First Build, Need Help with Cables

the PSU should have 4, 6 and maybe 8 pin power connectors...look at the GPU and see which two it requires and connect the appropriate pins.

For the case fans, the P6T has a couple of chassis fan connections on the mobo itself. Plug as many as you can into these because you can control the speed using the BIOS/bundled software. For the rest you can plug them straight into the 4-pin molex PSU power connections. They will run at full speed 24/7.

One other question, it looks like the Antec 1200 case fans each have a 4-pin molex type of connector attached to them, and the P6T mobo's fan connections are very small 3 pin connectors. Am I looking in the wrong place?

Thanks again

The molex cables attached to the fan cables can be useful if there is a fan cable that is too short to reach a fan connector on the motherboard. I had this problem with the rear fan on my RC690 case using the P6T motherboard.

It stops you being able to control the fan speed, but since it was only the rear fan, I was not too concerned. I would have preferred that the case fan cables were longer or had proper fan cable extension leads available, but it was a minor niggle.

Well, I finished everything up, but when I power it up, all the fans come on, the mobo lights come on, but there doesn't seem to be power going to the GTX285. The fan doesn't spin on the 285, and the monitor is blank. There are no beeps, and I don't know if the P6T mobo has on on-board speaker.

I put in a different graphics card from another computer, and it too wasn't able to get a signal to the monitor, and it's fan wasn't running either.

I tried running a power cable directly from the Antec EA750 outlet to the GTX285, but still no monitor signal and no fan moving on the graphics card.

Any thoughts on what I should try next?

Thanks.

I put in a different graphics card and unfortunately it doesn't seem to work in the new PC either. very weird.

Thanks for the help.

I don't think the Asus MB comes with a system speaker, and I don't think that the Antec cases come with one. My 900 didn't.

Here's a new build checklist:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] -checklist

After the checklist, try this:

Try to verify (well as you can) that the PSU works. If you have a multimeter, you can do a rough checkout of a PSU using the "paper clip trick". You plug the bare PSU into the wall. Insert a paper clip into the green wire pin and one of the black wire pins beside it. That's how the case power switch works. It applies a ground to the green wire. Turn on the PSU and the fan should spin up. If it doesn't, the PSU is dead. If you have a multimeter, you can check all the outputs. Yellow wires should be 12 volts, red 5 volts, orange 3.3 volts, blue wire -12 volts, purple wire is the 5 volt standby. The gray wire is really important. It sends a control signal called something like "PowerOK" from the PSU to the motherboard. It should go from 0 volts to about 5 volts within a half second of pressing the case power switch. If you do not have this signal, your computer will not boot. The tolerances should be +/- 5%. If not, the PSU is bad.

Unfortunately (yes, there's a "gotcha" ), passing all the above does not mean that the PSU is good. It's not being tested under any kind of load. But if the fan doesn't turn on, the PSU is dead.

On to the real troubleshooting ...

Disconnect everything from the motherboard except the CPU and HSF and case power switch. Boot. You should hear a series of long single beeps indicating missing memory. Silence here indicates, in probable order, a bad PSU, motherboard, or CPU - or a bad installation where something is shorting and shutting down the PSU.

To eliminate the possiblility of a bad installation where something is shorting and shutting down the PSU, you will need to pull the motherboard out of the case and reassemble the components on an insulated surface. This is called "breadboarding" - from the 1920's homebrew radio days. I always breadboard a new or recycled build. It lets me test components before I go through the trouble of installing them in a case.

It will look something like this:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/foru [...] _13_0.html
You can turn on the PC by shorting the two pins that the case power switch goes on.

If you get the long beeps, add a stick of RAM. Boot. The beep pattern should change to one long and two or three short beeps. Silence indicates that the RAM is shorting out the PSU (very rare). Long single beeps indicates that the BIOS does not recognize the presence of the RAM. A loud, continuous shriek means you didn't plug one of the PCI-e power cables.

If you get the one long and two or three short beeps, test the rest of the RAM. If good, install the video card and any needed power cables and plug in the monitor. If the video card is good, the system should successfully POST (one short beep, usually) and you will see the boot screen and messages.

Note - an inadequate PSU will cause a failure here or any step later.
Note - you do not need drives or a keyboard to successfully POST (generally a single short beep).

If you successfully POST, start plugging in the rest of the components, one at a time.