New work PC's

[acerinpa]

Well- what did I say- oh ya, I don't expect any problems- famous last words. This is the first time I did not test components by plugging everything in to each other before installation- so I plug her in after install... and .... "nothing" , no post ,no beep , no nothing... hmm...... ok - I have a extra PSU- so I guess I will start with that. Any ideas- please post.

 

[PP Mguire]

When you hit the power button does it do anything at all? If so, not the PSU.
Do the usual, 1 stick of RAM, no dedicated GPU, board on cardboard box, ect.

What did you wind up with in the end?

 

[acerinpa]

I thought I posted the entire build- i just added tat cheap GPU as above, other than that build is :

Intel 860 dual core CPU
MSi B75MA-E33 MOBO
Gskill 1600 RAm ( 2 x 4GB )
Antec Earthwatts 380 watt PSU
Silverstone Case PSO8
DVD/CD media drive
750 GB WD Black HD

- hmm... Well - took out the gpu, retried, nothing . Then switched out both PSU and MOBO trying to boot upon each change ( remember am building 2 of these) = nothing.... not a sound, no fan , no lights,etc. So - I must be doing something wrong. Ahhh... expected this on my firsts builds, but not now!! Can I use one stick of Ram?

 

[PP Mguire]

Yes just try one stick of RAM in each slot. Is this happening on both builds?

 

[acerinpa]

OK - you will never believe it- I brought the PC to my tech "brick and mortar" store- the tech plugged it in and ........Beep, the stupid thing posted and went into the bios. The only thing we can figure is either the power cord I used at my house is bad or the power strip I plugged it into is bad...."frustrating" , but at least it is resolved. Since I have you here to ask- can I use one stick of Ram in the dual channel system? I have 8GB of 1600 RAM , but can only use 3+ GB due to using win7 32 bit ( work software only will use 32 bit ) - can I use just one stick of 4GB Ram? I bought 2 packs of 2 x 4Gb RAM so this way I will only use one pack and can either return the other or sell or ??.

 

[PP Mguire]

Lol should have just mentioned that to begin with. Yea one stick will work fine although in single channel mode. Probably wont notice the difference.

 

[acerinpa]

OK - after pulling my hair out regarding the power issues on the first build- both builds completed including win7 loaded, MS office 2010 loaded, firefox loaded, still deciding on which anti- virus I will use in the office. The only issue I had on the second built was the front USB ports on the case did not work. After re-downloading chip drivers, USB drivers, etc. I finally checked the connection in the case and sure enough- one of the pins on the MOBO was bend down so the connection was bad- used a small flat-head screwdriver to bend it back into place and - wa-la !! So one more weird thing for someone to look for if they have similar issues in a future build. I had some difficulty with updating the bios and getting drivers off the MSi website- but after several attempts finally got it all to load properly. That software called "LIVE UPDATE 5" is pretty buggy- locked up a lot so finally just downloaded winwar and unzipped all the bios updates/drivers/ etc. directly from MSI and did not use their software for that. I read that the Liveupdate 5 is bad and several people say online that it completely screwed up their bios when they attempted to use it. I still cant get the bios to set the Ram speed properly , in spite of using MSi's overclocker II software, to 1600mhz- but at 1333mhz it will be fine for the office anyhow.

Thanks for the help again and I hope this thread helps others in the future.

 

[PP Mguire]

For future reference use a mechanical pencil instead of a screwdriver as the flathead if it slips can hit the board pretty hard.

Also, Windows 7/8 typically has all the drivers you need so going through the trouble of all that wasn't really necessary. I only update INF on older rigs to get best possible performance, and sometimes wind up needing an Ethernet driver.