers set correctly. power the board on. There may be a switch right on the board. if not, you may be able to get the power switch to still plug in from the case, or take a screwdriver and touch the two pins where the power switch connects with it. If the fans come on and you still get nothing (plug your monitor in, too), no beep codes or anything, then something else is wrong.

Try the system with no RAM in - this should give beep codes (if the speaker from the case is plugged in, or if the board has a speaker built-in.

If you're still not having any luck, I've got a couple suggestions:

1.) the 965 chipset is picky about RAM. Check to make sure your RAM is supported. Gigabyte's website should say if it is or not.

2.) the motherboard may require you to do a bios flash to support the E4300 processor (I got stung by this one in a recent build). Does the motherboard packaging specifically say that it supports Core 2 Duo?

Good luck, man. I hope you get it working.

 

[Newf]

Excellent advice.

 

[billdaju]

you guys rock.
Sorry I could not write earlier.
I was loading OS last night
The solution to me was the standoffs (took all off from board there goes, beep, display and starts cranking).

why would I get only 131 GB from 200 GB maxtor hard drive ?

Thanks

 

[Newf]

...why would I get only 131 GB from 200 GB maxtor hard drive ?

Your OS is in need of an update. If it's Windows XP, then you need SP1 (service pack #1) to see more than 131GB.

 

[heltoupee]

Glad to help. There are common mistakes for a reason -- it means that all of us have made them at one time or another .

 

[daflyinpig]

I've made those mistakes before. But I don't check these forums often if you don't notice from my post count. haha
Glad yours is working fine now :]

 

[Newf]

Is that why you run a laptop now?

 

[k1dude]

I just built a computer and the exact same thing that happened to billdaju happened to me. Nothing at all appeared on my screen. No beeps. Nothing. But all of the fans and LED lights went on fine.

It appears billdaju's problem was the standoffs. But how did he know which standoffs were the culprits? How did he know which ones to leave and which ones were to remain to get his motherboard mounted again?

Another fear I have is how the Intel heatsink fan mounted WAY too tight onto the CPU/motherboard. I had to place an inordinate amount of pressure on the heatsink fan to get the pins to clear the backside of the motherboard. I was afraid I was exerting too much pressure on the assembly so I backed off several times. I finally got the pins through after about 4 or 5 attempts. But I heard a faint cracking sound as they finally cleared. There is now a noticeable bulge on the back of the motherboard where the CPU/HSF assembly is. The edge of the motherboard closest to the assembly is also bowed. And yes, the pins were rotated correctly and the CPU and heatsink fan were seated correctly.

So I am hoping the sequence of steps that Newf and heltoupee recommended will solve my dilemma. I sure hope I didn't ruin my CPU/motherboard.

But how do I tell which standoffs to remove if they are the problem? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

My build:

CPU/HSF: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
Motherboard: MSI P6N SLI Platinum
Graphics: EVGA e-GeForce 7900 GS KO
Memory: PNY PC2-5300 4x512MB
Power: Raidmax RX-630A
Case: Antec Solo
HD: Western Digital SATA 250GB

 

[Newf]

Use the motherboard as a template.
Every mounting hole in the motherboard is used, and a stand-off is needed where the tray does NOT have a "bump". Most trays are completely flat so stand-offs are commonly used at every mounting hole.
No stand-offs are used where there is no motherboard mounting hole.
Therefore, do not just screw the stand-offs into every threaded hole in the tray and plop down the board! Use the motherboard as a template.

 

[skyguy]

Put your mobo over top of the mobo tray (do not connect it, just hold it close). See where the holes are. Put standoffs in those holes on the tray that line up. And done!

 

[Newf]

That was just too easy!

 

[skyguy]

LOL, I like easy.

But that's NOT why I married my wife

 

[k1dude]

OK, I got what you were all originally talking about now. You were just telling billdaju to remove any standoffs that weren't matched up to mobo holes. I already did that. I wasn't thinking that simple. I was reading more into your suggestions than was really there.

I know that's not my problem. So tonight, I'll begin working through all the suggestions about how to diagnose the problem(s).