Newly built pc won't post.

Title pretty much explains the situation. I tried some advised common fixes that I found online, such as running my setup without the video card installed, putting the RAM in different slots, etc. Nothing seems to be working; the computer simply will not power up and I don't know what I did wrong. As far as I know, I plugged all the cables in correctly but of course I could be wrong. I'm gonna include some pictures of my setup in its current state and see if we can figure anything out. I hope it's not due to any faulty components; I understand that's known to happen sometimes.

Note that I didn't try testing it out with the monitor plugged in yet. I doubt that's the issue in particular, but feel free to suggest otherwise.

Also, if you find the pictures problematic, let me know if there's anything I can do. Thank you for your help.

How come you don't have the On/Off, Reset, LED wiring plugged in to their respective jumpers? It could be something as simple as reversed jumpers.

@jun_aka_pekto: I didn't think those had to be manually setup.

First-time builder problems...

This.

All those wiring in the case should hook up somewhere on the motherboard.

I normally try to run them under the motherboard if the cables are long enough. I have the leads come out right by the pins.

It doesn't really matter though so long as they don't get in the way.

@jun_aka_pekto: They wouldnt happen to go in the coloured panel in the top left of the third picture, would they? I plugged them in just now and I'm getting a clicking noise, plus the light beside the power switch is coming on. I still can't get the fans to spin, though.

It's a little tricky. There's no labels on the motherboard that indicate where the correct cables go.

You have to consult the motherboard manual to know which pins the front panel leads go to.

hopefully you used the stand offs, i know some cases come with them already in the case, but some you have to manually do it.
when I built my first, i had this problem. didn't know about the stand offs, I was such a noob lol. After I put those in, it posted.

@kitty: The stand offs are not an issue. The case I have already came with them built in. :)

Okay, well, I got the computer to post. The CPU however doesn't seem to be working; the CPU fan isn't running. Will there be a difference once the monitor is plugged in? Everything seems to be plugged in correctly (this time, at least).

If the cpu fan isnt running then its not plugged in

There is a plug for the CPU on your power supply that plugs into the motherboard normally very close to the CPU fan itself, make sure thats plugged in

It is plugged in. And it still isn't running.

UPDATE: The CPU fan is working now. I guess if you **** around with the CPU fan input enough, it'll just start working eventually. So the computer is fully posting now.

Now, I need to get it to boot. I'm getting no display on the monitor yet.

To me, "post" usually means the hardware is powered up and running, the video BIOS is working, followed by the motherboard BIOS info showing up on the screen. Anything short means the PC isn't posting. The BIOS version must be showing onscreen.

Sometimes, you can't see the screen text because of an improper monitor connection or improper video setting in the BIOS in which case, it's time to test each video port to find out where the video signal is going.

Your motherboard manual is your best friend. Make sure you follow assembly of each subsystem carefully. For example, your RAM placement. Is that what the manual specified or did you just place them like that? Normally, the RAM slots are color-coded and have specific placements for two sticks of RAM. Notice there's two (alternating) white and two black RAM slots. What does your manual say about RAM placement?

@jun_aka_pekto: Hah, okay, so I got it to "power up", but not post. Gotcha.

The RAM is in the alternating coloured slots because if two sticks are right next to each other, the CPU won't power up. I have that figured out now.

I heard that you need to plug the monitor into the onboard video input first to be able to access the BIOS, but my motherboard (Gigabyte GA 990 FX) doesn't seem to have one. If it does, I certainly wouldn't know because none of the inputs match my monitor cable; I can only plug my monitor into the inputs on my video card (unless there's another cable that I need to use or something).

I'm going to play around with the video ports for a bit and see if I get anything.

You should have your RAM in the black slots, not in the black and grey slots. Your running single channel.

@Truth_Hurts_U: Sorry, they're in both grays. That's what I meant.

So I've been fiddling around with the video ports and nothing is working. Tried both video ports, as well as the HDMI port (both at the same time as well as separate). Nothing is working. Display is simply not happening.

Anyone have any other ideas?

What type of video card do you have?

@ferrari2001: Sapphire AMD R9 290

You've connection all the power connectors properly? It should take 2, six-pin connectors.

@ferrari2001: I only have one cable plugged in. There's a six-pin port and an eight-pin port on the card, and I don't have any cables that fit into the eight-pin port (the corresponding port on the PSU is also eight-pin).

It doesn't matter if I use a six-pin connector with the eight-pin port, does it?

You must have both cables plugged in for the card to work. You should have 2 6 pin connections, try plugging both of those into the video card. Take a picture of your video card if you can and I can probably see what you need to do. Although the plugs can vary, you may have 1 6 and an 8, etc.. Your power supply should have the correct plugs.

@ferrari2001: I can't take any pictures right now unfortunately, but this is what my card looks like:

The idea of utilizing both the 6-pin and 2-pin plugs on one of my cables for the port on the left just popped into my head, so I'm going to try that out and see how it goes. There's also another 8-pin connector I can use, but according to the label on the cable, it says it's for the CPU. I don't know if that would work. (?)

Anyway, you'll be hearing an update from me relatively soon.

Ferrari, you are the best. I love you, man!

I got the display working, and now I need to configure the BIOS and everything. Thanks!

To everyone that posted in this thread, thanks a lot for your help.

Sorry. I had to leave because the wife wanted to go shopping. Looks like you're in good hands. ☺

@jun_aka_pekto: Yeah, man. I'm gonna wait until tomorrow morning/afternoon to configure my BIOS. I'm still coming down from my high because of my success. :P

Thanks a lot for your contributions to this thread.

@TheFatPerson:

Bank 1 is A0, B0 which is black slots. Bank 2 is A1, B1 and are they grey. It doesn't matter but it's always advised to put your RAM in the first bank.

I hope this helps

Welp.

So now I'm trying to configure my BIOS, and I'm trying to set up my harddrives (two 1TB HDDs) and I tried to get into the RAID setup and I can't get past the first screen where it says to press Ctrl-F. Can't boot back to BIOS, can't press any keys, nothing works. I am stuck on this screen.

What now?

Are you using a USB keyboard? When doing BIOS work, Plug n Play (such as USB) can quit or not work at all. That is why I still keep around an old PS/2 keyboard.

I don't do RAID because I like to keep my PC as simple as possible. I leave that stuff for servers. Anyway, what does the motherboard manual say about a BIOS reset? It usually involves setting a jumper (or a screwdriver) to short a couple of pins.

@jun_aka_pekto: You were right. Shorting the CLR-CMOS jumper seemed to do the trick. I'm back in my BIOS now.

The reason I wanted to utilize the RAID feature is because I'm also using a hard-drive from my old computer. I guess I'm just going to have to forget about that for now (for better or for worse).

Maybe the reason it didn't work was because the other hard-drive wasn't plugged in when I tried to do it?

I just want to be able to access both hard-drives. I didn't think it would be this complicated.

Use USB 2.0 when doing the bios/uefi. Don't use USB 3.0.

@Truth_Hurts_U: I don't think a USB keyboard is going to cut it for this task. I may just have to wait until I can get a hold of a PS/2 keyboard.

@TheFatPerson:

If the board is new with in the last 2 or 3 years USB 2.0 is all you need.

The closest to the principle of RAID is two video cards in SLI. There are different RAID levels. But, the most commonly used involves a set of data on one hard drive being "mirrored" on the other. This allows faster data access and redundancy in case of hard drive failure. But, if you have two 1Tb hard drives in RAID, you're effectively mimicking a single faster 1Tb hard drive. Personally, I rather have the 2Tb of storage of a non-RAID set up. Just plug in both hard drives. The BIOS and the OS will do the rest. Just make sure you put the OS on the newer hard drive.

I don't find the loading times of a regular 7200rpm SATA HDD too bad.

But, if I decided I want faster OS bootups, I'd go with an SSD for the OS and a regular SATA HDD for games/apps.

Your supposed to have your KB and Mouse plugged into the top USB 2.0. Taking from your manual from the Revision 4 model.

In the politest way possible, if you're having trouble plugging things in, you shouldn't be using RAID.

@kraken2109: Okay. So I want to use both hard-drives. What do I do? Because the motherboard instructions are not making any fucking sense to me. The instructions are organized in a confusing way and I have absolutely no idea where to start.

Your RAM is correct, you said it was in the grey slots.

If they're both SATA hard drives, just connect the hard drives to the SATA ports. I tend to be methodical. So, I connect the OS hard drive to SATA 1, the second hard drive to SATA 2, the optical drive to SATA 3, and so on even though I don't have to follow that sequence.

Make sure you know which hard drive is which especially if they are the same capacity. One of my nuances is always installing the OS on the newest hard drive.

Edit:

This should be a given. But, don't forget to connect the SATA power cables as well.

@jun_aka_pekto: To the best of my knowledge, all the SATA cables are connected. Both hard drives are plugged in (the old one being in the bracket right below the new one).

What I'm confused about is where to go next. I tried putting in my Windows 7 installation disk and that didn't do anything.

I tried consulting the motherboard manual, and the instructions are all over the place. There's around 15 or so pages dedicated to setting up RAID, which obviously misguided me into thinking that enabling RAID would be crucial to setting up my hard drives. I now know that's not the case. It also says something about putting the motherboard drivers disk into another computer and copying some files onto a flash drive that I need for the OS installation, but I don't know if that's necessary. I can't tell if that's mandatory, or if there's a way to simply boot from the optical drive and run the disk that way. Either way, I haven't figured it out yet.

I normally try to avoid tinkering with my BIOS (that goes for my previous computer) because of the high potential for hardware malfunctions as a result. I'm sure I can figure it out, but I need a more concrete lead. Because this manual is not giving me anything.

Don't worry about Raid man. Go into your bios and set your boot priority to DVD drive 1st. Pop in your windows disk, it'll ask you to press any key to boot from disk and install windows then install it to one of your drives. You will have to format a drive 1st, the windows installation should walk your through it. After Windows is installed you can then install all your programs to either drive as you see fit. There's is no reason to use RAID.

Man AMD has some old school crap... To get into raid setup after UEFI is set you have to hit "F12" then type in command lines to get into the interface. Refer to C1 and C2 in manual.

Here is the basics to get you there.

All throughout reading this thraed im just thinking to myself.., WELL DUUHH ofcourse you need to plus 2 power cables in youre videocard and such..

But then i guess we all have to start somewhere :P

@TDuiker: It was a mistake. Sorry.

Dont be sorry man, i had to learn that to at some point. Just read the manual that comes with the stuff ;)

Well, I'm getting a message that says no bootable device. So I'm missing a cable or something is plugged incorrectly.

Will have to tinker around a bit more. I'll keep you guys updated.