First time PC build almost good to go, RAM and internet issue

[brentonk]

Hi guys,

I'm completely new to this whole thing, was recently in the market for a new PC and a friend recommended I build my own (horrible idea) so I gave it a shot.

CPU: AMD FX 8-core
Motherboard: Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3
RAM: 2x Kingston 4x2gb 1600 (16gb total)
Video Card: Gigabyte GTX 670
Power Supply: Corsair 650W
Hard drive(s): 1 TB HDD
Operating System: Windows 7 home premium
Case: Cooler Master HAF XM


Think it was a fairly solid build for <$1200 total.

Anyways after a week of struggling, I got it booted up. Everything seems to work other my internet plug (I don't even know the proper name for this, LAN?). I am corded from my router to my computer. The light flashes green on my computer when the chord is plugged in but I cannot get any sort of connection. Is there anything I have to do to get this working? I thought it would be as easy as plugging in.


Another question of less importance currently:
My computer won't boot with all 4 RAMs plugged in, but it works fine with 2 or 3. So I am currently running 12GB of RAM (more than enough for my needs) but I would like to get 16 eventually. And ideas?

Thanks.

 

[noreaster]

Well I would like to say welcome to the community (Tom's and the greater PC building community),
Your Network Interface Card (NIC, or internet plug) should have a driver, usually best found on the CD that came with your motherboard which should have some type of program to install the proper drivers (piece of software your computer uses to run the hardware).
As for your RAM problem, have you tried different combinations of sticks in slots, such as sticks ABCD in slots 1234, BCDA/1234, CDAB/1234, DABC/1234, or A/1, A/2, A/3, A/4, B/1, etc. If all combinations work except all 4 slots filled then you have an interesting problem, otherwise you should discover that either one of your slots is bad or one of the sticks is.
Hope that gets you started, let me know what you find and we'll go from there.

 

[manofchalk]

You need to install the LAN drivers to get internet connectivity. Either use the one that comes with the mobo disc, or download the latest on another machine and using a USB flash drive or something install it to this machine.

You have either got a bad stick or a bad slot. Test each stick individually in every slot, that will tell you what is broken.

 

[brentonk]

Awesome guys, thank you. I will try the RAM suggestions, I have rearranged them a few times but never in an organized fashion. Hopefully that solves it, will post back here tomorrow!

Thanks again for being kind and giving advice