TheVille

So with gators help I have bought stuff for a new computer. I have put the thing together but the damn thing wont post.
When i press the power button it comes one for like 3 seconds then turns it self off and then comes on but it doesnt show like its one. Nothing shows up on the monitor. I have checked the memory on other computers and that has worked. Does anyone have an idea of what might be wrong. I can return the stuff til the end of the month.
Any help would be great. I will check this as I have time and a computer to use the old one does not exist anymore.

Do you have a spare PSU? My friend was having a similar problem, he tried another PSU and it turned out his motherboard was defective.

Does the motherboard make any beeps during this? Are there indicator lights on the back by the plugs?

The thing to do is strip it down to the barest of essentials. 1 stick of RAM, PSU, processor (if it has built-in video, use that and remove the add-in video card), video... strip absolutely everything else (disconnect is fine)... then see if it'll post.

Make sure the CPU cooler is properly installed.

Stevo wrote:Make sure the CPU cooler is properly installed.

Yeah, surprisingly, it can be easy to mess up the cooler. If I were you, I would take everything apart and rebuild it again, do your first post with 1 stick of RAM(switch em around if something isn't happening, you could have 1 bad stick, and the rest good), onboard video if you have it. If you don't, reseat the video card, that was a problem of mine one a previous build. Boot with no HDD or Optical drive.

Is it just power looping on/off constantly after you press the power button?

I have noticed occasionally with the case (FYI - he bought an Antec 300, same one I have) that sometimes the reset button gets stuck pushed in a little, and will cause that. Check to see if the reset button is depressed slightly, and just nudge it back to normal position if that's the case.

I will check the psu. There is no on board vid card just the one i bought. I have done the stuff with the ram. All the lights come on on the motherboard but it doesnt make any noises. Gator the computer only resets once and then it just stays on til I make it turn off. how do i reset the vid card do I just take it out of the computer?

yeah, reseating the video card is as simple as removing it and putting it back in.

BitterBeerFace wrote: The thing to do is strip it down to the barest of essentials. 1 stick of RAM, PSU, processor (if it has built-in video, use that and remove the add-in video card), video... strip absolutely everything else (disconnect is fine)... then see if it'll post.

This is the best advice. Minimum operation. Often with a new mobo rig your existing PSU is not up to the task, especially with the high watt usage of graphic cards today. This is why I advocate keeping an old PCI vid card around for testing without the graphics card you intend to use for the final installation. Sometimes it's a matter of not having two particular components on the same lead coming off the PSU.

Are you getting any beep codes? I don't know if the antec 300 has a speaker for beep codes, or if your mobo of choice came with a beep code buzzer.

What about a port 80h display? It looks like two digital clock #s. Does your mother board have one of those?

http://www.intel.com/support/motherboar ... 025434.htm

I would check to make sure all the little input wires from your case are plugged in to the mobo correctly. By that I mean the power/reset/little light wires that all get plugged in close by together.

I know my power and reset inputs are side by side and the little things are damn hard to see or plug in. It might be that your reset and power are reversed. Just a thought to add to gators suggestion about the reset button being stuck.

This happened to me, And I had to have my bios flashed. Everything would power up but no video of any kind.

Every motherboard I've ever encountered has a small buzzer on it (not really a speaker)...

Just to see if the PSU is ok, I think you should be able to have nothing in there at all... no RAM, no video, just PSU, CPU, Motherboard, power... hit the power button and it should make some buzzing error messages. 3 long tones is "no RAM" almost always. Not sure what it'd be if there's no video, but at least you should get *something* this way.

So the motherboard i got was bad. Also doing some research the one i bought has a "habit" of catching fire behind the ram slots which mine did. So now im going to either a wait for the maker to hopefully replace it or b go buy a new one. It has been about a month without a computer and I have all these other nice parts just sitting around so i think I am going to buy a new motherboard on monday. What do yall think buy a new one or wait and see about a replacement from the maker

Buy a new one, Why would you want to get a replacement that could have the same issue? Funny, every person I know who has ever had a problem building a computer (myself included), the solution has always been get a new motherboard.