First boot problem

[rfvijn]

GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35
Q6600 processor
hec Zephyr 650 ATX12V 650W Power Supply

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Hello, I am very inexperienced when it comes to building computers. This was my first build. I put everything together, and booted it up for the first time. The case fan started spinning, and the the LEDs on the case lit up. Other than that nothing happened. Is this a problem with the motherboard, processor? I would really appreciate some help.

[shyster]

Sounds like some stuff is not plugged in if even the cpu fan is not spinning.

If that is the case unplug everything and then try plugging everything back in to see if that fixes it.

If that does not work when you come back please give more information, type of case, video card, RAM, etc.

[rfvijn]

Thanks's for the help, but that didn't work. It is still doing the same thing as before. Here is some more information about my system:

XFX GeForce 8800GT 512MB
DDR2 4GB PC6400 DUAL OCZ
Cooler Master CM-690 case
Western Digital Caviar 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache IDE Ultra ATA100 Hard Drive

The only that I can think that I might not be doing right is that some the screws for the motherboard weren't able to reach the case. So, I wasn't able to screw all of them in. Could that be causing things not work? I really appreciate the help.

[shyster]

Well I am not an expert in motherboard technology, but the grounding pins and screws for them are there for a reason. If you cannot fit all the screws into all the correctly placed grounding pins, I suppose that could be a reason for your troubles. If electricity is not grounded it tends to go where it wants instead of where we want it to.

Again if your CPU fan is not spinning I would wonder if it is put in the correct pin slot. If the CPU is not being cooled correctly that could cause all kinds of problems.

However if we ignore that as something you said was not working, when it actually was, then here is the next suggestion.

Take out one of the sticks of RAM, it would seem you have 2x2 sticks of ram, take one out and see what happens. Sometimes motherboards do not like 4gbs of ram when they are first started.

Secondly I guess would be to listen to the beep codes. You should be getting some right? Either that case or motherboard should have onboard audio for testing purposes I would hope. If you are getting beep codes check the manual that came with the motherboard and try to identify what the code sounds like compared to what the manual says is wrong with that corresponding code. That would give you the biggest hint.

Of course I could just be overly wishful in my thinking that your board has beep code audio, in which case hopefully someone else on this board who has that motherboard can tell me otherwise.

[rfvijn]

I will definitely try taking out one of the sticks of RAM, and I was also thinking about getting some different screws that would fit. As for the audio, I haven't heard a single beep.

[rfvijn]

Ok, so I took out one of the sticks of RAM, and turned it back on. I let it run for a fw minutes and the CPU started going as well. So, fortunately something else is now working. But nothing else is happening. Should I just wait, and see if anything else happens?

[jimmyg]

What kind of CPU cooler do you have?

I have the same mobo and CPU, and an Arctic Freezer Pro 7 CPU cooler. I just started my build last night and I encountered something similar. My CPU fan doesn't come on immediately, more like 10 -20 secs after boot. The fan will do like a half revolution, stop, repeat, and then finally run as normal.

Did you plug into the CPU-Fan on the mobo, or Sys Fan 2 (4pin as well)? I tried both and they seem to be interchangeable. I got my machine to post, and get the system disk error message as I expected but I only had one stick (1G) of ram installed and it seems that it didn't recognize any memory.

I'm just curious what your situation is because I have similar parts.

[The Wise Monkey]

I've explained this elsewhere, but I'll say it again here.

The CPU fan will only come on when its needed, so you don't need to worry about that. I think that there may be an option in the BIOS that allows you to change things so that the fan comes on as soon as you boot up, but I'm not sure.

[jimmyg]

Sorry about that Wise Monkey, you'll see I posted this at the same time I posted in my thread, previous to your response. And you are right, thats is the way the fan works. However, even changing it in bios for this mobo, which I did, still does not make the fan come on immediately on startup, more like a few seconds after the case fans come on. Don't mean to hijack this thread and I appreciate what you do here.

[The Wise Monkey]

Lol, no worries man, just chill. :)

I don't know the specifics of that mobo, so I can't really help you out... sorry!

[rfvijn]

Well thankfully, I got everything up and running. It turned out that the ram wasn't in all the way. Many, do I feel stupid. Now unfortunately, I have another problem. I installed xp, and whe it finished installing it restarted and all I got was an error message saying NTLDR is missing. Does anyone have any ideas on how I can fix this?

[RickyTick]

Did a google search and found this. Hope its helpful.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314057

[The Wise Monkey]

Well thankfully, I got everything up and running. It turned out that the ram wasn't in all the way. Many, do I feel stupid. Now unfortunately, I have another problem. I installed xp, and whe it finished installing it restarted and all I got was an error message saying NTLDR is missing. Does anyone have any ideas on how I can fix this?

Since someone else was having the same problem, can you elaborate on how you managed to fix it?

[rfvijn]

What kind of CPU cooler do you have?

I have the same mobo and CPU, and an Arctic Freezer Pro 7 CPU cooler. I just started my build last night and I encountered something similar. My CPU fan doesn't come on immediately, more like 10 -20 secs after boot. The fan will do like a half revolution, stop, repeat, and then finally run as normal.

Did you plug into the CPU-Fan on the mobo, or Sys Fan 2 (4pin as well)? I tried both and they seem to be interchangeable. I got my machine to post, and get the system disk error message as I expected but I only had one stick (1G) of ram installed and it seems that it didn't recognize any memory.

I'm just curious what your situation is because I have similar parts.

I plugged the CPU fan in the slot that said cpu fan on the mobo, and the sys fan into the sys fan 2 slot, it is 4-pin. The only thing that was wrong with my system was that the ram was not inserted fully into it's slot ( I had to take it to a shop to figure that part out). Once the ram was seated properly everything worked great. As for your cpu, I think I remember mine doing that the first time I turned it on also, but stopped now. Maybe it's just how your CPU fan works. Sorry I couldn't be anymore help.