Hi guys, let me preface this with a thank you for taking the time to read this. To begin, a friend from work had asked me to take a look at her boyfriends old (2001) PC because they said it wasn't even turning on. I said I would take a look at it and try to fix it. I recently upgraded my PC and had my old EVGA 680i mobo, intel qx6700 and BFG 8800 GTX GPU card laying around, so I thought it would be nice to just throw in those parts and have her purchase a 600 watt PSU with OCX sli memory (4 gigs), so I could build him a "new" PC for Xmas.
Well that's where the trouble began. First off, the CD/DVD drives and hardrives all use the older conectors (ATAPI?), and the mobo only has one of those slots. so I figured, ok, I will just use the hardrives for now and get it to boot. Next, there isn't all the risers for the motherboard in the case, so there are holes with no screws (I am not sure how bad that is by the way and I can't ask him if he has the rest since it is supposed to be a surprise). So, I install everything, and it posts but doesn't boot. I assume that one of their hardrives is dead as well, and pull out some old drives that I know have a working copy of XP on them (one of them), and it posts and boots. But the mouse doesnt work, so I switch it to another usb slot and reboot.
Now this is where the main problem now lies. I reboot and the monitor starts flashing like the vid card isn't working (i.e. black screen and the power button on the monitor is flashing). Then I try to reboot and I keep getting random post codes (CO, A8, etc not a common occurence relating to the same issue like memory for example). So now I have a motherboard that wont post, and a day wasted, when all I wanted to do was something special for a friend, and it is turning into a nightmare.
I have thought about pulling out one of my sata hard drives from my personal computer that has a working OS on it, and swapping in my known working memory to see if these are the issues. I thought that maybe the power supply was too weak (600 watts should be enough right?) as well. I am at the point where if I can't figure it out I am going to pay my friend at work back the money for the PSU and the memory (both brand new) and give them back their PC with the newer parts and tell her that I couldn't make it happen. Any suggestions based on the story I provided? I am going to go home tonight and try again to make it happen. Thanks!
PS I will be checking this thread all day at work today so I can answer any questions based on my experience yesterday if need be.
Well that's where the trouble began. First off, the CD/DVD drives and hardrives all use the older conectors (ATAPI?), and the mobo only has one of those slots. so I figured, ok, I will just use the hardrives for now and get it to boot. Next, there isn't all the risers for the motherboard in the case, so there are holes with no screws (I am not sure how bad that is by the way and I can't ask him if he has the rest since it is supposed to be a surprise). So, I install everything, and it posts but doesn't boot. I assume that one of their hardrives is dead as well, and pull out some old drives that I know have a working copy of XP on them (one of them), and it posts and boots. But the mouse doesnt work, so I switch it to another usb slot and reboot.
Now this is where the main problem now lies. I reboot and the monitor starts flashing like the vid card isn't working (i.e. black screen and the power button on the monitor is flashing). Then I try to reboot and I keep getting random post codes (CO, A8, etc not a common occurence relating to the same issue like memory for example). So now I have a motherboard that wont post, and a day wasted, when all I wanted to do was something special for a friend, and it is turning into a nightmare.
I have thought about pulling out one of my sata hard drives from my personal computer that has a working OS on it, and swapping in my known working memory to see if these are the issues. I thought that maybe the power supply was too weak (600 watts should be enough right?) as well. I am at the point where if I can't figure it out I am going to pay my friend at work back the money for the PSU and the memory (both brand new) and give them back their PC with the newer parts and tell her that I couldn't make it happen. Any suggestions based on the story I provided? I am going to go home tonight and try again to make it happen. Thanks!
PS I will be checking this thread all day at work today so I can answer any questions based on my experience yesterday if need be.
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