Serious computer problem - Need Help

Ok, it's Wednesday (or tuesday, can't really remember), and I log off of the internets to continue to work on a route in Trainz. As I start to attempt to save a small amount of work I've done TRS crashes along with a could not write to error, and a lot of that XP "bomm!" error sound. I then restart because all of wierd "floating point", "I/O", and "Could not write to" errors I've never seen before were making it impossible to work. I log back on, and as I get to the log in screen the computer shuts off, and after several tries it starts only to show something about "INNACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE". Actually, the processor and motherboard have gone out. Good night, sweet prince!! :'(

So I've gone ahead and bought a new computer that I had built via help from other members (the thread in the TC forum), I've built it up, and I have a problem, I sense it's something to do with the video card and/or CD/DVD drive. The computer starts and everything, but the monitor does not not show anything, and the CD/DVD drive does not show any lights and won't work.

Pictures coming soon as I try to figure out this iSight camera...

Edit: No photos until tommorow, can't take pictures with the iSight camera.

i know this sounds stupid but you have connected the power cable to the dvd drive, also have you installed the drivers for said drive.
with some of the higher end graphics cards there are two power connectors, both should be connected as the m\b cannot supply enough power.

Sounds like bad memory to me.
Ed

Did you ask someone for help?

I replaced my video card and added CD rom in the past and had problems like yours with stuff refusing to work. I went insane. Got a computer expert to look at it. I failed to load the drivers and cd rom was not plugged in properly.

This is my experience and is no judgement on your computer building skills Lo_Poly.

Lo_Poly said:

So I've gone ahead and bought a new computer that I had built via help from other members (the thread in the TC forum), I've built it up, and I have a problem, I sense it's something to do with the video card and/or CD/DVD drive. The computer starts and everything, but the monitor does not not show anything, and the CD/DVD drive does not show any lights and won't work.

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As mentioned before, pci express video cards require power to be connected to them, or no system boot. Also, there should be a square 4 pin power connector on the board. If you don't have that plugged in the system won't boot either.

What power supply do you have? Does it have the needed connectors? (MB 4 pin and PCI-E video 6 pin)

Next, the computer should be beeping at you. If it isn't you probably don't have the 4 pin power connector hooked up or else the internal speaker isn't. You can go here and get in idea of your problem based on the beeping:
http://www.amptron.com/html/bios.beepcodes.html

As for the driver suggestions, that's not your problem, as the system not posting or booting happens LONG before you need drivers.

Kelly88 said:

Not always true

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Yeah but what you have is not what Lo-Poly has, and I made a mistake. His board has the 8 pin CPU power connector, so ignore the comment about the 4 pin connector.

Also- Lo Poly- do you have anything plugged into the 4 pin molex "additional power connector" shown on the board?


Also, your video card has TWO 6 pin plugs for PCI-E power. Are both plugged in?

Is this a brand new motherboard or one you had been using all along.
If it's the former, check your connections, and if all else fails return the MB for warranty replacement.

If it's an older board, this may be something different and I came across this the other day.

Try the following:

Remove the video card from the machine.
Power up the PC.

You may get some beeps, which indicate that there is no video.

Power off the machine and wait until the fans stop spinning and the hard drive stops.

Restart the machine.

If the machine passes self test, and proceeds to boot up, let it go through, and then shut it down.

Unplug the power, press the power button to discharge the capacitors, and put the video card in.

Make sure the card is screwed into the slot because they will put extra weight on the connectors, and that can damage the motherboard.

Power up the machine.
If your display works, then this was a simple matter of the BIOS PNP getting confused by changing the video cards, and couldn't assign interrupts to it.

This happened yesterday to my brother in law, and we spent about two hours trying to figure out what went wrong.

John

Lo_Poly you said you got a 8800 GTX - a 550 Watt PSU which I have seems to be having issues because the card can not run in my system at the speeds it was advertised at (it's a factory overclocked version which is supposed to run at 625 MHz core and 2000 MHz memory but seems I need to run member at default of 1800 MHz). The card you got has _two_ extra PCI-E power connectors - if you have a new power supply, it should have two dedicated plugs that go with it (they are 2 by 6 pins in size). If you have an older power supply, these may not be there but your card should have come with two adapters to use with regular power connectors. Keep in mind that this thing is really power hungry - the adapters I have (I dont need them but they were in the box) require you to plug two connectors into each one (so you need four of the wide power connectors that are used for hard drives and optical drives). At least one of the PCI-E plugs must be plugged in for system to boot, but you will need both for it to run normally. In addition I do not know what kind of processor you have but they usually also require external power connector to be plugged into the motherboard in addition to the big molex power connector - for AMD processors it's usually a 4x4 plug, for Intel, the Core 2 uses less power so they also use a 2x2 plug, but the last few P4's are real power monsters and need a second 2x2 plug (they usually go into one socket which is 2x4 in size).

The graphics card is getting proper power omber.

Ok, so I took the compy to a computer technician. He tried 3 different graphics cards in both (one PCIe is only electrical x8) x16 slots, with both LCD, CRT/Digital, analog in all of them. Nothing.

And also, apparently the computer isn't even posting! So I am baffled.

I can take a picture of the inside of the case. Mind you my phone has better picture quality than my webcam.

Lo_Poly said:

And also, apparently the computer isn't even posting! So I am baffled.

I can take a picture of the inside of the case. Mind you my phone has better picture quality than my webcam.

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#@#$%^& computer techs. I take it he didn't try another power supply. Nimrod! If the same problem occurs with several different video cards, then the problem is NOT the video card. He should have started looking somewhere else for the problem. Most of these guys know s**t about troubleshooting. The fact it wasn't posting should have made him look somewhere else from the start

I've saved friends hundreds of dollars to fix a problem techs misdiagnosed.

Here's where you need to look. If its not posting, the 12 or 5v from the PS might be bad, or you got a bad Motherboard. You will still get error beeps with a bad CPU, video card, or memory. Pattern depends on your BIOS.


As I said #%^@ computer techs!