Search
Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in
Closed

Built the computer but won't work...help?

Last response: in Systems
Share

Hello,

So lets say my 13 year old son convinces me (his mom) that we can build a gaming computer. We order these parts based on someone's recommendations online for a budget build:

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-970A-DS3 AMD 970/SB950 AM3+

CPU: AMD FX-6100

RAM: Crucial 4GB (DDR3 1333 Mhz)

Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 550 Ti (2GB)

Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500 GB

Optical Drive: Lite-On Internal DVD Writer

Case: Cooler Master Elite 430 Mid Tower

Power Supply: Thermaltake PurePower 430 Watt

Monitor: ViewSonic VA2248m-LED 22" Class Widescreen LED Monitor

We follow all the instructions. Everything fits. All parts seem to be plugged in, in all the right places I think. We turn it on to look for the BIOS setup and the problems we have are: The monitor is not getting a signal, the keyboard does not seem to be "on" (no lights), when you push the button on the DVD drive it opens and then immediately closes...

What does seem to work is the power comes on, the fan turns on and things light up, the CPU fan is on...

But from there, I can't figure out how to troubleshoot. How do I know if I got a bad part or if I configured something wrong? I thought I did a lot of research before agreeing to this and everyone made it sound so easy. I'm usually quite the computer nerd so I thought I could handle it. Any ideas, or do I just have to call computer tech at this point?

More about : built computer work

Register or log in to remove

Best solution

Basically you need to go and doublecheck ALL the connections, reseat the cards and memory, make sure you have a power cable to your graphics card, you hooked up the extra little 4-pin plug by the CPU, etc. 9/10 it's just something not fully seated or cabled wrong.

Hi,
Make sure you've connected both 24 and 4-pin power connectors to the motherboard. Check the 6-pin power connector to the graphics card. With the power supply off, remove all RAM sticks, but one. Connect only the DVD drive keyboard and mouse.
Turn on the power supply and start.
If still no go, can you connect a case speaker to the motherboard?
430W is on the edge for this graphics card.
Related ressources
Ask the community

Well now. It appears to have been the 4 pin plug wasn't plugged. I remember staring at that spot on the motherboard last night wondering what plugs into it. I even thought I looked for a 4 pin thingy and couldn't find one. Must have been tired b/c I found it today.

So if you are interested, I seem to have one last minor problem. The fan attached to the front of the case is not running. It has two plugs almost like a male and female. I only plugged into the one that I could find a match to from the PS. Is there something that goes into the other plug? The instructions just show a picture of the fan there and where other fans could go, but no diagram of how these plugs work. Thanks in advance. You people rock.

rh2012 said:
Well now. It appears to have been the 4 pin plug wasn't plugged. I remember staring at that spot on the motherboard last night wondering what plugs into it. I even thought I looked for a 4 pin thingy and couldn't find one. Must have been tired b/c I found it today.


Anyone who has built computers has been there before! Sometimes all it needs is a night of sleep or a second pair of eyes. :) 


So if you are interested, I seem to have one last minor problem. The fan attached to the front of the case is not running. It has two plugs almost like a male and female. I only plugged into the one that I could find a match to from the PS. Is there something that goes into the other plug? The instructions just show a picture of the fan there and where other fans could go, but no diagram of how these plugs work. Thanks in advance. You people rock. said:

So if you are interested, I seem to have one last minor problem. The fan attached to the front of the case is not running. It has two plugs almost like a male and female. I only plugged into the one that I could find a match to from the PS. Is there something that goes into the other plug? The instructions just show a picture of the fan there and where other fans could go, but no diagram of how these plugs work. Thanks in advance. You people rock.


That sounds like it's just got a standard 4-pin molex connector like older drives and CD-roms uses. Some fans had both a male and female plug so you could daisy chain them together with other fans or a hard drive, but you only need to plug in the male side to a plug coming from the power supply. Fans are pretty simple devices that just need a few watts of power to run, so if you've checked out the power connection and it isn't working it is probably faulty. You can try giving it a little help starting with your finger, if that works you just got one with sticky bearings.

ok. got the fan working. thanks everyone. while I was waiting for y'alls reply, I got to googling.

The fan plug had some kind of extension thingy that provided a molex connection (and daisy option I guess), but if I unplug that, then I got the little 3 pin thing (described as I googled) that i could plug into the motherboard. That worked. Not sure why the molex connection didn't though. Maybe I didn't have it smooshed in there good enough.

Oh well. It works and 13 year old is happily installing operating system and drivers. :) 
Register or log in to remove
 
Ask the community
Read discussions in other Systems categories
!