First Time Build Help!

[ScubaSteve234]

Ok, so I have started building my computer today, it is my first time building my own rig and Ive run into some scary problems. After following a step by step video I had appeared to have everything hooked up correctly inside the case. On first boot up, the fans started and it powered on, but I saw a little bit of smoke rise and it smelled burnt so I quickly shut it off. I dissasembled everything and cannot seem to locate where the burn could have come from. When I reassembled it and tried again, there was no burning or anyhting, but all of the fans on the case itself as well as the CPU and GPU fans began going. Also, the speaker emits a beep when there is no RAM in the memory slots. So, it appears to be working, but when I insert the RAM and connect it to a monitor I get no picture.
Please help me with some advice!
Thankyou!

[zburns]

The motherboard is most likely the source of the burnt component. You mentioned a video. (1) I would have hoped you were following Rob's book or his online build instructions which are in sequence. (2) Next, did you use good static control 'unequivocally' AND did you handle the motherboard, cpu and RAM by the 'edges' of each component and you should never have touched any circuit board traces (front or back side), even one time. Only by following (1) and (2) in a 'strict fashion' meaning 'absolutely every or all the time' can you 'tell yourself' that you made no mistakes regards potential static damage to mobo, cpu or the RAM.

I just shut down this computer and rebooted to see the time it takes to get thru POST. Took about five seconds; computer is four years old. On a new computer today, presumably around three seconds. Definitely the beep for POST should not be there if there was no RAM in the slots.

But you have no RAM in. Put in one stick, see if the time to the beep changes -- none of this changes the fact that the beep should not have occurred without the RAM in it; a series of beeps indicating a code might have occurred. One beep without the at least one RAM stick in place does indicate a component problem; so I suggest you start with changing out the mobo.

Make sure you 'use static control' 100 % of the time as you move thru new components to fix things. Good Luck!!