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Troubleshooting New System; No Post Beep. Can Video Card do This?

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Hello, it's been a long time since I paid attention to computer stuff, so when I recently built a new computer, I just went ahead and asked a friend to pick stuff out for me in the $1500 range (including monitor), and bought everything he linked me to from NewEgg.

A case that came with a 500 W Power Supply. This ended up being a huge mistake, which I'll talk about later.

GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3R LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard

Geforce 280:

4 sticks of G-Skill 1 GB RAM for a total of 4 GB: (in hindsight I think I should have got 2 2 GB sticks, but unfortunately I was too lazy to do my own shopping)

Western Digital Velociraptor Hard Drive:

Intel Q9550 Processor:

Other random stuff I purchased like monitor, keyboard, mouse, and headphones, but I figure those are unimportant.

Basically when the stuff arrived I felt happy with the purchase, but it wasn't long before I started realizing that the power supply that came with the case was obviously not going to cut it. It did not come with the required 8 pin and 6 pin PCIE connectors for the video card. The video card did supply some adapters. It had an 8 pin to dual 6 pin. But alas, the power supply did not even have that to offer. Only one 6 pin. So basically, I figured the video card wouldn't work.

I got the PC all hooked up, and then decided to just try and power the video card anyway. I read that if the Geforce 280 doesn't get enough power, it simply doesn't refuses to start up, so I figured that I could still test the rest of the system while I wait for my new power supply to come (I ordered this:

So i Powered it on, with the video card partially connected. As predicted, no video showed on screen. But what really concerns me is that I hear no POST beep.

Could it be the video card failing to power on and stalling the rest of the system? Or just the crappy power supply failing to power everything properly? (after powering on a couple times, the stock power supply now doesn't seem to want to come on, only powering the computer for half a second before dying)

Or does the lack of the POST beep have nothing to do with the video card, and is there other stuff I need to troubleshoot?

I'm sure that some of this will become clear when my new power supply comes, but as it's my first computer I've built... I'm a little bit anxious. I'm also excited to use the new computer, and want everything to work when the new power supply gets here...

Thanks for any help or suggestions, much appreciated...

More about : troubleshooting system post beep video card

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yeah, I don't know why, but asking on a forum just never occurred to me earlier. Thanks a lot for the checklists though, very helpful. and the answer about the video card thing. Guess I'll just have to wait.

What power supply do you recommend for the system? I may still be able to cancel this order, there's a cancel button on NewEgg and I only ordered it about an hour or two ago. It's the weekend so it's not too far along in the process. I'm spending a bit more than I planned as is so if I paid too much I'd definitely like to see if getting something else is still an option.

Thanks!
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This may be a dumb question, but did you hook up a speaker to the board?
Alas, many older boards had speakers built into them, newer boards do not.
Try taking the card out, you should then hear the series of beeps pointing to a video card problem. It you get a set of beeps with the GPU out, then this will just about narrow it down to the card not having enough power. With the card out, and no beeps, you have a problem somewhere else.
Also, just use 1 stick of memory until you get your first POST screen, go into the BIOS and make sure the timings/voltage is set correctly for your memory. (after your get your new PSU of course) Then add the rest of your sticks.

jitpublisher said:
This may be a dumb question, but did you hook up a speaker to the board?
Alas, many older boards had speakers built into them, newer boards do not.
Try taking the card out, you should then hear the series of beeps pointing to a video card problem. It you get a set of beeps with the GPU out, then this will just about narrow it down to the card not having enough power. With the card out, and no beeps, you have a problem somewhere else.
Also, just use 1 stick of memory until you get your first POST screen, go into the BIOS and make sure the timings/voltage is set correctly for your memory. (after your get your new PSU of course) Then add the rest of your sticks.


Hey jitpublisher,

Not a dumb question at all, thanks for pointing that out because I wasn't so sure. After reading the check list that the above two people linked me to, I realized that I had not hooked up a speaker to the motherboard. I went back and looked at my stuff. I believe that the case actually came with a small speaker attached to a plug, and I read the motherboard manual, but so far have found no reference to a place to hook it up. Haven't found any talk about a built in speaker either, though, so there may be something to that, especially if new mobos don't tend to come with them.

I could try hooking up some real speakers though. That I didn't try, since I assumed that the motherboard could beep on its own. Anyway, thanks for the info, I'll do those tests.
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