PCA Forums

I am helping to build a computer at the moment. I am using some good stuff from the old one and a new case, motherboard, graphics card, soundcard, and hard drive.
One problem is that the monitor won't stay on. This is new and it is powered when I press the button the green light vomes on then changes back to yellow. The computer is running at this point. However, I have not been able to install an operating system. Is it necessary to do this before trying to see a signal on the monitor? It will be Win XP, by the way. What order should it be done in? OS - Programs - BIOS? Is there anything else I need to do before I try to install the operating system such as jumpers or connections to the motherboard? How do I know which of two drives on the same cable is a master and slave?
Also, the two disk drives I took out of the old computer (DVD-ROM and CD-RW) won't work in this one. They are powered and light up but no matter how long I hold down the drive open button or press it the drawer on neither drive will open. A person I spoke to said that perhaps the motors have failed in both drives but I think that for them both to bre affected at the same time is highly unlikely. he thinks it would be best to replace the drives. Any thoughts on this? Anything else I need to do before installing programs such as should I install drivers for the video card and mouse before the operating system sor programs on the new one?

Thanks.

How big of a power supply do you have(in watts)

Also try unplugging everything except the motherboard, and hard drive from the power supply (leave fans plugged in though)

the monitor should come one during the post sequence

start with monitor, ram, fans

see if it posts

if yes, then add your primary hdd - you may have to fool in the bios to get it to be recognized

next the cd drives in the bios (or one of them)

once you have all the hardware recognized you can load the os - windows will put in basic drivers

then load the mobo chipset drivers

post what mb, ram, cpu etc b/c some of them have quirks we may be familiar with

good luck and let us know how it is going.....

if you took the ram from the old motherboard and put in the new one, it may be incompatible. usually bad or incompatible ram or cpu will lead to no display no beeps or sometimes, depending on what you have, a series of beeps, when you power on.


check the default jumper settings on your board, if you have jumpers on it. a lot of boards out there still have a jumper for FSB, which would be something like 100mHz/133/166mHz. if you have this jumper, make sure it is set to what your CPU requires. if the jumper is not there, then BIOS should recognize the CPU, at least enough to get a display.

if it beeps once when you power on and no display, then you may be having issues with the display. i had an issue like this once when i switched monitors, it would light green on the display led and then turn amber/orange. what i did was unplug the monitor power cable and plug it back in, then start the system and it worked.



on your drives CD/rom and hard drive, you should start with just the hard drive, plug it to IDE1 on your board, i always start by setting the drive jumpers to master on the far end of the cable. then if i put a slave drive on it, i set the jumpers to slave and plug it to the middle connector on the cable. there are other ways to do it, depending on what you are needing to do, this way has always worked fo rme, though.

just a few things to look at, hope it helps, and yes post your specs.

Is this a P4? If so, did you hook up the 4 prong power connector as well as the ATX one? Just a thought..

eGo

I had the same problem. It turned out to be what ego said. Although I am using an AMD 2600+. Some motherboards require a 12v plug and some dont. If you are using the old power supply make sure it has a 12v plug if the motherboard requires it. You didnt list any of your hardware so it is kind of hard to solve a problem with no imfo. If the monitor turns on for a second but then turns off again, then chances are you have a problem with you ram or some of your settings are out of wack in your bios.

How do I know which of two drives on the same cable is a master and slave

the master should always be on the end of the cable and make sure you set the jumpers on the drives so the one on the end is master and the other is slave.

and as for jumper settings etc. go get the manual itll tell you everything that you have to do with the mobo.

monitor should come on at boot. go to bios and check that the drives are recognised.(after u got the monitor working obviously)

If he's not getting anything no beeps or video I'd venture to say the CPU isnt seated properly. Either that or he forgot to plug the extra 12v into the board. Also if its a new power supply check the switch on the back and make sure it says "115v" and not "240v" Can you give us a little more info?