Posted: 1/26/2008 2:22:33 PM EDT
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I'm building a PC from scratch and I've run into a problem. All I've done so far is attach the board, CPU fan and memory to the mother board and installed it into the case and hooked up all the wires. Should I be able to power-up the fans and lights at this point, as a test? I plugged it in, hit the power button and nothing. Does it have to have a hard-drive hooked up before anything will power-up? Do I have a bad power supply? |
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Even with no CPU/RAM/Video the board will still respond. Are you getting any beeps? hook up the speaker. Make sure you have the power switch pluged in right if so and still nothing, , manualy jump the switch with a screwdriver non-magnetic and see if the fans spin up. only do this if you are sure eveything is hooked up right |
 I do this about every three years or so and I always miss one power cord, despite thinking I was careful not too. This time the big cord was hanging outside the case and thus out of my line of sight. I hit power and the case and CPU fans spun a few rotations and stopped. Is this normal? |
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That problem is solved. I tried again and the fans stayed on. Now, I normally build with a new hard drive and install a new OS. This time I'm going to just swap over my existing hard drive. Should I be able to just switch it out and have it work? Once I start tearing down my current PC I won't be able to come back for help.  |
it happens sometimes when you first hook up the power to the power supply, if you hit the power button it should spin fully up |
I don't think so. I have a computer that does precisely what you described sporadically. I think the power supply is too weak to power all of the components on my system. How many watts is the power supply you are using? what brand is it? Also, did the motherboard beep like crazy just before the fans stopped? |
Usually no. |
backup any e-mails, bookmarks, pics, etc. you may lose everything. |
So, what do I need to do? |
This will not work. |
+1 it's funny. You could do it with windows 98, windows 3.1, but it seems you can't do it with XP (at least the one time I tried it). |
Hell, I donno. I used to do that what you are planning. That was 10 years ago, it didn't work so great, so since then I wipe the damn thing and start over to save myself the headaches.  Edit: If you change the mass storage device that the system and boot drives are on, most NT based OSs will fucking freak out (blue screen at start that the hard disk control driver does not work) |
You SHOULD make a backup of the hard drive. You are going to end up reinstalling windows. Likely many of your installed programs won't work after this and you will have to reinstall them all as well. You are better off saving your data, formatting the drive and reinstalling everything from scratch. You can't just transfer a windows drive to a whole new system because of drivers, and windows locks itself to the serial numbers of major components in your PC. when it senses a drastic change its anti piracy lockout activates and you have to call MS and beg for his lordship to give you a new activation code. -Foxxz |
I guess I better get to backing up my files. 
I'm not sure Windows is going to boot right doing that(if it boots at all) I've been trying to ghost a desktop and install the image on a laptop. All I get is the blue screen of death. I know it's not hardware related. |
This is a general guide as to why you will have trouble dropping a drive with a existing windows setup into a new system.  www.motherboard.windowsreinstall.com/problems.htm |
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OK, now I've got everything hooked up except for my CD-ROM drive. The connector that came with the motherboard and the connector that was in my own computer are identical but neither will fit into the motherboard. In one spot, the connector is solid, instead of a hole, and the motherboard has a pin in that spot!! EDIT: I think the guy at the PC store sold me a motherboard that needs a hard drive with the new connector (SATA?). Right now, I've got the hard drive and the CD-Rom connected to the only IDE connector on the motherboard and all I get when I start it is a message telling me to insert boot media. I've built half a dozen computers from scratch and I've never had anywhere near this much trouble!! 
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This is repairable. Get your windows xp disk and boot from it as if you were going to do a format/reinstall. Choose install, not the recovery console. It will show you any previous windows installations on the HDD. As Long as you can see your installation, You should be able to press "R" and it will start a "repair install". Finish it off just like a fresh format/reinstall. You will have to re-activate windows and most of the ones I have done lately have activated with no problems, even with new motherboards,processors,HDD's. All your data will be there and your programs should work just fine.  TK
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I decided to stick a new hard drive in but the damn thing still isn't working. See my post above. 
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Go into the BIOS, check the boot order. eta: check the jumpers on the back of the hard drive. do you know the "master/slave/cable select" relationship? edit2: you do have the power cable running to the hard drive, right? It has IDE and Power from the Power supply? |
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Make Sure that the bios is set to boot from cd. Start installing XP, If you can see the partitions when you are installing, then you should be fine. Its just trying to boot from a HDD that has nothing on it probably. No floppy drive right? (if so make sure there is no disk in drive). Jumpers on HDD should be set to "Master" and the cd should be "Cable-select or Secondary" |
This build is making me re-think building my own PC's. Everything is working except I can't get my video card to work. I'm using the onboard video right now but it's SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOW even on webpages. Instead of scrolling it's choppy. |
Ive also found buying a computer and upgrading later as time or money permits has pretty well met my computer needs for whatever its being used , i.e. internet, gaming etc.... Two upgrades that consistently improve performance being memory and the video card. |