First time builder [resolved]

[mad_hatter]

I had planned to only upgrade the graphic card since the Nvidia 7300 died but the one I purchased required a higher power supply than the 375 my dell xps 410 had.

I purchased a corsair 650w and a EVGA GEFORCE gtx 550 ti since I wanted something to handle Skyrim.

I received them today and put them in exactly as the instructions stated. The tower did nothing but blink amber.

I called Corsair again and they told me to do a paper clip test. At first the fan on the power supply spun, quit, then spun again but I figured I might have done it wrong. Then I watched a youtube tutorial and retried, This time the fan spun until I shut it off.

Only thing I can think of is that it is the motherboard and I need to upgrade that as well. The specs for the huge paperweight I have are.

http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/dell-xps-410-desktop/4507-3118_7-31986893.html

Only one seagate in it
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 1.86ghz

I'd like a motherboard that is under $130 (Saved $75 so far but I know that probably isn't enough) and will handle the upgrades I already have.
Thanks to anyone in advance for helping the builder newb.

 

[C12Friedman]

You won't be able to upgrade your motherboard (in any economical fashion) without upgrading CPU and ram also (about $200 mobo/cpu/ram).
I'd want to test that PSU under load before I conclude the mobo has died (upgrading would be good thing anyway IMO).

 

[thor220]

1st - is the six pin power pluged into the GPU?
2nd - Try using the integrated GPU or a weaker discrete card to see if the same issue persists. That way you can know for sure if its the motherboard or not.

 

[mad_hatter]

The two six pin wire from the 650w, yes, I tried one side and then the other.

Still saw the blinking amber on the tower.

Any GPU suggestions?

 

[thor220]

If your motherboard or processor has an IGP, use that. Otherwise use any other weaker discrete card as a test. If it runs with the weaker component then you just narrowed it down.

 

[mad_hatter]

The Power supply suddenly started to work when I took out the memory cards and put the memory back in. I have no idea why this worked but I was trying to take things out one by one to see if that would work and apparently it did.

Now I just have to find out why it's saying floppy disk failure.

Thank you to everyone who helped, I really appreciate it.

 

[thor220]

Can you get to the bios and disable the floppy drive?

 

[mad_hatter]

That seemed to work, now it tells me boot driver.

 

[thor220]

wait is it saying boot driver error or something else.

 

[mad_hatter]

It says "no boot drive found"
I ordered a replacement boot repair disk to see if that would work.

Since this is no longer about motherboards, I'll go to the appropriate forum.

 

[thor220]

Make sure that the hard disk is registering in the bios