Alright... So I go to this big liquidation sale at the York Expo Center in Pennsylvania and I end up paying about $540 for the most expensive parts for my new rig that I am currently building from the ground up. But I am having tons of troubles with it. I will provide as much detailed information and pictures as I can so that I can get this new rig of mine running.
Here is what I started with...

The XBlade is what it is called. I don't know who made it but it came with a 450 watt power supply, a light up case fan that attaches to the panel which is removed from the tower to get into the inside of the case, and another fan on the front, along with build in USB ports (which need to be connected) on the front. In the image the case is black, but the case is blue for me (I like blue a lot better)

Below is all of the information of what I currently have in my possession (most of which is already inside the tower) and what I still need to get...
Current Components:
-Case: XBlade with 2 built in fans
-Power Supply: 450watt which is already installed within the case
-Motherboard: (None currently, original got shorted)
-CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo Processor with Heat Sync
-Video Card: Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT
-Memory: 1 GB
-Drives: DVD Disk Drive

Needed Components:
-Hard Drive: 500 GB of space and up for main usage and 2 other external only hard drives
-Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista (don't know what edition yet)
-Memory: 2 GB (Making the total of 3 GB)
-Keyboard: Adesso Light-Up Keyboard (Link)
-Mouse: Blue Razor Diamondback

Problems:
1) When I push the power button, nothing begins to run! Everything is connected, correctly to my knowledge, and you can hear the power supply making a sound when it receives power, but nothing turns on. No lights, no fans, no nothing. I was told that you would need to have a hard disk connected to the motherboard in order for the computer to start up and even with my friends extra hard disk connected, to make up for the one I don't have yet, it still doesn't start even the littlest bit. Going to post a picture as soon as I can but does anyone have any idea of what could be wrong? Is it that I need to have a hard disk connected to the motherboard in the right slot for it to work? Did I connect the wrong connectors together and having 1 wrong will mess up the entire start-up? Does the little sound that my power supply makes part of something meaning that the power supply is dead and I need a new one? Do all of the components require more than 450 watts of electricity from the power supply and nothing starts because there is not enough initial power for anything? Do all of the cords from the case need to be plugged in to make a closed circuit? Is my motherboard shorted out?


Any help is well appreciated right now because I want this rig to work great for me because I want it to be my own...

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Apr 11 2008, 2:17 am by Joshgt2.

I highly recommend you link your parts list to Newegg and get more details; "Intel Core 2 Duo Processor" describes a lot of things.

First check: most motherboards have a light that turns on when the motherboard is receiving power from the power supply (whether or not a BIOS boot has been signaled). Is the motherboard light on when you connect the mobo to the power supply and turn the power supply on?

Second, I'm pretty positive the BIOS doesn't require a hard drive; the CPU fan and case fans etc should start up when the BIOS boots up regardless (if I remember from when I built my computer).

The most likely problem is that the wires from your power button are not properly connected to your motherboard pins. It's a bitch to actually push them into the 24-pin port and you do need to get them on the right pins.

Yes... There is a stand by light... It should turn green when it has power, but I have it plugged in and the back of the power supply flipped to on (Not the base turned on) and there is nothing lighting up. Should I try to make sure that I have everything plugged in correctly or do you think that my mobo might have been shorted?

Heres what I suggest: Hook up the bare essentials. Just power supply, motherboard, and the MB being hooked up to a PC speaker. Turn it on, and you should hear beeps coming out of the PC speaker (for the moment it'd be complaining about no memory being plugged in or cpu missing).

If it works, just slowly add parts until you find out where the problem is. The hard drive isn't actually required to start the computer (it just wont go into an OS, but you can always boot to a live linux cd).

If it doesn't work, it probably means the MB is cooked. Since you say the power supply is starting up my guess is that it is the motherboard.

If the standby light doesn't go on when the power supply should be giving power to the motherboard, either

a) the power supply is broken
b) the motherboard is shorted or fried from static electricity (you should avoid giving your computer parts static shocks while working on them)
c) the power supply cables are not properly plugged in (very unlikely)

If you have an electrical meter, you should be able to measure the current/voltage in the wires on the other side of the PSU (be careful - there's a decent amount of current in those wires) to see if you're getting a DC output. Hate to say it, but it looks like either your motherboard or PSU is busted. Stupid check, but do make sure your power supply is plugged into the wall and that the wall is giving you power

Quote

Turn it on, and you should hear beeps coming out of the PC speaker

Don't most mobos beep with their own speaker when the BIOS starts? Mine does. It should be freaking obvious that all the fans start though

When I built mine, the PC speaker wasn't onboard, it was a very small cylinder thing I had to connect myself.

If the fans aren't starting out its probably a fried MB then or he didn't connect something properly. Fans always come on no matter what the problem is.

I think he said that the standby light doesn't even come on, so it's definitely the MB or the power supply.

This case is definately the mobo, not the powersupply.

I would not be suprised if the power supply is the problem, just because its a POS. If I were you, I would try to see if you have a spare power supply that you can swap in to see if anything happens. Powersupplies that come with cases suck 99% of the time.

I like the way that you said that... I got a huge deal when I bought this motherboard and if it is fried then I am going to freak... I can tell you right now however that I touched something to ground myself the entire time I was working on this... Even when I had to walk away and come back I would touch wood to ground myself again... Any room for errors with that note...?

Did you make sure the power button on the case is connected properly? (lol, don't get angry at me for asking) Look at the motherboard manual if you don't know the exact pins to connect it to (2 pin connection).

Sort of related, I've even had a situation where the connector didn't quite reach the pins, so I had to push the wires down further into the connector so it would make contact.

That paticular motherboard has both a 24pin main power connecter and a 4 pin as well. Are both plugged in? I didnt notice the 6pin power connector on my first build, gave me a load of trouble.

Some power supplies don't come with the extra 6 pin power connector.

And those include?

Also, think about it, 450W is nothing if you plan on running top of the line Professional Games. I mean sure, it will run Starcraft easily without overheating or breaking a fuse, but to run really high performance equipment, Im almost certain that you'll need more than that.

The Motherboard is probably a good one since It was manufactured by Asus (or an imitation company; arent I so biased?)
You listed Core2Duo without any specs (x.x GHz)
The 8500GT is somewhat of an old model, compared to the new ones that NVidia has come up with.
Good RAM, HD Space and mouse. Not so sure about the keyboard though

Teh Problemz

1) When I push the power button, nothing begins to run! Everything is connected, correctly to my knowledge, and you can hear the power supply making a sound when it receives power, but nothing turns on. No lights, no fans, no nothing. I was told that you would need to have a hard disk connected to the motherboard in order for the computer to start up and even with my friends extra hard disk connected, to make up for the one I don't have yet, it still doesn't start even the littlest bit. Going to post a picture as soon as I can but does anyone have any idea of what could be wrong? Is it that I need to have a hard disk connected to the motherboard in the right slot for it to work? Did I connect the wrong connectors together and having 1 wrong will mess up the entire start-up? Does the little sound that my power supply makes part of something meaning that the power supply is dead and I need a new one? Do all of the components require more than 450 watts of electricity from the power supply and nothing starts because there is not enough initial power for anything? Do all of the cords from the case need to be plugged in to make a closed circuit? Is my motherboard shorted out?

1) The power supply doesnt make a sound... (at least, not mine )
2) I beleive that this has nothing to do with the motherboard, however, are you sure you have the right socket? Common ones for processors tend to be LGA775.
3) Almost certainly is your power supply's incapability to handle such PwNaGe hardware
4) Incorrect installation!!!

Thats about it... I dont think it can be anything else besides that. Maybe certain components aren't connected (properly). Maybe your computer is fried. Maybe your computer does not exist and you are trying to annoy us with such... above average statistics!!!

Any help is well appreciated right now because I want this rig to work great for me because I want it to be my own...

No offense, but you're giving out either wrong or stupid advice.

There is much more to a power supply than the wattage claimed by the manufactuer. In this case, his power supply is cheap PoS found in a case. It is more than likely it has an out of date architecture, old rail distribution (weak 12v rail in this case) low efficiency, a misleading maximum output claim, creappy capacitors, crappy cooling/lack of heatsinks, etc. It is also more than likely that the PSU could be dead, not powerful enough to sustian a real load, not designed well enough to work in warm temperature, etc.

Just FYI, ASUS makes a few crappy motherboard, I don't know why you have an idea that there is an imitation company producing motherboards under ASUS's name(Here in the states, at least.) In this case, anyway, the motherboard is good.

This shouldn't matter at all as far as his problems go.
So?
The Core 2 Duo line has only existed on LGA775, and his motherboard is an LGA775 motherboard, this is not a problem.

Got results... My friend shorted the motherboard and didn't tell me... Nice, I know... Can anyone give me some links or something to ones that are good and that are also cheap?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128059

That looks like a win! It isn't all of the things that of which I have now, but I won't use half of the things I have now... Going going to consider this one man... Anymore links are still appreciated!!

BTW, is your DVD drive SATA or IDE (A.K.A. PATA, sometimes)? If it is not SATA, absolutely make sure you get only SATA hard drives for your internal drives, since that board only has one connector for IDE and if it is connected to your DVD drive, the other connection on the cable won't reach a hard drive, most likely.

The 9XXX series needs pci express 2.0 x16 which is relatively new and very expensive on intel motherboards