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Subject: Woe is me - building my own PC

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Original Message 1/24 26-Apr-01 @ 10:49 AM - Woe is me - building my own PC

suprsi

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Yesterday I took delivery of two IBM hard disks, an Abit KT7A system board, 256Mb Ram, and and Athlon processor. Having already bought a Sunteck case, and using parts from my older computer (video, modem, sound, etc) I was going to build a complete system.

So last night I tried to assemble the whole thing. I've been working with computers for yonks, but can't sort this out. Firstly, there were no instructions with the case, so all assembly had to be done by trial and error. Anyway, I connected everything - ATI Video and Voodoo 2 (will be replaced soon with GeForce), DVD, Cd-Writer, disks, memory processor - and nothing happens. When I connect the monitor it seems to power on for a second, then goes back into power-save mode.

I tried removing everything except the processor, memory and video, but still get no beeps, video, or any noticeable activity. The hard disks work as I've re-connected my old computer, as do the video boards, so it's gotta be either the system board/memory/processor or it's something I'm doing wrong. The system board is getting power as the chipset fan turns, and the LED's on the case come on, but that's all I get. The poxy fucking thing just doesn't want to boot or post or anything!

Anyone experience anything similar? I've been told to check that the system board is not touching the case, so will give that a go tonight but I don't think it's that.

Cheers,

Si.

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Message 2/24 26-Apr-01 @ 11:22 AM - RE: Woe is me - building my own PC

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'no instructions with the case' - ?.. er... surely a case just has screws to open it and close it and that's it ?? or did it come flat-packed?.. dont get it?

i also dont know that board, does it auto set the cpu speed etc?

___________________________________

I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!

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Message 3/24 26-Apr-01 @ 11:54 AM - RE: Woe is me - building my own PC

suprsi

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Hehe - eh, actually it came pre-made and the more I think about it, the thicker I sound! It was more to do with the system board going into the case, not the assembly of the case that I was referring to.

Well, they came with these little mounting catches that plug into the case and the board, and the screws come with these little red circular things (not metal), but I'm not sure what these are needed for - possibly making sure the system board doesn't create a circuit with the case?

As for the system board - it uses a Soft-Menu BIOS thing (jumperless), but I don't even get a chance to get in there.

Si.

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Message 4/24 26-Apr-01 @ 01:16 PM - RE: Woe is me - building my own PC

antskony

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you basically need to try to get any sort of response out of the bmoard to see if it is not shorted. ram proper/ well plugged? try running it with just a graphics on a newspaper...and the basics plugged in. dont even bother with drives. it might be the mboard cicuitry in contact with case, the bmoard cucuitry fucked, of the ram/ cpu wanked. altogether it sounds like a splattered system for the moment.

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Message 5/24 26-Apr-01 @ 01:23 PM - RE: Woe is me - building my own PC

antskony

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Message 6/24 26-Apr-01 @ 02:33 PM - RE: Woe is me - building my own PC

99devils

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Disconnect everything except for the CPU, a floppy drive, video card, and one hard disk. Make sure everything is well-seated, and power the machine on. Set all BIOS options accordingly, like processor speed, etc.. Then see if you can get it to boot to DOS from floppy. Get the bare machine rolling, and then add the rest of your hardware.

-Craig

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Message 7/24 26-Apr-01 @ 04:28 PM - RE: Woe is me - building my own PC

Jasper

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I had exactly this problem with my asus a7v / tbird900, it was caused by my heatsink not being seated correctly on the processor, this should have caused the processor to burn out in seconds except that it was actually seated on about 75% of the surface (25% of the thermal compound was untouched). The processor overheated and failed to work correctly before the motherboard could post the test so no warning beeps. At least this is what I deduced, dunno if it's entirely correct.

After about an hours worth of fiddling I managed to seat it correctly and the whole thing booted as far as the bios (see below).

Sorry about the story but a bit of background might help you spot some similarities.

Other than that the power supply could be faulty.

Also if you have ata100 connectors AND normal IDE leads supplied make sure you use the correct leads in the correct ide slot, not sure of the implications but it caused me a headache - this caused mine to fail during the bios check.

What size power supply is it? 300watts is recommended for athlons, but you should be able to boot with just basic cards etc with a 250watt one (mine is).

The little rec circular things are risers and intended for the use you mentioned.

Also check the mboard manual to see if there is a bios reset jumper, if there is pull it off and replace it then try to boot. There might still be one even with a jumperless bios.

Is your ram seated correctly, and if you have an agp card make sure it is seated all the way, some have retainers on the bottom ( a piece of plastic that pulls off) if this isn't there the card can be moved slightly.

unplug the drive for now as you don't need it connected to get the pc to post.

can't think of anything else I've come accross.

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Message 8/24 26-Apr-01 @ 05:19 PM - RE: Woe is me - building my own PC

suprsi

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Cheers all :-)

I'm gonna check out the risers, and make sure that the system board is installed properly.

antskony - what do you mean by putting the motherboard on newspaper?

I think the problem could be what Jasper has described, so I'm off home now to try it out. I've since installed 2000 on one of the hard disks so at least there's something to boot to if I can get it working.

Thanks for the help folks,

Si.

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Message 9/24 26-Apr-01 @ 06:52 PM - RE: Woe is me - building my own PC

antskony

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i mean isolate the board from anything conductive. It could be shorting if it is contact with anything conductive- case etc. the best way to isolate the motherboard to check it for life is properly mounted or on paper/ in it's box, etc. if it doesn't work out of it's box, it's either the ram / cpu / circuits that are dislodged/charred. or the graphics card could conceivably be a bit dodge with that board...shorting it out, preventing a boot up. i had a mate could only install his graphics by using a pci to install 98 and then putting in the agp beside it(rare). if it's not shorting, there's good chances it's fucked...(you might have sparked it even being extra careful)
in the mboard manual, it'll tell you if there is a set number of beeps for different problems.. 2 beeps for no ram-3 beeps for no cpu etc. no nothing means no mboard life. at worst dig a hole in the garden, and give it a decent burial.

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Message 10/24 26-Apr-01 @ 07:30 PM - RE: Woe is me - building my own PC

Moujik

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This is EXACTLY the same problem I had - it turned out it was the M/B shorting on the case, but from some of the risers AND from the 5.25" bays - basically the case was slightly too small, and was contacting.

Fixed it pretty easily by bending the bay slightly.

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Message 11/24 27-Apr-01 @ 12:01 AM - RE: Woe is me - building my own PC

suprsi

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Well I managed to get it sorted. It might have been the system board being shorted as there was one screw touching off the base of it that I hadn't noticed. Once I removed this (it wasn't serving any purpose) the machine booted.

Now all I've gotta do is sort out the sound card/midi interface situation.

I'm getting this shite static sound on everything sound file, mp3 or audio. Also, my Midisport 4*4 isn't working, even though it is being picked up by the computer, the USB light isn't flashing and I can't send/receive midi. And for some reason, this machine doesn't seem that fast!

I mean, it's a 1.33Ghz Athlon with two IBM 7200rpm drives, but the audio chugs when it's doing something heavy, which shouldn't cause any problem.

Guess I'll take a look at this tomorrow evening.

Thanks for the help guys :-)

Si.

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Message 12/24 27-Apr-01 @ 08:05 AM - RE: Woe is me - building my own PC

opus

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athlons want a 300watt power supply. and AMD list the supplies they recomend. i dont envy your pradickament! my techie just told me he got my athlon 1.2 thunderbird are GO! i am so jazzed

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Message 13/24 27-Apr-01 @ 09:43 AM - RE: Woe is me - building my own PC

suprsi

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Strange, but even when the computer is off and the monitors are on, I can hear this weird buzzing sound. This only happens when the computer is off though.

I think I'm just gonna format the whole thing again tonight and start from scratch. I'll also try putting the soundcard into a different slot to ensure it's not that. Still no joy with the Midisport. Guess it's just trial and error from now on.

Cheers,

Si.

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Message 14/24 27-Apr-01 @ 12:17 PM - RE: Woe is me - building my own PC

Jasper

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have you installed all your drivers yet? don't rely on the microsoft ones, also install directx7 and direct media and the sound problems might improve.

remember that two ide drives on the same channel are sharing the throughput.

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Message 15/24 27-Apr-01 @ 12:33 PM - RE: Woe is me - building my own PC

suprsi

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Hmmmm, about the drives - surely having them both on the same channel is the right/quickest configuration? I didn't think that having two drives on the same channel would slow things down, though I guess it makes sense. If I put the DVD on the same channel as one of the disks, wouldn't this slow things down even more?

With regards to drivers, I've installed the manufacturers versions, all from Cd, and when this didn't solve the problem I installed Direct X 8, which didn't have any effect.

Thanks Jasper,

Si.

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Message 16/24 27-Apr-01 @ 02:28 PM - RE: Woe is me - building my own PC

99devils

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If your box isn't even getting to the BIOS, then drivers and shit make no difference - they haven't been loaded yet.

Two IDE devices must share the bus - only one of them can have it at a time. You'd be best off to put one hard disk and CD-ROM on one channel, and the other hard disk and CD-RW on the second.

-Craig

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Message 17/24 27-Apr-01 @ 02:43 PM - RE: Woe is me - building my own PC

suprsi

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I'm getting into Windows now as the startup problem is sorted. I guess the speed thing is probably down to the bus, so I'll change those around tonight and see what difference it makes.

Cheers Craig,

Si.

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Message 18/24 27-Apr-01 @ 02:45 PM - RE: Woe is me - building my own PC

antskony

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i had the same problem once... even when mycomputer was off, my hi fi was making a buzzing sound. so i reinstalled windows, put in a new sound driver, and it still buzzed. i checked that the line was plugged in the right soundcard bit, and when that didn't work i tried routing the speakers through the parallel port with a bit of re wiring, and configured them in direct x. direct x said that i should reconfig my registry settings, so i did, printed em out and put em on a cd. i played the cd in the hi fi, and it was still buzzing. i recorded the speaker output into wav, converted into mp3 and tried again, in case it had been mp3 artifacts.
i also tried adjusting the settings of all the sound volumes, and by this time the wav files were crisp, although the dynamic range had reduced. so i gave all the jacks a good rinse, cleaned up the pci slots with wd40, and booted up again. i got the wav recordings of the registry and converted them to aiff, then zipped them, to take up less room, and renamed the file to replace the soundcard driver. i put the soundcard on top of the hi fi and rewired the hi fi into the power supply. then i downloaded the some other mp3's to see if they would play. they weren't playing properly. i installed some soundfonts, rewired some of the mboard with a gold pen and installed a remote admin prog to boot it up from work without risking any interfearance from the room, and linked up my cb so that i could monitor the output from work. i tried reconfiguring the keyboard to local manufacturing setting, playing with the monitor off, and removing everything from my room, including undoing all the wall sockets, and even installed a de-ioniser and a fan to keep the dust out and then getting the latest version of winamp and some new skins. i got an infra red lamp to monitor for electromagnetic anomalies, and set up the seti program to check to other interference. i soundproofed the room with fiberglass compound, and made insulated covers for my pc and hi fi and put them on cusions, and then got installed akazoid 2 to check the pc bleeper, and that was working fine. i got everyone out of the house, and detoxed it with ddt, and then washed it down with benzoic ethelene and then rebooted th pc again. i phoned up bt and asked them to make my number off record, and changed power supplyers and then changed round the eide ports and the power jacks. i redid the plumbig so it went through the garden and over the roof rather than in the house, and got one pipe into a hydra coolinbg system in the basement, actually right next to the freezer.
by this time i got so pissed of i got my jeep and went to northcote alebama for a good think mwith my folks. i got some good meals, did some exercise, and went back. in the end i found out it was the hi fi amp getting a static buildup, so all i had to do was try get soem headphones and it was ok, thanks to my neghbour terry for that. he had been in a band once and recognised the overcharged amp sound. i also got a new monitor and a better mousepad, and then spent hours playing arkazoid, and giving the whole music thing a break.

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Message 19/24 27-Apr-01 @ 03:43 PM - RE: Woe is me - building my own PC

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ha ha ha!! lol!! - classic

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Message 20/24 27-Apr-01 @ 04:15 PM - RE: Woe is me - building my own PC

Jasper

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heh heh, btw, I meant directx to fix the chugging sound

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Message 21/24 29-Apr-01 @ 01:59 AM - RE: Woe is me - building my own PC

PointBeing

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LOL.. rofl

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Message 22/24 29-Apr-01 @ 06:42 AM - RE: Woe is me - building my own PC

Brett B

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damn, i was crying when i read that..........

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Message 23/24 17-May-01 @ 08:06 AM - RE: Woe is me - building my own PC

loFreq

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I only have one thing to say. If you've never built a PC before, dont try it blind, find someone who knows how first. There are always little tricks and pitfalls that may not be apparent the first couple times around. Ruining compnents is not a cool way to learn. (did you know that putting the floppy-drive power connector on wrong on an ATX case can destroy every other component in the box?)

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Message 24/24 08-Jun-01 @ 06:09 AM - RE: Woe is me - building my own PC

siva (justinlofling

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How did you incorrectly install it?

justin

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