The (new) Official PC building thread!

mphsbelle,

I was going to comment that if you have a bad hdd, bad hdd connection, bad memory stick, or memory stick not seated correctly, you will get beeps from the case speaker (which you are now telling us you are). even if the hdd is defective or has a bad connection, you should still be able to go into the bios and you should still get a video signal from the pc to the monitor (which it sounds like you aren't). make damn sure your cpu is installed correctly although it could be a number of things causing the problem.

 

I've got a friend that has lost both his CD/DVD Drives.No Drive letters,not even in drive management.He has tried to uninstall & reinstall.But to no avail..Is this something that needs fixing through the CMOSS..He has a hewlett packard,and does not know how to enter CMOSS.If this is what is needed to be done..Any suggestions would be appreciated

 

Note that a faulty hard drive cable can and will stop your PC from even getting as far as the BIOS. It's worth trying another if you haven't already.

 

sammorris,

the pc I built that the brand new hdd was defective, would still post and let you go into the bios. it did give me a message in the bios that no hdd was detected. the case speaker was beeping the whole time and when I tried the defective hdd in my pc, the case speaker made the same beeping even though they have two completely different mobo's. he should still get a video signal to the monitor even if the hdd is bad or there is a bad hdd cable or connection.

a defective or improperly installed cpu can and will cause no video signal.

 

I'm not saying that it always happens, but when my friend's PC arrived at a LAN party, it wouldn't boot at all. He reseated the cables to a hard disk he had been given to seed torrents with and it worked fine. There's proof that in some cases that can be the issue. Midn you, he uses a DFI board, which are very picky.

 

mphsbelle,
it still sounds like there is no oupput to the monitor. Is there an on board video connection u can try instead of the added video card?

 

Just got home from work; haven't done anything today. But I have read everything and will go down the list tomorrow. I plan to reseat RAM and if that doesn't work, I will disassemble and reassemble. I have the monitor and and KB attached to the motherboard as I have not been able to load the drivers for anything. At this point, at least it is getting power. Since I was not comfortable with the way the cpu went in, I figure I will go back to that point. I cannot tell you all how much all of your help has meant. By now I normally would have had it sticking out of my wall as decoration. LOL Will let you know what happens 26th pm.

 

Sure. Good luck!
I will be away from this evening until Monday 29th, so ask the other guys for assistance while I'm gone.

 

aawwwwwwwwww!! Thanks for the vote of confidence sam, it means so much.

belle,
There are plenty of gentlemen willing to help you, just ask.

....gm

 

Hey well, I kid you not, some people have started threads then gone "can anyone help me since sammorris is away?"
I'm not the kind to brag, but whenever I go away people always ask where I am!

 

I won't and have never asked but have a good leave

 

Yeah sure. I'm wondering whether its good or bad timing that my PC dying coincided with me going away. I suppose it helps not having to worry about sorting it out for a couple of days, but then again, the sooner it's sorted the better. Suffice to say I won't be buying an Asus/nForce motherboard again. The only two motherboards I've ever had fail were Asus Nforce ones, an A8N-SLI and a P5N-E SLI, and both of them had chipset failures. I would simply blame the nforces for that, but then my server has an A8R-MVP and that seems a little quirky as well.

 

I'm building my first do-it-yourself pc and have narrowed down some of my cpu/motherboard choices. I'd be grateful for any help or insights. I'll include the latest newegg prices for comparison purposes.

Intel E2160 cpu - 85. at newegg
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L board - $95. for a total of 180.

or Athlon 64x2 4800+ - $100.
Gigabyte GA-M61P-S3 - 75. for a total of 175.

I'm also wondering if the Athlon X2 Brisbane BE-2400 chip instead of the 4800+ is a better choice. It would only lower the total price by a buck. The 4800+ is a Brisbane, too.

I know the Intel combo is probably better for overclocking, which I've never done, but you all make it sound like so much fun, I might be tempted. But the Intel starts at 1.8 Ghz and the Athlon at 2.5 GHz (the BE-2400 is 2.3 GHz), so would there really be that much of a performance difference? And would I have to figure on a new heatsink and fan? I have 2 gigs of Crucial ballistix ddr2 800 memory ready to put in.

I'm not a gamer, so the latest and greatest isn't that important, though I might finally try a few older games that were just unplayable on my old system. Basically, I just want to upgrade from an old Athlon 1800 system.

 

Despite the lower clock speed, the Intel is the better option no matter what you do with the system.

 

I think stock speed will have the intel performing better as well. BTW very good Ram you got there, I have them and they are excellent overclockers. Overclocking is really fun, and well... satisfying. It feels like you just got something for free lol.

 

sam you cant keep blaming your bad luck on the hardware, do you think it may have somthing to do with your obsession for silence that hasyour pc running so hot and that heat is the cause of the other issues?

mine is sat here with nb 28c and cpu 30c both on 1.4v

its in a coolermaster 690 with a few fans and makes a humming noise but iv never had any issues. 7pro is pulling air thru the nc-06 and it works like a charm, 140mm in the roof and a 120mm in the rear pulling air our 2 120mm in the front and 1 120mm in the side pushing it in, even my 88gtx is cooler running at 60c.

 

it's tempting to say that, but all my components run cooler now than when they had stock cooling as the system was built, so I'm dubious. The chipset doesn't really change temperature regardless of the fan speeds, and besides, most of the work I've carried out in making my PC silent occurred after my first motherboard failed, and the fact that the chipset heatsink on my old board barely got warm hardly suggests that high temperatures were at fault. If the chipset heatsink wasn't making good contact and the die underneath overheated, that's not my fault.

 

Thanks for the help, guys. I've noticed that the Intel Core Duo E4500 Allendale is dropping in price - the E4600 has just come out and there appears to be some adjustment in prices for similar cpus. It's down to 121 at mwave so I'm leaning towards going with that one. From some of the reviews I've read, it seems to be easier to overclock, and I think I want to keep it simple on my first oc.

 

From what I've seen, the 4000 series is easier to overclock, so yeah go for it.

 

Sam, from what I've read, the 4 series doesn't overclock as well as the E6X00 series.