New Computer build - nothing/black on screen

First full build and I'm pretty confident that I put it together correctly, but I'm having problems. I've done upgrades on different systems from hardware to software, but this is my first full build. You'll have to excuse my ignorance on some of the terms since this is my first build. I know enough to get by. lol

I have a
Antec 900 tower
GA-EP45-UD3R MOBO
Intel Q9400 CPU
Zalman heatsink and fan
4 Gig OCZ Reaper mem
Corsair tx750 (overkill but will be upgrading throughout the years)
Radeon HD4670

Moment of truth - turns on and everything looks good EXCEPT my screen on my computer is black. The light just stays orange on my monitor like normal in sleep mode. Doesn't even flicker green. All the fans are running except the CPUs fan, but I don't know if it only kicks on when the CPU reaches a certain temp or not.

I've checked and rechecked the connections. I've looked and cant see any secondary power connection for my setup neither on the board or Graphics card. I've tried resetting CMOS. I hear a faint beep when I just power it on but thats it. I'm running bare minimum and have swapped the sticks of ram. No Change.

I don't have the ability to swap hardware since all my other computers are ancient and aren't compatible hardware wise.

I'm out of ideas and need some help with this.

Thanks in advance for your guys help!

 

If your CPU fan isn't running then it might not be connected to the MB or the fan is faulty.

You may have fried your CPU.

Does this MB have onboard video? If it does then connect to that one first.

 

The fan is connected, but don't know if it's faulty or not. Not until I have the CPU actually do some processing.


No the MB doesn't have any onboard video and I don't have a another graphics card to try that will fit the PCI express slot.

 

Even if the CPU fried, the fan would still spin, at least on newer models. If anything, it's a bad board.



Are there any beep codes coming out?

 

There is one faint short beep right when I power it on. I looked it up and that's a problem with the CMOS. That's why I reset it and still have the same problem.

I don't see how frying the CPU would effect the CPU fan when the fans run by the MB. I was very careful about installing the CPU and MB. Basically I moved like molasses and read as I went triple checking everything I was doing.

I would really like to know if there is a way to troubleshoot the hardware I have installed. I'm sure its not the monitor but the rest I'm wondering about. Wondering mostly about the CPU in particular.

 

If it really was the CPU, it'd give different beeps. CPU's usually are the last thing to go on a new build too.

Looking into your motherboard manual, one faint short beep reports a successful POST. Try removing everything but the CPU, one stick of memory, and video card, then try powering it on.

 

I'm sure you have already thought of and/or tried the following - but you never know.

Try re-seating the video card. Often it is as simple as that - the card looks fully inserted, but it isn't.

Does the 4670 require connection to your (ample) power supply? Check the connection - both on the card and the dongle from the power supply. I've had issues where one of the contacts is bent or gets pushed out of its housing instead of making proper contact.

From what Skycap discovered, it sounds like the board is posting . . . so you could just have a dead card. It happens.

I'd bet your CPU is fine

 

Okay I officially feel like a newb.

There was one more power connection that I missed - I don't know how many times. :-o

Thanks for your help.

I'm in bios and everything is connected. Now I just need to do the setup and I should be good. Hopefully it goes more smoothly than the install... or at least the power up. lol

 

I forgot to elaborate on where the 2nd power connection was. On my board it was right above the heatsink and I don't know how I missed it or how many times I did, but that was the problem and the easy solution.

I know the most frustrating things are often the simplest but it happens and happens quite frequently from what I've found.

Let this be a lesson to everyone that reads this. Check the simply stupid solutions first! It'll save you tons of time. lol

So far so good. Installing the OS. Looks like everything is fine.
The CPU fan kicked on also.

 

lol - don't feel alone, my friend. We all have had our share of inglorious moments while dealing with computer stuff.

In fact, I think there was a thread here a while back dealing with this exact issue! Listed are some of my less intelligent moments :-o

Glad it's sorted out!

 

Blue screen of Death when installing XP

Okay I thought everything was fine.

Now I'm getting a little bit more than a little irritated. lol

I partitioned my drive (80 gigs for C: off my 750gb hd) and formatted it. It wouldn't install XP and just gave me codes saying it couldn't install this or couldn't install that. Read online and found that I needed to change the specs of my ram in the bios. Changed it to 5-5-5-18 and 2.1v instead of 5-5-5-XX and 1.8v. Tried installing XP again. Then it started freezing. Cleared CMOS and restarted. Continued to install windows and it was freezing up at various places forcing me to do soft shutdowns. Tried doing safe settings in bios with the mem at the correct specs. Went through but on finalization... Blue screen!

I figured since xp isn't installing I would try running from a the linux freespire cd just to see if I could. No dice.

Then It started doing the blue screen and gave me a stop code after it finalized XP. (Cant remember the code). Took everything but the essentials off and tried again. Blue screen right after XP install.

Sometimes after restarting, the keyboard would freeze and force another soft shutdown. The latest try to get it installed is it's stopped but not frozen. Mouse work and the windows tutorial features screen is still changing, but it's stopped at 7min left in the finalization. The bar that shows it's working at the bottom right is still moving too but it's been at 7 min for proably about 15-20min.

Many cups of coffee later, I'm out of ideas and could really use some more advice. Probably another simply stupid solution - hopefully - but I'm not seeing it.

Edit -
I have another question about my HD. The pins on the right on IDE drives are to place the jumper to set the drive to master slave ect.
On mine it has the pins but no jumper and no markings for master or slave on the drive. Is that common for a SATA HD?
http://www.wdc.com/global/products/...iarGreen_SATA32&filter=2028&currentimage=img2

 

Latest thing I just tried

Okay I just put in my HD that has windows installed from my old computer.
Figured I would have to either repair or reformat and install windows fresh on there.

During the repair it couldn't copy some items. I looked them up and they were basically trivial things. After skipping them it went to the BSOD again.
Bad Pool Header
0x00000019 (0x00000020, 0xE1B70620, 0XE1B70A70, 0X0C8AFBCC)

As you can tell from that I'm using an old XP disc from the code, but it's the only one I could find to install.
Could all of my problems be with using the old OS disc on the new components?
I installed it on my old system when I reformatted the C: but that system is an OLD system with old hardware.
Could it just be a conflict with the disc thinking that there is a problem because it doesn't register the new components or something like that?

 

Try installing a free linux-based OS and see if that works. This could be a problem with ram but seeing as you swapped the sticks, it is probably very unlikely. And for your hard drive, if the bios recognises it, everything is fine and you don;t need a jumper.

 

I found that it was a problem with my settings in BIOS. I got the XPSP2 installed and all of my hardware hooked up, but it's not very stable. After a while it'll give me the BSOD or just restart on it's own.

I've been getting help on tweaktown forums.

Here are my settings.

MB Intelligent Tweaker(M.I.T.)
Robust Graphics Booster ...............: Auto
CPU Clock Ratio ..........................: 8x
Fine CPU Clock Ratio.....................:+0.0
CPU Frequency ...........................: 2.66GHz (333x8)


Clock Chip Control
Standard Clock Control
CPU Host Clock Control..................: [Disabled]
CPU Host Frequency (Mhz) ............: 333Mhz
PCI Express Frequency (Mhz) .........:Auto << Set 100

C.I.A.2 .................................:[Disabled]


Advanced Clock Control [Press Enter]
CPU Clock Drive...........................: <<< 800mV
PCI Express Clock Drive.................: <<< 900mV
CPU Clock Skew (ps)....................: <<< 0ps
MCH Clock Skew (ps)...................: <<< 0ps


DRAM Performance Control
Performance Enhance...................: [Standard]
Extreme Memory Profile (X.M.P.).....: Disabled
(G)MCH Frequency Latch...............: [Auto]
System Memory Multiplier ..............: 3.20B
Memory Frequency (Mhz) ..............: 1066
DRAM Timing Selectable ................: [Manual]

Standard Timing Control
CAS Latency Time........................5
tRCD .........................................5
tRP'...........................................5
tRAS..........................................18

Set all Suggested below to highest Values first. Then later you can lower, one at a time, testing as you go

Advanced Timing Control
tRRD...........................................4 [auto]
tWTR..........................................8 [auto]
tWR............................................10 [auto]
tRFC...........................................72 [auto]
tRTP...........................................4 [auto]
Command Rate (CMD) ....................:2 [auto]

Driving Strength Profiles
Driving Strength ............................ << Set 1066 on both channels

Channel A
Static tRead Value.........................:9
tRD Phase0 Adjustment...................:0 Auto
tRD Phase1 Adjustment...................:0 Auto
tRD Phase2 Adjustment .................:0 Auto
tRD Phase3 Adjustment..................:0 Auto
Trd2rd(Different Rank)....................:8 Auto
Twr2wr(Different Rank)...................:8 Auto
Twr2rd(Different Rank)...................:7 Auto
Trd2wr(Same/Diff Rank)..................:9 Auto
Dimm1 Clock Skew Control...............:Auto
Dimm2 Clock Skew Control...............:Auto

Channel B
Static tRead Value.........................:9
tRD Phase0 Adjustment...................:0 Auto
tRD Phase1 Adjustment...................:0 Auto
tRD Phase2 Adjustment .................:0 Auto
tRD Phase3 Adjustment..................:0 Auto
Trd2rd(Different Rank)....................:8 Auto
Twr2wr(Different Rank)...................:8 Auto
Twr2rd(Different Rank)...................:7 Auto
Trd2wr(Same/Diff Rank)..................:9 Auto
Dimm1 Clock Skew Control...............:Auto ps
Dimm2 Clock Skew Control...............:Auto ps

Motherboard Voltage Control

CPU
CPU Vcore….……….........................:1.27500V Auto

CPU Termination…..... 1.200V << Auto
CPU PLL…………………....1.500V << Auto
CPU Referen.…………....0.760V << Auto

MCH/ICH
MCH Core…………….....1.050V <<
MCH Reference….…….0.760V << Auto
MCH/DRAM Ref.…......0.900V << Auto
ICH I/O……………….....1.500V << Auto
ICH Core…………...……1.100V << Auto

DRAM
DRAM Voltage ……....2.100V Memory Specs range
DRAM Termination .…0.900V << Auto
Channel A Reference 0.900V << Auto
Channel B Reference 0.900V << Auto

Advanced Settings
Limit CPUID Max. to 3.....................: [Disabled]
No-Execute Memory Protect............: [Enabled]
CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E)................: [Enabled]
C2/C2E State Support....................: [Disabled]
x C4/C4E State Support..................: [Disabled]
CPU Thermal Monitor 2(TM2) ...........: [Enabled]
CPU EIST Function.........................: [Enabled]
Virtualization Technology................: [Disabled]


If you guys could help me get this thing stable and help alter the settings that would be great.
I also ran memtest86x before and both ended up failing. The person told me that its unlikely that I got 2 DOA sticks so it's proabably a problem with my settings. Sure enough after I changed my settings to his suggestions above I was able to load the OS.

Now they just need to be tweaked to make this thing stable. I have no Idea how to do it or what settings to change.