$1,300 budget. Build or buy?

[kmote]

There should be two cables going from the PSU to the mobo. One should be 24 pin and the other one should be either 4 or 8 pin.

I don't know what you mean by small tipped screws but if you mean that he didn't put spacers between the case and the motherboard then you are probably shorting out your motherboard.

 

[1337Carson]

Yeah, that is what I meant.
I think I fixed that though.
And I did not have the 8 pin connector in, but I do now.
The CPU_LED is no longer staying lit, but the DRAM_LED is.
I am still not getting a display.
Going to try my friend's graphics card in the morning and see if that sheds some light.

 

[kmote]

OK well you should definitely have installed the spacers, not installing them might have broken your board. So yeah, if you haven't got spacers installed and in the correct positions then you need to do that first.

 

[1337Carson]

I am hoping to get to go to my friend's dad's house. He is an engineer.
I think he will be able to tell me what, if anything, is broken.

Then I can just return the parts.

I'm pretty confident it will all work out, given time.

 

[1337Carson]

Well, apparently the RAM I picked out is not on my motherboard QVL.
I don't know if that means it won't work at all, or won't work as good.

But that might explain why my DRAM_LED light is staying lit.

Ugh..

 

[Muffin Man]

dont worry too much if its not on the qvl, there are just too many different sets of ram for the manufacturer to test and list every single one.

try this
Kevin's review: ASUS MemOK!

 

[1337Carson]

I've already done that. Many times.
But I tried it again just for the sake of trying.
Still no dice.

It is weird though, when I insert the sticks of RAM..they don't seem to fit properly.
I push it all the way putting equal force on the top and bottom, but then I cannot close the holder cap...but if I push on just the top part, I can get the holder cap down but the bottom part pops out a bit.

 

[kmote]

They have to go in a specific way. The "tooth" is not in the exact middle.

 

[1337Carson]

You're a genius.
I wasn't pushing the RAM in all the way.
For the record, this post is being made on my new desktop PC.

Thank you all for your help, this is awesome.
I have to update my BIOS because it only shows my ram at 1333 and doesn't give an option for 1600, but that's really not a big deal to me. Everything works great.

 

[1337Carson]

Okay...
So..every now and then my monitor display will blink real fast.
This goes on for a while, and then the whole screen goes gray.

I've already updated my BIOS, and I've installed all of my drivers (I believe.)

I think my RAM still might be set to 1333, and I honestly can't figure out how to set it to 1600.
I currently have it on 'auto'.

It hints at being a problem with my graphics card.