I need help starting my pc, Please Read

[G. Ponton]

I built a pc from scratch and I'm having problems with it starting.  When I press the power button, the LED's light, fans turn, monitor wakes up.  After a couple of secs everything cuts off.  I have a Biostar M7Vit Pro motherboard, Award legal Bios, AMD Athlon XP3000+ CPU, Kingston DDR400 memory, Chieftec Dragon DX series case, Maxtor SATA. HD and Adaptec SATA cable.

Please, someone get back to me with a possible solution.  I've reinstalled all connectors and searched help forums endless days for a solution, but no luck yet.  I have Maxblast 3 disk and drivers for VIA/AMD chipset motherboards, however, the pc won't stay on long enough to start the boot process.

Thanks

[Raptor]

Is the power supply adequate to meet the required amount of power?

[thesulei]

it sounds like your computer is failing a power up test, as some1 already said check you have an adequate power supply for your system and if you can, swap it for another.

If you are getting any beeps (or other signals ) from the mobo check the manual to see what they are indicating.

also it cant hurt to check the jumpers are all set correctly i have found jumpers can be incorrect on mobos straight out of the box.

One last thing if you have bought your stuff new there is always the chance a component is faulty and causing your problems

[merlin]

have you use the floppy disk  with came with the mobo?

[chade]

Well, congrats on having the guts to build you own!  You'll learn from the experience if nothing else (and probably take greater pleasure out of it once its all working).

I'm assuming when you say 'the monitor wakes up' you actually see no picture (it just powers on - it being connected via a pass through plug in your power supply (again, a guess), which only lets power through when the computer is powered up).

The first thing I would do is strip down to essentials.  Leave the following installed:

Motherboard
RAM
CPU, with heatsink/fan combo installed and plugged into the motherboard
graphics card (if you're not using onboard graphics).

Ensure that the motherboard has BOTH power connectors attached - all modern motherboards (couldn't find yours specifically on the web) require both the standard ATX connector (long plug, two rows of pins (about 20 i think) and the ATX12V connector (four pins - 2x2) connected to run.  The computer will not boot without it.

Ensure the CPU is correctly inserted into the socket (hard to go wrong - if it drops into place and the lever was pulled down fully, you're in business).  Ensure the heatsink/fan is installed on top of the CPU and plugged into the motherboard.

Ensure the graphics card (if you're not using onboard video) is installed.

Ensure the RAM is installed and both clips on the sides of the RAM are fully clipped in.

Plug your monitor directly into a power socket - you can use an old power cord, or any standard IUC lead (kettles often use these) to plug into the pass-thru style plug if its hardwired into the back of the monitor.  This will slightly reduce the load on your power supply (this can be a temporary measure).

With the motherboard, CPU, RAM and graphics card installed, and all the power connectors correctly installed, it should boot.

If it doesn't one of those components is faulty.  Try different RAM, graphics, power supply if you have them (the easiest bits).  Then you're down to motherboard and CPU to find your problem - much harder to fool around with.

Let us know what happens (and give more specifics if possible - you can never post too much detail).