Computer Won't Boot Properly With New Parts

[peternm22]

Hello everyone. I just got my new motherboard/processor/RAM, and I'm having some trouble getting it to work.

I booted up the computer with no problems, could get into the BIOS, etc. I boot off my XP Home CD, and format my hard drive. Since the format is going to take a couple minutes, I decide to go get something to drink. When I come back, the computer has a blank screen, with no signal coming to the monitor (I assume the format completed, and the computer rebooted as it does during a windows install).

So I hit the reset switch, and still, no signal at all comes to the monitor. I unplug the power, plug it back in, nothing. I cross the jumper on the motherboard to reset the CMOS. Still nothing when I try to boot.

MSI has a nifty little gizmo for testing computer start ups, a device with 4 LED's which indicates what stage the computer is in when booting. When all 4 are lit up in green, the status means "booting into OS". Well, all of mine are lit up in green.

I have no idea whatsoever how to fix this. Any ideas? Here are my system specs:

MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
Athlon64 S939 3000+ with stock cooling
512MB DDR400 Samsung RAM

-60GB Western Digital HD as master
-200GB Seagate HD as slave, brand new, just got it a month ago
-Pioneer DVD-RW, brand new, just got it a month ago
-ATI 9550 256MB, brand new, just got it a month ago

Any ideas how to fix this? I don't have access to any parts to substitute, so I'm hoping there is a simple way to fix this, and that I've simply made a silly mistake.

Thanks,
Peter

[mightyt]

So, can you get in to the BOIS without a hitch??

Did you try and reboot with the Windows CD again ... You may have interrupted the format by reseting, thus incomplete install, no windows kernal, etc ... If you can boot to the CD again and repartition / format you you may be OK ...

[peternm22]

Maybe I wasn't clear. I COULD get into the BIOS, now I can't. After the format, nothing, at all, shows up on the screen. The monitor gets no signal. No BIOS, no nothing. I can't see a thing.

Thanks,
Peter

[mdmint]

Originally Posted by peternm22

Maybe I wasn't clear. I COULD get into the BIOS, now I can't. After the format, nothing, at all, shows up on the screen. The monitor gets no signal. No BIOS, no nothing. I can't see a thing.

Thanks,
Peter

Unfortunately sounds like either mobo, cpu, ram or video card went south. Not much you can do but the basic troubleshooting of substitition to find what's gone bad. First step is disconnect all drives, both power and control cables and remove any and all slotted cards and power on trying for video, get the system down to the bare essentials for powerup with video. If still no video I'd substititute/swap video card, ram, cpu, mobo in that order. If you don't have access to parts or other PC to try your parts in there's not really much I can think of for you to do. BTW, it is powering up correct? Still add powersupply to end of parts to try though less likely from the sounds of it IMO.

[peternm22]

What surprises me is that it booted up fine the first time, then all of a sudden nothing appears on the screen. The computer (appears) to be working, it's just that I don't get anything showing up on the monitor. I don't get any error beeps from my onboard speaker, and all the lights on the MSI debugger light up as they should. I'll disconnect the drives and see what happens.

But I don't have any spare video cards, Athlon64's, 939 mobos, or power supplies. Thanks for the advice though. I'll see what I can do.

Peter

[peternm22]

Disconnected the drives, tried to boot, I got a signal! Yahooooo!

I connected the harddrives, went into the BIOS, checked my PC health status (to make sure nothing is going really haywire). My case temp is 20 degrees right now (cool room), and the case is open. The processor is sitting at 40-41 degrees (with the case open). How are these temps for the stock cooling? I'm just going to leave it in the health status for a little while (10-15 minutes) to monitor the temps, make sure nothing goes wrong...

Thanks for the help guys. Hopefully this was just some random fluke. I'll keep you updated.

Thanks again,
Peter

[JUC]

your temps are fine. Not sure what caused your issues though. Sometimes, if there is a power surge or the power goes out at my house (which is all too often here in Vermont), i need to unplug the power cable and reseat the video card before i can get my shuttle to boot up...don't know why, but just a PITA.
JUC

[peternm22]

Thanks again for the help everyone.

I looked in the BIOS and there is a setting called "Primary VGA Adapter", or something to that effect. By default it was set to PCI, so I changed it to AGP.

I pop in my Windows XP CD, format, copy the files, then boot off the hard drive and get this error "Error loading operating system". The jumper on my hard drive was cable select, so I change it to master, still no dice. I reformat/recopy the files about 3 for times. Same error message. I went into Windows Recovery Console and did a "fixmbr" and "fixboot", nothing. Any ideas? I searched google for this error, and tried all the solutions I found, but none of them worked.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Peter

[rhsmcc]

Make sure your boot sequence is correct. Also I would use the utility disc that came with your harddrive to check the disc partition or redo the partition and reformat. If your install was interruped somehow your partiton info might not be correct.