[Carbon]

Most problems with new builds come down to a few easy mistakes. Here's some advice on how to fix the most common ones.


My computer's restarting in the middle of games oh no now i have to beat that robot guy with a missile launcher again help

You bought a bad PSU. The PSU market sucks and this is actually pretty easy to do. This list is pretty good for checking if you got a crappy one but really the Corsair 450s are really cheap so fixing this shouldn't be too expensive. Good PSUs are a great investment as you can use them forever, as long as things still run on electricity, which they probably will for a while.


My computer is beeping and waking up everyone and their cats are meowing and some are even woofing and it's horrible

Beeps can mean a lot of things. The best part about beeps is that you have a speaker, because most cases don't have speakers anymore. This speaker will allow you to compose many interesting old-timey medleys on it and pretend you are using MS-DOS in 1995 or maybe you are in a really bad movie about video games with lots of beeps and boops or something.

But you cannot do that just yet as your computer does not work! So try reading this fascinating article on beep codes. Check your BIOS to see what section header you should be looking at - most use the AWARD BIOS, but it varies across manufacturers.


When I press the power button on my computer it does not start

Many people make the mistake of thinking that they should screw their motherboard into the case. This is not a good idea, so many other people make the mistake of never screwing their motherboard into the case and it rebounds inside because of the momentum of the CPU fan spinning and that ruins everything.

Don't be one of these people. Use those brass standoffs that came with the case and/or motherboard, figure out where the screws are to line up on the motherboard, and stick the standoffs in those holes. That way, the conductive screws or the bumps on the motherboard will not cause a short circuit off the case. Usually this isn't a big deal but check for hardware damage.

Finally, you can always check the power switch itself by connecting the headers on the motherboard where the power switch cable goes by putting a screwdriver in between the two. This is 100% safe.


I am seeing weird colored or misshapen things on the screen when playing games. Sometimes I see the Virgin Mary in them. I just want to blow things up without divine intervention, unless that makes things blow up better in which case that would be great

These are called artifacts and they mean that your video card is discovering new and interesting facts about long-dead civilizations. This can mean a couple of things: your video memory is bad, or your power supply is bad and I have no joke for that because you should never joke about power supplies. You should RMA your graphics card, as it's more likely that, but if you have another power supply handy go ahead and try that first.


I am trying to lock in a LGA775/Core 2 Duo processor. I fear I require the Incredible Hulk.

Back in the Pentium 4 days there was a thing called a zero insertion force socket. Now it's called a "hell of a lot of insertion force" socket. Make sure your CPU is lined up correctly. If it is, overcome your fear of breaking really expensive things and push that lever down as hard as you can.

Once it is down go ahead and push it to the side to lock it and put your heatsink on. Have fun lining up the push pins as this is just as bad. Remember, the arrows don't mean anything if you're inserting, only if you're pulling it out, so ignore them. Easiest way to do this is to do the pushpins diagonally so equal force is applied across the socket.

I can boot with one stick of memory, but not two/I am getting BSODs.

This can mean a lot of things. You should always check your memory's stock voltage requirements to see what voltage it should run at because motherboards will often undervolt them and cause all sorts of problems (see the checklist below). If all else fails, you can try memtest86.

NEW BUILD CHECKLIST:

CASE PREP:
[ ] Invoice checked, all parts accounted for
[ ] Electrostatic wrist band/grounded self on case or PSU.
[ ] Installed power supply into case.
[ ] Hooked up mains cord to provide easy grounding during build (touch the PSU frequently)
[ ] Installed all hard drives, optical drives, and other front panel devices.
[ ] Plugged in SATA data cables to these drives, leave hanging until motherboard is plugged in
[ ] Installed the thin aluminum plate "I/O shield" for the motherboard

MOTHERBOARD PREPARATION:
[ ] Removed plastic covering on CPU and motherboard socket. Unhooked latch on socket.
[ ] Placed CPU in socket, having checked the arrow direction (it only goes in one way!). Did not touch either the bottom or top of the CPU.
[ ] Lowered metal socket cover, pushed really hard on latch and to the side to secure the CPU.
[ ] Mounted heatsink with all four push pins.
[ ] Hooked up CPU_FAN header for the cooler's fan
[ ] Installed memory in dual-channel configuration (if applicable)

MOTHERBOARD INSTALLATION:
[ ] Found the screw holes corresponding to my motherboard on the case & put standoffs in these holes.
[ ] Placed motherboard in case and screwed into standoffs
[ ] Installed graphics card.
[ ] Installed peripheral cards (sound, network, etc)
[ ] Hooked up 24 pin ATX connector to motherboard from PSU
[ ] Hooked up 4 pin CPU connector to motherboard from PSU
[ ] Hooked up 6/8/multiple pin connector to graphics card from PSU
[ ] Hooked up power, reset, HDD LED, etc headers on motherboard
[ ] Hooked up case fans to motherboard headers (if applicable)
[ ] Hooked up USB/FireWire/audio front panel headers

CABLE MANAGEMENT:
[ ] Hooked up data cables from HDD/optical drives
[ ] Hooked up power cables to HDD/optical drives
[ ] Hooked up power cables for case fans (remember molex can daisy-chain!)

/!\ WHEN IN DOUBT PULL EVERYTHING OUT OF THE CASE AND PUT YOUR MOTHERBOARD W/ CPU, ONE STICK OF RAM, AND THE GRAPHICS CARD ON A CARDBOARD BOX OR NON-CONDUCTIVE SURFACE AND CHECK IT THERE /!\

[thingie2]

A very good guide as always Carbon, you rearly do spend alot of your time making these. +rep

[kanoakavirus]

Very good guide, " You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Carbon again. "
Cant +rep you so i rated 5/5 stars

[Carbon]

Thanks, as you can probably tell from the last question I meant to put a checklist for software and BIOS configurations as well but forgot.

Assuming your build's all well and good:

[ ] BIOS up to date (note that you can't do this without internet access)
[ ] Checked RAM voltage, set to whatever the RAM wants (see: packaging)
[ ] Set RAM timings to what are rated (don't have it at AUTO!)
[ ] FSB/processor speed is what is rated on the box
[ ] OS installed
[ ] Motherboard drivers installed (you should now have Internet access via USB/Ethernet)
[ ] Latest video card drivers installed (use the net, not the ones on the CD)
[ ] Peripheral PCI device drivers installed (see above)

At that point you can start loading it up with your software and such. If you want to partition the drive, dual boot, mess with the bootloader, whatever now is the time to do it.