I just finished building a pc for a relative. When I thought I was done, I powered up the PC. All appeared to be going well - the CPU fan started, the hard drive started, LED lights on the front of the case lit up, the LED light for the CDROM lit up. However, when I plugged a monitor in, I discovered that the monitor was not receiving a signal. The system specifications are as follows:

PCChips "M916" HT1683 Chipset Motherboard for Intel Socket 478 CPU
Intel Pentium 4 2.26ghz Socket 478 CPU
Kingston 512mb PC3200 DDR Ram
10gb Maxtor Hard Drive (Used in previous PC)
Rosewill Radeon 6800 Video Card
Misc CDROM and Floppy Drive (Used in previous PC, unsure of brand/version)

Anyway, everything appears to be in correctly. This is my first time building a new PC though, so I may have overlooked something simple. I'm looking for some suggestions as to what I should check in order to find the source of this problem. Thanks for any help.

Well, did you ground yourself or wear a static dispersing item when building it? Or did you just fry a few chips while building :-D

Other than That.
Did you properly disable the onboard video on the motherboard so that its not trying to use that instead?

I grounded myself before working on it, but I didn't wear a wristband or anything. I don't think frying chips was a problem... the board also does not even have onboard video, so I don't think that is it.

hi,

don't panic too much about the grounding issue.. yes, you should either wear a wrist strap, or ground yourself regularly whilst working on the internals. but, unless you're really daft and start touching the edge connectors of pci cards having just run across a nylon carpet, it's unlikely you'll have killed something...

i used to be an electronics engineer - the CMOS devices, which are so sensitive to static, tend to be relatively well protected once they're soldered to a PCB - just make sure you handle all PCBs / boards by their edges and don't go touching exposed pins or connectors during installation.

good practice - wear a wrist strap; but if you've overlooked this precaution, instant hardware failure due to static isn't the first conclusion you should jump to! (i used to be a bit sloppy with static precautions, and i never saw, in ten years, device failure as a result of handling...)

at least you know everthing is getting power.

make sure the internal PC speaker is plugged in and reboot. if you don't hear a beep the BIOS isn't initializing. in which case remove mobo from case, reseat mem, cards, etc... take it completely apart and start build over again from scratch. you might find a screw you lost in the process.

As it turns out, I had forgotten to plug one of the power suppy -> motherboard connections in. I thought this would fix the problem, but now when I go to boot up, the CPU fan comes on for about half a second, then shuts down. Nothing else appears to work. What could the problem be now?

Do U have the CPU fan hooked to the right plug-in on the MB? Mine (Soyo) has to go to CPUFAN1. Or it will turn itself off. Did you go to the website of the monitor maker? Right video (Nvidia?) drivers? Try running Konppix self-booting CD.

I think maybe you misunderstood the problem. Yes, I have the CPU fan plugged into the right slot. The real problems is that nothing at all starts. I can't change the video card driver if the computer doesn't turn on. I also can't boot from knoppix if the computer doesn't turn on. As of right now, the problem seems to be completely hardware related.

You may have done this but lets get to the basics. Make sure all jumpers are configured correctly, Even from the factory defaults may not be where they should be. Connect only the power supply, motherboard, video card, and power button (you could use a jumper here if you wish and be careful). Unplug everything else. This means usb cables, harddrives, floppies, cdroms, led cables, power cables to devices. If you still have and issue last idea is remove the motherboard from case and set on a nonconductive surface. See if it starts. If so then something grounded somewhere. Don't tighten motherboard screws to tight.

Brian1

- PCChips are awful. I sometimes get a pile of 40 motherboards back to be sent back for warrenty. Cheap rubbish. Suggest Foxconn next time.

- With PCChips you often have to set the CMOS-Clear jumper off as it's set to on to save the battery. We get so many back for this.

- best way to determine what's knackered if possible is just replace all parts with components you know work. Only way to do it really I think

- check all parts are seated correctly too especially memory

- CPU unlikely to be blown.

Certainly start by replacing graphics card.

In order I think most likely to be broken:

- CPU (because spins for a bit)
- memory
- motherboard
- graphics card

unplug the box, pull out the battery, wait 5 minutes, cross your fingers, put the battery back in, and turn it on.

hi,

happy Christmas everybody.

Eklipz - I'd go with Brian1's suggestion as a starter here. Just get the basics set up, so that you can at least verify that the mobo is functional, then go from there one step at a time - eg, hard drive, then optical drives, etc.

Good luck.

PS - Do check, and double-check, jumper settings, particularly in relation to CMOS as already advised. This has caught me out once before....

I've been caught by the CMOS jumper. Make absolutely sure it's in the right position. Some MSI board pull this trick as well.