Newly upgraded problems

[Sibhod]

just installed these three things into a dell dimension 3000

newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103255

newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128341

newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817338009

I am currently unable to boot my computer. I have connected everything properly, and even when trying with just 1 HDD and the monitor hooked up, i get no input signal to the monitor. e.g. i can't see anything.

when i turn it in, the fans spin and if i have the keyboard plugged in it receives power as do the CD player and HDDs ect... but after trying 2 separate monitors neither have responded.

This is the first time i've done any upgrades to any machine beyond a new HDD so i guess if anyone has any suggestions talk to me like i'm 10, or just dont assume i know anything i guess. Seems like my best bet at this stage in the game.

note: when i tried with the HDD plugged in, it was set as the master, and the CD player is set as a slave. should they be in cable select? ( i have no idea what cable select is for/does). after looking up 'cable select' because i couldnt remember what it was called, i learned something. the master drive goes on the end of the cable, and the slave is the middle of the IDE cable. lets assume i connected only the master HDD with the middle of the cable because the darn thing was too stiff to manipulate. Could that cause my problem? Furthermore, my Power Supply has so many excess wires, and about 4 or 5 on one line that are to power optical drives, and HDDS ect... should i start from the beginning or the end of those to plug in and power my drives, or does that not matter.

thats all i can think of for now, any suggestions are greatly appreciated


edit: i feel i should mention that i do not currently have memory, or a video card for this machine.

 

[seanc]

Without memory, the PC is useless.

Since that is a gigabyte motherboard, I suspect they're still screwing people over by failing to put speakers on the motherboards. If it had the speaker, you'd be hearing a whole lot of continuous beeping right now telling you there was no RAM in there. You must get some RAM before the computer will go through the power on test.

You'll probably want another graphics card to replace the onboard graphics as well but at this stage it's not overly important in getting the PC to power up and display video.

That PSU seems cheap and nasty (by the looks and reviews), I'd advise you to send it back and purchase something under the Corsair, Antec or Seasonic (who make the parts inside Corsair and Antec PSUs) power supply. They're quite a bit more expensive than the one you purchased, but considering they're the most important part of the PC, it's certainly worth it.

 

[Sibhod]

ah well then i'll be out of commission for a couple more days because i have to RMA an older video card (story was i bought for a PCI then 2 hours later power supply fried so i upgraded everything) before i can get the RAM. might as well get some feedback on that here as well, should i go for DDR2 1066? or would something less still work. for example newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820141366 which has almost all good reviews for it.

as for Power supplies these are the cheapest of seasonic and antec (as so they caught my attention first)
newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151040
newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371016

 

[seanc]

That RAM should be fine, but if you wanted to be really sure it would work, I'd go with some memory that is on Gigabytes supported memory list.

With the power supplies, I'd be inclined to go with the Antec because of it's modular capabilities so you can take off cables you aren't using.

 

[Sibhod]

yeah i really liked that modular feature because this current power supply has a Lot of extra wires

 

[Sibhod]

ok so just for the heck of it, i tried doing a desk test or whatever the name is to make sure nothing is grounding by setting my motherboard on the box it came in, and all that jazz. i'm about to try it again with no HDD hooked up so just the monitor is plugged in. This board doesn't have an onboard speaker though so i'm not sure where the beeps for POST would come from, and i only think there is about a 40% chance i would recognize them seeing as how i already mistook CPU sounds for it, but firmly decided that was Not POST. too high pitched and Way too quiet.

i suppose i'll try to give Gigabytes tech support a call tomorrow, though it's long distance and not a 1-800 number which is why i've been putting that off, heh...

or would you recommend i reset the CMOS? or isn't that the controller for the BIOS? (which i haven't actually done anything with yet...) I've just read that in a few other posts with problems like mine. People have tried resetting that, and a couple have seen some changes, but i have yet to read one about it actually fixing. Could it do any harm at least?


Edit: dont think resetting CMOS did anything. I took the battery out for about 2 minutes and put it back in. (with the power supply unplugged)

totally spaced out on calling tech support and had to work until the AM so. anyone have any suggestions as to the power supply? should i slide it over From 115v to 230v? i don't want to over juice it and totally destroy anything so i'm waiting for a couple to give me a go-ahead.

 

[Sibhod]

new RAM solved the problem. had to go with the only stick of Kingston at walmart at 1 in the morning, but it booted up right away. I only had a strike of fear when the monitor said no signal, but i turned it off and back on and it worked. Then the fear was replaced by joy... which was quickly replaced by fear again as the monitor flashed to no signal, then back up with the windows logo.

That fear has now turned into unknowing anger and or confusion.
in short hand:
"A problem detected and windows shut down. If first time seen Stop Error Screen reboot, if appears again check for adequate disk space, driver identified in message then disable or check for updates. Change video adapters and check for BIOS Updates. Disable BIOS memory caching or shadowing. Reboot in safemode to remove/disable anything needed."
Edit: forgot this "Stop: 0x0000007E (0xC0000005, 0xF7650750, 0xF796B430, 0xF796B12C)

i'm about to reboot it and edit with an update


Got it booted in safe mode. going to dump my HDD onto an external device then reinstall windows or whatever i have to do from there. Thanks for the help

 

[seanc]

You don't need to re-install Windows, you just need to change the mass storage controllers to generic ones so it can boot on this different motherboard.

Do you want help with that or have you already gone ahead and re-installed Windows?

 

[Sibhod]

yeah I could use help with that. All I have done so far was get it to boot in windows Safe mode, trying to dump my HDD onto an external device. Will I not have to wipe one of my HDDs now?

Edit: Ok so basically I have finally managed to get both my HDDs hooked up (took some time because the IDE cable didn't want to bend properly). My OS is on the smaller stock HDD, and I have a 200gig set as the slave. Should I copy absolutely totally everything from the original HDD (30~Gig) to the 200Gig before trying to do anything with windows CDs or windows repair stuff?

to sum this up, I got the new motherboard, CPU, power supply in and the computer boots. I can mess around with the BIOS, and load windows xp in Safe Mode, with both HDDs detected properly, (though I can't have both HDDs and my CD drive all in at once because the board has only 1 IDE port.)