What would you pick?

[Trotter]

You will use the SATA cables for connecting your hard drive and DVD drive. Your motherboard should have come with one cable (that I saw... it might have come with more) and I had another on your list that I posted. Both the hard drive and the optical drive require a SATA to connect to the motherboard, as well as a SATA power connector from the PSU.

 

[Mar-e]

Yes the motherboard came with one and then the extra one which I ordered. Hubby had to go to work and put everything in but those 2 so I will let him know tomorrow

 

[Mar-e]

When he first started the computer it beeped: 1 long 2 short. Which we looked up and it said that there was an error with the video. So he took the video card out. He made sure everything was connected and in the right spot, now the beeping has stopped. It sounds like it is trying to boot up but we aren't getting any video out. If you reapply the video card it spins up then down, then up etc.

Our friend suggested 2 things, that it needs a ps2 keyboard to boot properly or that the motherboard is bad.

Any ideas? Sorry if I didn't explain things correctly, I'm not really sure if this is all 1 problem or 2.

 

[Trotter]

Yes, you may need a PS2 keyboard to access the BIOS if USB is not enabled by default. Once you get into the BIOS, disable the onboard video; it will either have an option for it or you will have to reduce the allocated video memory to 0. Make sure the power connectors are secure that go to the video card (if it has one).

If disabling the onboard does not work then the card may be DOA. I am assuming, of course, that your hubby knows which slot it goes in and all that jazz.

 

[Mar-e]

The motherboard is bad so the question is, should we get a replacement and wonder if it will/will not work or get a different type?

Here is the setup we ended up getting:

ASUS M4A78LT-M LE AM3 AMD 780L Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Western Digital Caviar Blue WD10EALS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

LG Black 10X Blu-ray Burner - Bulk SATA WH10LS30 LightScribe Support - OEM

XFX HD-567X-ZNF3 Radeon HD 5670 1GB 128-bit DDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

AMD Athlon II X4 640 Propus 3.0GHz Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor ADX640WFGMBOX

APEX TX-381-C Black Steel Micro ATX Tower Computer Case

Logitech Z313 2.1 Speaker System

Rosewill - Pellucid HD Series High Speed HDMI cable (6 FEET)

Antec Basiq BP430 430W Continuous Power ATX12V Version 2.2 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply

LG E2350VR-SN 23" Anti-Glare Full HD HDMI LED BackLight LCD Monitor Slim Design

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL

 

[Trotter]

Contact NewEgg and get an RMA. They will swap the bad one for a new one. I'm not sure whether or not they will cover shipping the bad one back or not... sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. Hate to hear it was DOA, though.

 

[Mar-e]

Waiting for the replacement! Ugh

 

[Trotter]

Yeah, that part really stinks.

 

[Mar-e]

Ok finally everything is here and the computer works! It was pretty easy (watching it being put together) but I learned a lot. But now the next problem... we had to send the monitor back because it stopped working. So next week everything should be working at the same time

 

[ComancheCorps]

If you want to compare to a retail model why not look at the XPS 7100 from Dell. Starting price is $699 with a six-core, and it might not come with such a great card but its only $50 to upgrade that, plus is comes with 6GB of ram and 2 years of warranty, now I know guys that building it yourself but the warranty is what I like, I like being able to have my motherboard replaced within a couple days instead of a couple weeks. So it might work out for you!

Dell Studio XPS 7100 Desktop | Dell