I think I remember something happening to me, similar to this.
I went to the Mobo settings and forced the computer to read the cd at start up.
There were options to start and read other stuff too...
idk, happened a long time ago.

More info needed. Screen flickering doesn't necessarily mean something is wrong, unless the screen flickers all the time.
Go into BIOS / UEFI and see if it flickers there. Also there should be a hotkey for loading "safe defaults" or something along that line which configures the computer to run as stable as possible.
You probably have an onBoard graphics chip so plug your monitor in that (connector should be at the outside of the case where all the other mobo connectors are) and see what happens. Probably you'll have to take out your discrete card for you to see anything at all.
Check monitor cable. Can you influence the flickering if you move and bend the cord or when you wiggle the connectors?

Not sure if you reported that as an actual problem, but
is perfectly normal for a new system. Put in your Windows CD, Press F11 (= boot menu) when it counts the memory and make it boot from CD, then install Windows.

Next time try to describe the problem as precise as possible, like "2 seconds after I press power the screen flickered for 4 seconds, and on top of that it doesn't even boot up saying 'insert boot disk' "

The flickering is constant, when I turn the computer on there's a line up on top of the monitor that stays solid and under that is an inch or so where i can make out the biostar logo while the flickering is going on. The rest of the screen is usually black.

Constant as in despite you doing everything I recommended?

Yeah for the most part, I'm at work right now so I can't try anything till I get back

Even changing the graphics adapter (from discrete to onboard) doesn't fix it? Then -uhm- then your problem is a weird one. First thing I'd try then is another monitor and/or cable.

What the fuck I thought we recommended an ASUS mobo instead of one of the Biostar ones that are much more likely to get blown caps or other similar bullshit?

BioStar has been getting a lot better in the last couple years, they're no longer a bottom of the chain brand like they were. It was a cheap and quality board with good reviews, hence why I recommended it. And this is obviously a gfx or monitor problem, so don't even bring the board into it.

"blown caps" was an industry-wide problem around 2002-2003 or so that affected most motherboard manufacturers due to them all sourcing capacitors from the same place. It's long since been known about and AFAIK capacitors are rarely a problem these days. When I bought my computer in 2007 gigabyte had a range of "solid series" motherboards with different levels of supposed quality, like S2 through to S6. One of the basic factors is "solid capacitors" - they were specifically marketing that they wouldn't have the capacitor problem that had plagued the previous generation of motherboards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

Its most likely a graphics or monitor problem, but it could still be the motherboard. Less likely, but it's foolish to rule it out.

I'd actually recommend people buy motherboards that some with some sort of onboard graphics these days. In the past onboard graphics would only show up on the gimpy low-end boards so you'd be sacrificing features to get it. But having onboard graphics just seems a lot better when it comes to diagnosing these sorts of issues, or if your graphics card dies then there's actually a backup you can use until you get a new one sorted. Also I haven't read into it a lot, but AMD and nVidia are coming up with technologies where it's possible to offload some of the graphics work onto the onboard graphics to take advantage of it, or run an additional monitor off it.


@Wing:
I presume you've plugged in the extra power connector the gaphics card, if it needs one? And also plugged in all the appropriate power leads to the motherboard (should be at least 2).

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 13 2012, 8:16 pm by Lanthanide.

Integrated graphics have been relegated to on-die graphics which come with the processor nowadays, so it's not necessary to have an on-board solution as long as your motherboard is a type that can use the on-die graphics.

AMD"s "hybrid crossfire" between the on-die graphics and the discrete solution isn't exactly great. I don't think it's something to be hyped over.

You're technically correct, but this is pedantry. It's still "on-board" because the motherboard actually has to support it; it has to have a VGA/DVI out port on the back panel. The point is that it's integrated and you don't need a discrete graphics card, just like you don't need discrete network cards any more because ethernet ports are on-board.

I wasn't "hyping" it, simply highlighting it as a technology advance in this area in recent times.

Haha it works!
It turns out my dvi cable was messed up so I just used a different one and its all k

Edit: Windows won't read my hard drive, only the SSD. I can see it just fine in the BIOS though. What do?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 14 2012, 12:29 am by Wing Zero.

Windows is already on the SSD? Turn off PC, plug power into HDD. Plug sata cable to both HDD and motherboard. Boot. Then go to disk defragmenter and format the drive with NTFS. :3

Follow the instructions here. Skip to 2:15 where the bit you're interested in starts from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2P9cN7KFPug

How do i stop everything from getting downloaded to the SSD? It seems redundant to have a 1.5 terrabyte HDD and yet the shits getting crammed into the smaller one...

I take it you got the second drive to work following the instructions I linked to?

What you want to do is move the Users folder to your second drive. It's possible, but nowhere near as easy to do as it should be. IMO Microsoft should really create a utility to do this and include it in SP2, since so many people are going with SSDs for their system drives but want to store user stuff elsewhere.

Anyway, I've moved the users folder over on my own computer, so it is possible to do. I've just googled for some instructions and these look like they should work: http://www.windows7hacker.com/index.php/2009/05/how-to-change-user-profile-default-location-in-windows-7/ Note that they aren't the instructions I used when I did it (well over a year ago) and I can't remember anything about doing it, so I can't help much more than what other sites say.

I did have this fuck up for me rather badly when I was messing around with the OSX stuff (see SC theory forum) because one of the virtual PC things I installed was hardcoded to expect the users directory to be in C:\users and it ended up somehow screwing up something that Windows relied on so next time I logged in windows started looking in c:\users to find my account and couldn't find it, so it effectively lost my user account. I eventually managed to recover it and didn't lose any of my stuff, but it took a good 3-4 hours to get it sorted. This is probably something pretty extreme to happen, but just be aware that it could happen to you.

Another thing I've done is created a virtual folder link (called symlinks in linux) to let me have a directory E:\Downloads that symlinks to my e:\users\[name]\downloads directory for easy access. The files are really stored in the user directory but the e:\downloads folder acts as a transparent link to it for ease of use. This isn't the same as a simple shortcut to a folder.

I think I fucked something up. Occasionally, when I'm playing a game, the computer would freeze or turn off without warning. So far it has happened when i played SC2, Skyrim, and LoL. I'm thinking it might have something to do with me messing with the registry but I don't know if i can fix it alone. If i can't find a solution i think i might have to reinstall the OS, but I would prefer not to because I already spent so much time updating the software.

That sounds like symptoms for overheated hardware.
Download and run HWMonitor and see if anything exceeds 80°C when you're running a game.
If it does, open your case and turn on your computer and check if all fans are running, especially those cooling the CPU and graphics card.

ugh... $1400 and you got a nzxt gamma.

oh well. Run furmark on the burn in to see if it's the graphics. You may have to run it overnight. Run prime95 to check for ram/cpu. OCCT has some testing tools as well.

Also to Aristocrat: while I haven't checked recently, the bad taste Seagate leaves is due to the 7200.11 series. 7200.12 is on par with and at times better than samsung's spinpoint f3. Also note that seagate only makes HDDs, whereas samsung makes a crapload of stuff. Only start worrying if they acquire hitachi. (and by the way my HDDs are old hitachi and seagates, missed my chance for a $50 spinpoint f3)

I dled this yesterday and checked occasionally while playing but as far as I know, the temp never went over 50 degrees.