To follow on to SD's post (I should have been clearer), I usually put the mobo on it's antistatic bag, then on the foam pad that will be in the box and all that in the actual box whilst adding things before installing it in the case. Of course, you will be doing all this on a table of some kind so that means you have a nice, flat, stable platform to work on.

TBH, E.Z., I have never used antistatic gloves/straps/etc and I've never had an issue. Just make sure you hold any components at the edges, with as little contact as possible (think of holding a CD, you hold it so your fingers are on the very edges so you don't touch stick a fingerprint on the bit the disc is read from. Treat components in the same way.), don't touch any parts on the component and keep fingers clear of the connections. In an ideal world the power supply will be in the case as you work so you can connect the power cable, plug it into the wall (DO NOT SWITCH POWER ON AT WALL!!) and then the whole case is earthed so as long as a part of your hand/arm (big toe if your a contortionist) is then touching the case there shouldn't be any chance of any sort of issue as you and the PC will be at the same "potential". And there's always plenty exposed metalwork in a PC case to do that with.

This is all great advice, especially from HB - all stuff I've learnt the hard way! The best nugget in there is TAKE YOUR TIME :) and never, ever, force anything!

Just rewinding to the cases debate, I've had a few & found Antec to be the est thought out in termsof logical cable routing, cooling strategy & ease of access of any. MSI are about the worst & all small form factors suck.

Whenever I am building/renovating a PC I find the most essential piece of equipment to be an elastoplast as I always manage to cut my finger(s) on the metal case.

Deep Thought failed.
 

Good try! Close, but no cigar - as they say.

Finally managed to get both HDD in the case, both video cards in and connected in SLI, chip and ram mounted, DVD drive clamped and USB/media card plugged.

Pressed "Go". Not a lot.

All the fans that are supposed to whirr, whirred. All the LED's that are supposed to light, lit.

Nuth'n came out of the video cable(s) to the digital monitor(s).

:{:{:{:{

Now, ladies and gentlemen, we move forwards into a new dawn, a new era. (Troubleshooting).

Cabling, by the way, was a dream. 1000w psu had oodles of cables cascading from it - but found only 4pin CPU and millipede pin ATXpower were needed to the mobo, and then one SATA power cable gave volts to the 2 x HDD and the DVD.

3 x USB cables, 1 x 1394 cable, one AC97 (?) audio and one conglomorate of led/pwr/reset wires all fell into place in a ginormous case full of cooling fans. 3 x SATA data leads simply clicked into place. Skts 1 & 2 being the HDD's, Skt 3 being the DVD.

Didn't need PCI Express power leads, didn't need 8 pin CPU power lead, didn't need the 4 pin 12v lead (all tie-wrapped and stowed away.

Didn't really matter what I needed, as it didn't work, lol. Any of you guys live near Orlando?

Keygrip

You have a bundle of wires/connections that come from the front of the case. Are they connected in the right places and are you sure none have come off as you hook everything up? (Power button connected to reset line, for example)

Also, and this is something that can catch a heck of a lot of people out, there could be a "jumper" which has to be moved (cmos reset) as some boards have this set to "reset" to preserve the battery whilst the board is kept on the shelf. That one little jumper will stop the machine powering up if it's in the "wrong way"


What motherboard is it, btw.

I find it strange that you didn't need to use the PCI-E power cables for your graphics cards. Are you sure they don't require seperate power supplies?

HB - it's an ASUS M2N-Sli Deluxe http://usa.asus.com/products.aspx?l1...60&modelmenu=1

I did read a paragraph (2.6 p2-20) about "a" jumper - singular - that suggests you "can" (not "must") move the jumper from pins 1 and 2, place it on pins 2 and 3 for 5 to 10 seconds, then replace on pins 1 and 2.

This, apparently, clears the "Real Time Clock RAM in CMOS". It comes with two warnings, don't do this unless clearing the clock as removal will cause system boot failure (ah, interesting!!) and if you do do it, you must reset the bios afterwards.

This al suggests that it's an option for later use, after having run the machine initially -especially as the first line is "Turn off the computer with the power switch".

The jumper is in it's default pin 1 and 2 position.

All the scrawny little wires from the front, HDD LED, PWRLED, RESET and PWR are connected through a "Quick Connect" adaptor that makes them into a single plug for direct connection to their new home in the corner of the motherboard. It's one ribbon cable that splits into four individual connections. The ribbon is run alongside the two front panel USB cables, the front panel 1394 cable and the front panel audio cable - all connected to their individual places.

The audio has three connection options, HD Audio, AC97 and "Azalia" - mother board is default enabled to AC97 (whatever that is), so that was the choice.

Neo, I'm convinced that the cards don't use the external power - though equally surprised. Each card has a fan on it, so I'm assuming a reasonable current draw. Having seen the plethora of eight ad six pin connectors on the PCI EXpress power cords from the PSU (there are 4 cords, each with a minimum of two connectors (an 8 pin and a 6 pin)), I was convinced that they would be put to use, but I promise you, there is no connector available on either the cards, or the board, to plug anything into.

The only connectors on the cards are the PCI slot itself and a small bridge connector on the top, to connect the two cards to each other (and they are). Nowhere on cards or board for the power connectors.

Couple of things I have thought of - as this machine is (hopefully) going to run Vista Ultimate, I didn't see much point in installing a floppy disk drive, and I'm wondering if the motherboard is looking for one.

I also wonder about having both graphics cards in and connected to gether with the SLI bridge connector. Is it too early for that? Will they confuse the system?

A UK buddy suggested that an analogue video signal would be available by default and that the board might require digital to be enabled afterwards. Snag is both video cards are dual DVI output, so I have 4 DVI sockets - nothing analogue (and no mention of anything similar in the manual).

The next silly question is which graphics cards are they.

Exactly what lit? Numlock on the keyboard, quick flash from 3 LEDs on the keyboard?? No BIOS beeps when it started?

The Nvidia 8800 & 9600 series require extra power (6 pin skts) the 8400 & 8600 don't

ATI 38xx series do (6 pin and for the 3870 6 & 8pin) the 3400 & 3600 don't.

No experience of such things as SLI bits myself but as a general principle given your circumstances I would keep things as simple as possible to start with. Put together the absolute basic configuration - say, mobo, processor, one strip of RAM and one HDD - see if anything happens. You should get some beeps as it boots up if there are problems - the manual will tell you what it means - IIRC one beep means all is well. No beeps suggests that it's not even getting to the POST - in this case start to suspect the processor, check that it is correctly installed.

During boot up I think all graphics cards have a very basic mode (can't recall what it's called) which will display text, I think this should work through the DVI sockets too (but I stand to be corrected).

If that works, shut it all down and put another bit in and try again - if there's a duff part this will usually enable you to pin it down.

Just a few thoughts - hope they help.

"No beeps suggests that it's not even getting to the POST"

My Dell has never beeped on bootup - except to complain about the RAM I tried to introduce to it - so that may not indicate a fault.

Okies, we progress. Back from an hour and a half troubleshooting session with "Firedog" self-proclaimed gurus at the high street mega-chain store.

Gurus highly complementary on all aspects, equipment, case, build technique - everything. All looked 100% (but didn't work, lol).

The motherboard obviously has two PCIExpress video slots. One blue, one black. One card in each, bridge across for SLI - nuth'n.

EITHER card in blue slot only brought us to full boot up and bios showing on monitor - so both video cards are good. Yay!! Any attempt to do anything with the black socket (either just one card in there on it's own (nothing in the blue one) or card sat there but not bridged) causes complete failure of the boot.

The guru's instantly go for "faulty slot on the motherboard, send it back for replacement".

Machine is now at home, running on one card, and loading Vista files from the CD.

Graphics cards, by the way are XFX, nVidia GeForce 8600GT. 512mb, DDR3, 128 bit, 540 clock, PCI Express, SLI Ready. (No idea what any of that means, lol).

There is no speaker in this case - so "No encouraging beeps" ever heard from it.

busy downloading manual, keygrip, but THINK for two cards to work they have to be bridged.


Change that, should be ok in either blue or black slot for single card

The Blue skt is 16 times and the black is 8 times, do you have to set both the cards to 8x (if there is a jumper for it) or change the slot speeds in the bios?
The speed needs to be both the same I think.

Yeah, I see the word "recommended" when it says single card in blue slot - not the word "must", so either should work.

Two cards, yes, they have to be bridged to work as dual - but it *seems* that plugging anything into the black socket kills the whole system (hence the guru feeling that the mobo is faulty).

Yes, both need to run at x8 (and the blue is a x16) - not seen anything, anywhere, on how to change the rate. I've certainly not done anything deliberate.

Running fine as a single card - although only feeding one of my two monitors (both plugged into the single dual DVI card in the blue slot).

Vista is being sucked from the DVD drive and being laid out neatly on one of the hard drives.

We are getting there.

Nope, apparently we are not.

Vista was sucked from the Install DVD but ended in a "black screen of death".

All the reports I have managed to find on line suggest going back to XP (or whatever) and updating drivers before doing a re-install of the dreaded Vista.

Now as this machine is a clean new build and has never had anything running on it before, "going back" is not an option.

Please, no comments on "dump it", use linux, buy a Mac (whatever) - but anything constructive would be appreciated. I found lots of on-line reports of it going wrong - no suitable reports on making it work.

If I reboot I do get the screen offereing

Safe Mode.
Safe mode with Networking.
Safe mode with Command Prompt
Last known good configuration
Start Windows Normally.

How about buying the cheapest video card you can, get everything working with that first?

Thanx Bushfiva - you beat me to it, lol.

I'd just come back in to apologise for my frustration driven sense of humour failure.

Your suggestion may well be the way forward. Sigh.

If you have a XP disc I suggest you try installing XP (reformat the HD when it asks you) at least if it works ok then you know it's a Vista problem, if it doesn't it's a hardware one.