Computer Is Built! But I Cant Start It Up :(

[poorfarang]

So I finished my system build yesterday.

I ended up buying 2 512mb sticks of Corsair value ram, a 250 gb seagate hd, enermax power supply, and a spark 256mb video card.

I need to install windows so I pop the disc in, press the power button, the monitor wakes up but does not show anything on the screen. I tried moving the video card to the other pci express slot but still nothing.

Any ideas what I should do?

[Jockstar]

Disconnect all your cables and reconnect them. See if this makes any difference.

[cmcarrent]

Start your computer, press "Delete" continuously until the Bios screen shows up.

In the Boot Devices setting, set the first Boot Priority to your "CD Rom" Drive.

Reboot.

[Firefoxx]

Some common mistakes made during a build:

Not all the PSU cables are connected. There is the 20+4 big white connector, and then there is the 4 (or 8) small white connector.

The CPU's fan is not connected.

The reset or power switch is connected wrong.

The front panel connectors are connected wrong.

Not enough standoffs are screwed in.

The CPU is not seated properly.

RAM is not seated properly.

[poorfarang]

Woo hoo

Thanks firefoxx

There was a small 4pin (2x2) power cable that I overlooked. i plugged it in and not its starting the windows cd!

I will show some pics of the finished rig sometime later toay.

Thanks again

[poorfarang]

Doh!

My windows cd doesnt work. Some file is corrupt. So now I have a computer that I cant use because of a bad windows cd. Maybe a trip to pantip can fix my problem?

I really want to get this up and running.

[Wallalai]

I had an issue with my computer due to poor quality molex connectors. When assembling the molex one of the pins was going out. Had to disconnect and reconnect all of them to find it.

About the 4pin connector:

In addition to the 20-pin ATX connector, this motherboard requires that you connect the 4-pin ATX +12 V power plug to provide sufficient power to the CPU

Read the User Guide carefully when assembling a computer.

Edited April 6, 2006 by Wallalai

[Tywais]

Doh!

My windows cd doesnt work. Some file is corrupt. So now I have a computer that I cant use because of a bad windows cd. Maybe a trip to pantip can fix my problem?

I really want to get this up and running.

You might try and use a lense cleaning cloth and clean the surface of the CD first. A little smudge is all it takes to make it unreliable.

[poorfarang]

Looks like the cd has a small sratch on it.

Going to have to take a trip back to pantip then.

So how should I partition my 250 gig hard drive? Should I split a 5 gig partition for windows and leave the rest alone? I might be doing some video editiing down the line, will this be better off on its own platter seperate from my applications and 40 gigs of music?

[Wallalai]

It's always better to assign a partition to the system itself, I don't know about the size for Windows XP and all added softwares. Maybe 7Go to give a little more space ? Just make a primary partition and then an extended one who can contain many logical drives.

By assigning a partition to the system you can, in case of problem, just format it and reinstall without to touch at your datas, music, pictures collections. When I used Win, I even made a "Games" partition and installed all the games in it.

[Tywais]

So how should I partition my 250 gig hard drive? Should I split a 5 gig partition for windows and leave the rest alone? I might be doing some video editiing down the line, will this be better off on its own platter seperate from my applications and 40 gigs of music?

There are two camps and each adamant about their thoughts on it. Camp one, XP does not need partitioned just proper directory management and will slow the system down if partitioned due to head movement. Camp 2, should have partitions to separate your applications from your data and add a small level of protection if the OS partition fails.

I'm a little bit in both camps. I have 500GB disk space and my old system has 80GB with 20GB free, and that is with pretty much every application that I can think of on it. I decided I prefer the separation (logical) of the OS and primary apps and the multi-media, games, etc. I set one partition to 100GB which will cover all my application needs plus room to grow and the remaining 400GB for everything else. Reason is that I currently have 2 Drives giving me separation but the new system will have 2-250GB RAID0 drives for 500GB.

When you figure out your partition requirements you need to be sure it is big enough for both the OS and for your applications which will be installed in the "Program Files" directory by default as are your "My Documents" unless you want to mess around and redirect these (not recommended).

Edited April 6, 2006 by tywais

[JSixpack]

Looks like the cd has a small sratch on it.

Going to have to take a trip back to pantip then.

So how should I partition my 250 gig hard drive? Should I split a 5 gig partition for windows and leave the rest alone? I might be doing some video editiing down the line, will this be better off on its own platter seperate from my applications and 40 gigs of music?

There was a discussion about partitioning earlier here:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?sh...pic=64742&st=15

Partitioning is a religious issue with some, perhaps as a holdover from the ol' Win98 days when it made more sense, but I say there's no rational reason to partition nowadays w/ WinXP unless, since you have only one drive, you want to make a restore partition to hold an image of your main installation (system and programs). OEMs often do this so that customers can easily restore their entire software configuration to factory condition after they inevitably trash it. There's no safety advantage in partitioning since if your OS partition fails, the other partitions will surely fail as well (your partition table is screwed or your drive has failed) and you've lost everything anyway. Overall, partitioning is just inefficient and completely needless bother.

Note that http://www.techbuilder.org/recipes/59201471 agrees with me in point #18.

Edited April 6, 2006 by JSixpack

[meadish_sweetball]

I would consider getting a small fast drive just for windows (say 20-80 GB) and leave the 250 GB drive for data. No real need for partitions I reckon.

[Firefoxx]

As said before, if you have more than 1 drive, there is no need for partitioning. If you have only 1 drive, it is common practice to split it into two (size depends on your needs) and put all programs on one and all data on the other. In the event that you need to reinstall your OS (and most people do this quite often, since it's the "silver bullet" of windows problems), you simply format one with little or no backup necessary.

[francois]

Looks like the cd has a small sratch on it.

Going to have to take a trip back to pantip then.

So how should I partition my 250 gig hard drive? Should I split a 5 gig partition for windows and leave the rest alone? I might be doing some video editiing down the line, will this be better off on its own platter seperate from my applications and 40 gigs of music?

hi'

a 10gb for the C drive and then you can decide in the extended partition one or more sub partition

just like wallalai, I have on a pc, windoz in a 14bg primary partition, and one for data and one of 12gb for games

francois

ps; partitions are a basic safety rule for working!

only dummies store everything on the C, using my docs and this s*** stuffs

make your own classification for folders and don't accept windoz default!

[JSixpack]

I would consider getting a small fast drive just for windows (say 20-80 GB) and leave the 250 GB drive for data. No real need for partitions I reckon.

The optimal setup for average use and what I've had for years.

[poorfarang]

Well I only have the one drive for now.

Would it be possible to split it into say a 10GB partition for windows, and then If I buy a small fast drive in a few months copy that entire partition to the new drive?

Also, how safe is it using something like parition magic to resize partitions? I might also get another 250GB drive some day for backup or raid purposes. Id hate to lose it all.

[JSixpack]

In the event that you need to reinstall your OS (and most people do this quite often, since it's the "silver bullet" of windows problems), you simply format one with little or no backup necessary.

Actually as is noted quite rightly in point #18 here "a reformat is never necessary to reinstall an operating system." You could (cough) delete everything in your Windows directory, but nowadays why bother? The old danger of trashing your data has pretty much disappeared, and so it can stay conveniently right there on your system partition where WinXP puts it by default. And you've got your nifty backup anyway because backups of important data are always necessary in case your whole drive goes south--which it may do just any time it d a m n well pleases.

I also think most people don't reinstall their WinXP "quite often". Reinstallation should rarely if ever be necessary--or even desirable. Frequent reinstalls would indicate the presence of other issues that, if cleared up, would lead to the condition of stability and reliability that should be the norm with XP.

I've even known some remarkably stable and long-lived installations of Win95, just chugging along for years and years. Maintenance . . . .

[Firefoxx]

Perhaps I should clarify. "Quite often" for me means a few times a year. Me, I keep it to once every 2 years, if even that. I know of lots of people in this forum who do reformat "quite often", since it is, yes, a very simple way of solving problems. Backups? Are we talking about sys admins or your typical Joe here?

Although a format is never necessary, it is simple and elegant. It is also a safer in that you're getting rid of all the virii/adware attached to your programs, which is a major cause of problems these days. You also don't have to go around looking to see if you have any old executables left in this or that directory.

An installation of any OS can survive quite long... *if* conditions are met. Conditions like not requiring any new programs, not being used very much, not going on the net a lot, not being accessed a lot, not having hardware upgraded, not having new programs installed, etc. etc. POS terminals and single-task workstations hardly ever get reinstalled. But then most computers in constant use don't meet those conditions, and rarely survive more than a few years (if even that) of non-reinstallation.

Of course, opinions differ. I just base my opinions on what I've seen, and what people tend to write in editorials and what actually happens can be very very different.

[John_Betong]

So how should I partition my 250 gig hard drive? Should I split a 5 gig partition for windows and leave the rest alone? I might be doing some video editiing down the line, will this be better off on its own platter seperate from my applications and 40 gigs of music?

Hi All,

If you already are running Windows then before deciding on how to partition your drives then have a look at your existing drive. An excellent free tool for this is http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/

The picture above is the mapping produced by the program (actually a 603k bmp but I shrank it).

The output is made up of different coloured boxes. Each box is proportional in size to the amount of disk space a file and directory uses in relation to the total amount of data on the drive.

When the program is running and the mouse is passed over a box a message hint pops up showing the name and size of the file and directory. Drilling up & down is a breeze and very informative to exactly what and how the space is allocated on your drive. Right clicking pops up a dropdown listbox where you can 'Open' the file with the associated Window's program. Explorer can also be selected so it is possible to delete files.

My current drive setup Total Size/Free Space in gigs:

c: - 17.6 / 6.08

d: - 14.1 / 0.89 (WinXP operating system)

e: - 23.0 / 6.35

f: - 56.8 / 13.6

From the disk mappings a few things require attention

1. Juggling is required to free space on my D: system drive.

2. The 4.2 gig AVI file was converted from a 205 meg MOV Quick Time Movie and wants deleting!

3. Google's sweet, innocent and informative Desktop system is taking a whopping 1.69 gigs!

4. I have a few movies that can be deleted.

5. Reduce the size of my 1.59 gig pagefile.sys

Chokdee,

John_Betong

[JSixpack]

If you already are running Windows then before deciding on how to partition your drives then have a look at your existing drive. An excellent free tool for this is http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/

Slick graphics there. I use this plainer one, Treesize:

http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml

that uses simple graphics and does give you a hierarchy.

Very useful sort of tool.

[JSixpack]

Although a format is never necessary, it is simple and elegant.

A format means a completely fresh install--not only of XP but of your programs and drivers and user accounts as well. Hence a repair reinstall, with no reformat needed, is far simpler, faster, and much more elegant. Fortunately it is usually the most one needs to solve the most common problems. You gotta love XP file protection. It was about time! Remember dll hel_l?

It is also a safer in that you're getting rid of all the virii/adware attached to your programs, which is a major cause of problems these days. You also don't have to go around looking to see if you have any old executables left in this or that directory.

This is a bit of a different issue--reformatting as malware eradication and junk disposal. Now, as you well know, a virus, or junk, can reside on any partition or indeed drive, and in various kinds of files. If reformatting becomes your only solution, you pretty much have to reformat the whole drive right through the boot sector, no matter how many partitions it has, and only restore known safe, good files. I grant you though that some virus infestations are so bad that this is about the only option. I've seen such firsthand, a Klez case beyond repair. Certainly the drive was much cleaner in the end, a lot of disk space indeed reclaimed.

Fortunately if a virus is caught early on--as that one wasn't--it can usually be handled by antivir of one sort or another. It may not be necessary to eradicate; containment may be sufficient. I've got a few infected files in quarantine and I do rejoice in their impotence.

As for the junk, well, it's fortunate the price of MB has fallen so dramatically over the years, eh? Otherwise I might have to do some serious spring cleaning.

Edited April 7, 2006 by JSixpack

[sting01]

Looks like the cd has a small sratch on it.

Going to have to take a trip back to pantip then.

So how should I partition my 250 gig hard drive? Should I split a 5 gig partition for windows and leave the rest alone? I might be doing some video editiing down the line, will this be better off on its own platter seperate from my applications and 40 gigs of music?

There was a discussion about partitioning earlier here:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?sh...pic=64742&st=15

Partitioning is a religious issue with some, perhaps as a holdover from the ol' Win98 days when it made more sense, but I say there's no rational reason to partition nowadays w/ WinXP unless, since you have only one drive, you want to make a restore partition to hold an image of your main installation (system and programs). OEMs often do this so that customers can easily restore their entire software configuration to factory condition after they inevitably trash it. There's no safety advantage in partitioning since if your OS partition fails, the other partitions will surely fail as well (your partition table is screwed or your drive has failed) and you've lost everything anyway. Overall, partitioning is just inefficient and completely needless bother.

Note that http://www.techbuilder.org/recipes/59201471 agrees with me in point #18.

Well, 250 Gig is great, how many cluster do you have? By result, what is the size of one cluster?

Unsure of it, but it seems I read a M$ documentation stating it's best for space management to use partition that are less than 10 Gig (it does not mean you must have 25 partitions, but it mean a partion bigger than 10 Gig will be inefficient, the ineffeciency is proportinal to the size).

What is the giggest size a file can have (including video) , long time ago (Win XP Pro 2003) I think it was 2 Gig. Does that limit is bypassed by now? I really ask, because if those 2 limits (clusters size and max file size) are by passed by the OS you will use so my point is irrelevant. But if one of them is still true with the OS you will use, then better for performance purpose (and safety also) to do partioning. Safety mean : in case of virus, it will mostly attack only the OS partition (commonly C:), so the easier is only to format C: and reinstall your OS (you Win I should say). Brute force, but efficient, because you will on hte sme time gain a new directory without the usual 1 000+ entries that are useless (old prog already delete, demo used one time only, error in the registry....).

But when partitioning, you have to remenber to put on the same partition Win XP and Microsoft office ( if you have), because if oyu use Word, you will call a lot of dll, so better to not move much the head. A prog like Staroffice that rely less on the dll will do better if installed on a second directory. Photoshop also claim a second directory (for internal backup purpose).

[JSixpack]

What is the giggest size a file can have (including video) , long time ago (Win XP Pro 2003) I think it was 2 Gig. Does that limit is bypassed by now? I really ask, because if those 2 limits (clusters size and max file size) are by passed by the OS you will use so my point is irrelevant.

For NTFS the file size is limited only by the size of the volume. There's a good comparison of NTFS vs FAT here.

[stumonster]

A format means a completely fresh install--not only of XP but of your programs and drivers and user accounts as well. Hence a repair reinstall, with no reformat needed, is far simpler, faster, and much more elegant.

It is also a safer in that you're getting rid of all the virii/adware attached to your programs, which is a major cause of problems these days. You also don't have to go around looking to see if you have any old executables left in this or that directory.

This is a bit of a different issue--reformatting as malware eradication and junk disposal. Now, as you well know, a virus, or junk, can reside on any partition or indeed drive, and in various kinds of files.

this machine that came to me with a bronstab infection at the beginning of last month came back to me at the beginning of the week with the problem of not being able to boot. the windows installation was still intact but the boot loader had no boot OS assigned so I could not run repair util I had run bootcfg and reassigned the default boot OS. I do not know what caused this problem as a drive intergrity check showed a good drive , so I am unsure as to what caused the prob with the loader.

the point is that after doing a repair of xp I noticed that it still had the fcuked up process explorer that had been caused by the bronstab infection. I gave the machine back in this state as I asked them to copy all the files and game saves to the second partition on the drive ( which I will then burn to DVD ) as next time I see the machine I intend to do a reformat and re install of windows. From that experience I feel that windows repair is ok to get a system back to a state where backups can be made , but to have trust is the stability of the system I think a full re-install is the better option.

this is just my opinion from my limited experience with winXP.

[JSixpack]

I do not know what caused this problem as a drive intergrity check showed a good drive , so I am unsure as to what caused the prob with the loader.

Some cases of file corruption can be mysterious. It's nice when one can replace a file or do a quick edit and get things back up and running, but one may have treated the symptom rather than the cause.

the point is that after doing a repair of xp I noticed that it still had the fcuked up process explorer that had been caused by the bronstab infection.

Not sure what this means exactly . . . . Process Explorer is the name of a third-party product. Has the virus been totally eradicated? WinXP has a powerful system file checker (sfc) that can restore the integrity of all the system files. If you erase a system file (thru reformat) and then replace it with the same file, not a lot has been gained, seems to me.

I gave the machine back in this state as I asked them to copy all the files and game saves to the second partition on the drive ( which I will then burn to DVD ) as next time I see the machine I intend to do a reformat and re install of windows. From that experience I feel that windows repair is ok to get a system back to a state where backups can be made , but to have trust is the stability of the system I think a full re-install is the better option.

this is just my opinion from my limited experience with winXP.

I think to trust in the stability of this system some deeper hardware investigation is in order and you have to be sure the virus hasn't spread to the data (which perhaps you have already). Suppose there's a PS, RAM, or drive controller problem that caused that file corruption? In the worst case, just the act of trying to copy data to another partition can destroy that data.

Quote for the day:

"Just re-installing Windows" breaks several cardinal troubleshooting rules, i.e.:

Know the scope of what you do

Maintain the ability to undo what you do

Test prospective fixes one at a time

Find the cause and mechanism of the problem

Determine the smallest-impact fix for the problem

Techs that "just re-install Windows" rather than troubleshoot are missing out on valuable learning and skill-building opportunities, as well as offering the client poor value. As a general rule for stand-alone PCs, the faster technicians resort to "just re-install" or "format and re-install", the more useless they are."

That's from this excellent resource by Chris Quirke, an authoritative MS-MVP who thoroughly addresses the reinstall/install issue and gives systematic computer troubleshooting procedures:

http://cquirke.mvps.org/reinst.htm

As I've said elsewhere, a repair reinstall or fresh install should almost never be necessary or desirable. I would treat it as a last desperate resort after a thorough investigation and with the cautions in mind given in the above reference. This is not to say I've never resorted to it!

[stumonster]

the point is that after doing a repair of xp I noticed that it still had the fcuked up process explorer that had been caused by the bronstab infection.

Not sure what this means exactly . . . .

sorry - windows task manager - bronstab removes access to the process list and all you are left with is the programs pane and none of the options at the top .

Edited April 8, 2006 by stumonster

[JSixpack]

the point is that after doing a repair of xp I noticed that it still had the fcuked up process explorer that had been caused by the bronstab infection.

Not sure what this means exactly . . . .

sorry - windows task manager - bronstab removes access to the process list and all you are left with is the programs pane and none of the options at the top .

This sounds a bit like what Windows Task Manager does when it runs in Tiny Footprint mode. With no tabs, you can't go to other panes. If this might be the problem (good news), see:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...kb;en-us;193050

[stumonster]

This sounds a bit like what Windows Task Manager does when it runs in Tiny Footprint mode. With no tabs, you can't go to other panes. If this might be the problem (good news), see:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...kb;en-us;193050

thx for that - I will check and see if that is what is going on.

[ianc66]

Jsixpack writes

Techs that "just re-install Windows" rather than troubleshoot are missing out on valuable learning and skill-building opportunities, as well as offering the client poor value. As a general rule for stand-alone PCs, the faster technicians resort to "just re-install" or "format and re-install", the more useless they are."

That's from this excellent resource by Chris Quirke, an authoritative MS-MVP who thoroughly addresses the reinstall/install issue and gives systematic computer troubleshooting procedures:

http://cquirke.mvps.org/reinst.htm

As I've said elsewhere, a repair reinstall or fresh install should almost never be necessary or desirable. I would treat it as a last desperate resort after a thorough investigation and with the cautions in mind given in the above reference. This is not to say I've never resorted to it! blink.gif

I say well said

I've been reading this thread for the last few days almost incredulous, re-install reformat what nonsense may as well repair your car by torching it.