First time build...Puhleeeease help me.

Well, I ordered my new build last Thursday night. It was all in by Tuesday afternoon without a scratch on anything. I put everything together according to the manuals and it all looked good to me. I plugged her up and tried to turn it on. All the LED's and Fans turned on for literally a split second, then cut back off. I already checked all of my power supply cords and I checked the power button pins on the MoBo.

My motherboard's green light is on, which is (I'm guessing) indicating that it's receiving power.
My guess is that something is shorting out?

Here's my build...

Case
APEVIA X-CRUISER-BK Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Mobo
ASUS P5K SE EPU LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard

GPU
SAPPHIRE 100255L Radeon HD 4670 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card

PSU
hec ACE-580UB 580W ATX12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready Power Supply

CPU
Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 Wolfdale 2.53GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80571E7200

RAM
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ

HDD
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250310AS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

DVD Drive
Sony NEC Optiarc 20X DVD±R Burner Black SATA Model AD-7200S-0B

Sorry. Will do :]

The CPU link leads to the PSU.

I see that you are buying a crossfire board but your PSU is questionable quality and not suitable for any crossfire action.

The cooling on that case is quite bad. 80mm fans are noisy, and the front fan will be smothered by the door besides. If you like flashy cases look at NZXT.

Take it all out of the case and do your set up on a clean non conductive surface ,the mobo box would do just fine as you can hang the video card's tang over the edge to prevent it being forced out of it's slot,and if you have one ,,you only need to get it to boot to a dos floppy,also gives you a chance to set up your bios......

Oh LOL I thought this was a rate my build post, sorry... and the board is a P35, not x38 as I thought.

As I said, the HEC is not a top end PSU, but it's not complete junk. We would have steered you to something else, but it may do.

General new build trouble shooting tips, in order of commonness:
1. Did you connect both the 24-pin power and the 4/8-pin power to the board? The 4/8-pin is located near the CPU.
2. Did you install only those motherboard standoffs that align correctly with the screw holes in your board? Incorrectly placed standoffs will result in a short.
3. Did you first try to boot with just one stick of RAM? If that failed did you try the other stick? If you are new to DDR RAM, you might not have it fully seated.
4. Is there a case speaker connected to the speaker header, normally located near the case power switch header? If this is possible it might produce beep codes.
5. Is the power connected to the video card?

To clarify, we don't have any professional reviews of that HEC unit. Some HEC PSUs have been OK in the past. It's not likely that it would be considered a good PSU. It is probably NOT one of the worst, but might be just a step up from bad.

Not saying the PSU is your problem. It's just that there is no good way to test the quality of power a PSU is producing on your own. So, when it comes to troubleshooting, it makes your job (and ours) much harder as a faulty PSU can produce a wide range of symptoms, many of which look like other problems.

Question for learning purposes

Is this one of those safety issues (meaning the component shuts down to product itself) such as the CPU cooler fan not properly connected ??

StevieD: I'm thinking it might be. I'm getting power from the supply to the mobo because a green LED on the MoBo turns on when I turn on the PSU. Its just once I press the power button on the case, everything turns on for like a fourth of a second..

Proximon: Okay..I guess I'll try to send it in ASAP.
I'm totally absolutely new to this. What do I need to do to get my refund?
Just mail it back to the sending address?

Call the vendor first.

Yeah I can. I'll try calling HEC tomorrow and getting a refund. I'll probably stick with that Antec 500W.

I'm off for tonight. If anyone has any other smart ideas, let me know. I'll be back on tomorrow night.

Thanks for all the help guys. This is literally the best tech forum I've ever seen.

My guess is that the BIOS does not support the CPU. That board does not support the E7200 until BIOS revision 0304. A lot of newer Intel boards will not post at all with an unsupported CPU. The majority of issues like this that I've seen are not DOA hardware. I don't suppose you have access to an older 65nm CPU to install and see if the board posts do you? My guess is that if you were able to upgrade the motherboard BIOS it would work fine. HEC is not the best brand, but should be fine.

Never mind. Though I had an a solution, but I went back and re-read the first post......I'm as lost as you.