Powering rig for the first time

[BigJohnson]

Last night I powered up a rig I built for a friend. It didnt repsond well at first, it showed the motherboard screen with the options to press for each menu. I pressed the menu button a few times before it let me in. Then when I had all of the settings right I exited and it restarted. Then the case alarm was going off and wouldn't stop. Now it wont respond to anything on the keyboard except 'press Tab to post'. When it does it goes through the memory check, ok. Then it says finding IDE devices. And it sits there. I left it for 20 minutes. And still nothing. I thought maybe I screwed up a setting but I cant get back to fix it. So I dont know what to do. Every time I turn it on it still goes back to the original mobo screen and I can only get it to respond to 'Tab'.
Should I reset it? How do I do that? Pull the back up battery and leave it for a bit? Help me out here. I really wanted it built by last night but I just cant figure this out. +rep to anyone that can get me through this.

Thanks.

[Scotty]

Clear the CMOS usually a jumper on board or remove the battery for a few seconds and put it back, try again.

If it's not finding any drives double check they are connected with power and data cable.

[Luke122]

IDE devices? Check to make sure that they are set to Cable select.

I'd remove all the devices, and see if it posts. (Beep on boot)

[Cannibal23]

both of these guys are on the right track dude. unplug all but nessasary stuff. so the only things that should stay plugged in right now would be cpu one stick of ram video card and keyboard and your monitor. beyond that unplug it all and get it to post properly. resetting your cmos is a great idea. your mobo manual should tell you how to do this.

once you have it all unplugged, cmos reset and posting properly, plug in one thing at a time and boot it up. this should allow you to isolate where the problem is. if the last device you plugged in was _____ and then it went all wonky then thats most likely the problem and you can begin to investigate why. +rep for luke and scotty for having rock solid suggestions.

[Spawn-Inc]

ya thats what i would do and have had to do before. i was really new to overclocking so i set the fsb to the highest it would go just to see what i could hit and of course it wouldn't even post. after being told to pull the battery out for 5 minutes or so it booted back up to normal :).

[Drum Thumper]

My old roommate had the same issues; his problem was that he forgot to connect to molex's to the hard drives.

So, while you're in there, make sure that everything is hooked up properly before you start unplugging the extras.

[BigJohnson]

Ok. I have everything plugged in. I haven't taken out the backup battery yet. Nor have I looked for a jumper. But everyone has mentioned to me that I should be listening for a sound or a beep from the on-board speaker when I power on or attempt to post. But can anyone figure out why in the hell its just making noise. It doesnt beep. Its sounding the alarm. It turns on and wont turn off. So I think maybe I can fix this before I have to start over with the setup. One constant noise, the only thing that responds on the keyboard is 'Tab'. I will try anything else later but I have a family function I have to get to. Thanks for the help. +Rep to everyone so far.

[Cannibal23]

so it just makes one constant long beep. hmmm usually there are beep codes that the bios will output to help you troubleshoot whats going on. i think the only time i have heard of a long constant one is from a cpu temp alert but i find it hard to believe that you would get that immediately. what mobo you have? is your heatsync fitted properly? do you have the thermal goo in there? any other devices with speakers on them like a raid card or scsi card? i still think you should unplug it all and see if you still get the problem. its easier if you eliminate what it cant be by unpluging it.

[Luke122]

One long constant beep, or just repeating beep?

Pull out everything, and reseat the CPU too while you are at it. Put the CPU back in, and power it up with everything else removed.

Same noise? If so, then it's a RAM issue. Solution: Reseat the RAM, one stick at a time (if more than one).

Different noise? Start with just CPU and RAM... one beep = good.

Add your video card next, and see if you get video on the screen. If so, hit up the bios, and choose "restore default settings" or "return to factory defaults" or somethign along those lines. (It varies according to manufacturer.)

[BigJohnson]

Ok. So I started to pull everything out. I left the cpu and the video card in because I felt pretty good about those and I dont have any thermal paste to reseat the cpu. I turned it on and it gave me 3 beeps. Then shut down, restarted and 3 beeps, then a pause then constant beeping. I put one stick of ram in and it sounds the alarm. Just one tone, long and unending. It doesn't work with either ram sticks in any of the ports.

[Luke122]

try to pull the video card too then. If it still happens, the cpu might be the issue...

[BigJohnson]

Thanks Luke. It was the video card. I left for dinner. I just said 'F@#& IT'. But when I came back I reseated everything and pulled out the second hard drive. And when I put everything back in it fired up right away. But when I put the second HD in it crashed. So I tried cleaning it up and it still crashed. So I just delivered without the second drive and told him it was dead. Everything worked out great. Thanks to everyone for their help.

[Cannibal23]

glad this worked out dude. as per my post on the last page. if your having posting issues unplug everything you can and narrow it down untill you have the issue isolated. you can use this pretty much any time you have posting issues. some beep codes you will just get to know over time though.

[killergamer]

The power of POST... LOL Glade you got it fixed. What you have for dinner?

[BigJohnson]

Well the dinner was a wash. I didnt eat anything because my gf is a vegitarian and by the time I sat down with my plate it had turned out her family had tried to sneak meat into her meal so she spent dinner throwing up so I spent dinner thinking about how sexy my gf looks while throwing up.

[ComputerGuru64x2]

Make sure you have reset the CMOS jumper back to the right pins, failure to do that will cause boot failure. Also, make sure that the power is fully connected to your motherboard (20 or 24 pin ATX, 4 Pin CPU Power, PCI-E if needed, CPU Fan, etc...) Also, try clearing CMOS again, make sure you put everything back. Also test the PSU you have with a motherboard because you may have a bad PSU. After that I would consult the manual for the motherboard, then call your motherboard manufacturing and get some advice for technical support. If all else fails you may have to RMA the motherboard. I hope you figure out what is going on, this happen to me before and I know how you feel. But I got it fixed by moving the Cable Select jumper from my HDD, to Master. I hope you get this figured out.
Chris