I admit, I thought that I could figure out how to put together a pc but I was wrong, so far after working with it for about 3 hours, I've managed to install....

Power supply
motherboard
hard drives/cooler

but I have NO idea how to set the jumper, nor get all these power supply cords to the right place, so I'll wait to go to school to ask the teacher tonight....

Read the motherboard manual, it should all be inside there

I am but it's sorta like another language to me at this point

Don't sweat it - it took me 3 days to build my first comp. Just make sure you have another computer (Laptop, preferably, with an internet connection) standing by to google up any images/guides you need to get your stuff together. Just get up and walk away if you get frustrated; frustrated builder = frustrated parts, and frustrated = broken

Good luck.

Yes, be sure to remain calm when doing this, I remember I bent 4 pins on my cpu, so take things nice and easy. See if any of your neighbors are computer wiz(s), a few of mine were and so they helped me straighten everything out (pun not intended).


This can be a frustrating job the first time you do it, but once you're done, you'll feel really proud of yourself that you built your own pc instead of n00bing out and paying more for a crappy dell or hp computer instead

ahhaahhaaha... I remember when I put my first computer together....

Man did I get pissed off (I was also 15 at the time and it was the biggest purchase I had made to date so I was also freaking out).

I definitely wouldn't trade that experience for anything though .

Good luck and keep trucking, you'll figure it out, and you'll feel like a million bucks when you do.

Hell yeah!

One of the best moments in life is the first time you turn your new rig on and you hear the fans start up.

On the other hand, one of the worst feelings is when you hit the power button and nothing happens. >.<

The fans come on but no screen on the video... my aim is keiser3616 or you can just reply here, I'll be here for awhile, at least a good 5 hours...

I am having the same problem, any solution?

you both need to give us more information on your parts. You might have the same symtoms but totally different causes.
Also unless you are sure it is the same thing, it is better to start your on thread to ease confusion on who has done what to fix the problems.

Yeah, I think I actually fixed my issue. I took one stick of my ram out leaving 1 gig stick in the number one position. It seemed to work cause it booted up with the motherboard logo, now i just need to install xp

wait you're saying you had 2gb of ram ryte.. and you had no video signal.. etc .. but when you took one stick out.. it worked?.. does that mean that other ram is defective??.. have you tried to plug in that stick you took out.. by itself to see if you computer will post and show video.
because my computer won't show any video output.. and i think its because of ram failure..
replaced vid card, mobo, and have the same result.. thats y im gonna try to replace the ram soon.. but yeah was it defective?..

my first build.. few months ago.. but just kept encoutering one problem after the other... got it to work 2 DAYS.. and somethign failed.. have to tr to replace the ram.

I took the the 2nd stick out and it started fine, before with both in, all the fans would turn on but than would restart itself after 5 seconds. Please note this is a new build and have no OS or anything installed. i remember reading somewhere that the voltages might not be correct to handle two sticks right away till you get things set up and change the voltages so than you can replace the 2nd stick. From what i gather from that, the voltages werent corect and was having it restart. (please correct me if any of this is wrong haha)
I did not place the other stick in to test it, and i won't have time to for another 24 hours from now.

My hardware:
Motherboard: GA-P35-DQ6
CPU: E6600
PSU: Corsair 520Watt
Video Card: EVGA 8800GTS 640MB
Ram: Mushkin 2gb DDR2 800

Don't sweat it. My first build took me 2 days. A lot learned, I can tell you that much. Just take your time and don't try to force anything.

Now I can build one in about an hour if I have all parts and tools available.

[quote="minizzle"]

Might be the memory slot that's defective.

This should really be tested. Run memtest off a bootable CD (it's free online) and see if you get any errors... if it works with no errors, take out the stick and replace it with the second. Run memtest again.

If everything worked with no errors, the mem is good. Now try the secoind slot with one stick of ram. Etc, keep testing until you've found a problem with the process of elimination. Might be bad memory, a bad mobo, etc.

If there are memory errors, it'll probably corrupt your XP install and you'll have to start from scratch, so NOW is the time to figure it out.

So i can do this without the OS installed? Just boot the CD from the post screen?