Hi folks,

I'm in the process of building -- or trying to build -- my own machine, modeled after the specs in MatthewHSE's thread here:

techpatterns.com/forums/about128-0-asc-0.html

Well, I got to the point where I installed the motherboard, video card and connected all the cables, where I should be able to give it an initial power on test to see if it started to boot.

As I said. Should.

It was no go. The CPU and case fans start to power up, but immediately power down.

Now, somewhere in Matthew's thread he says that he didn't get power on at first and found that the front power connector was on the wrong pins. I checked everything I could, seems right. But here are a couple of points of confusion for me:

Under 'Power/LED Connections' the Antec manual says that the labels on the front power connections should be facing the "front of the case." Now, I'm probably a bit slow here, but the way I see it, the labels can be facing either "up" or "down" -- not at all towards the front. So, which is the correct orientation, towards the top or the bottom of the case?

Next, Antec says that:



That's all well and good, but I don't seem to have a "single ribbon cable." The connectors I have are:

Power SW, Reset SW, Speaker, Power LED, and 3 HDD LED's

So might I be messing up something in here?

I'm hoping that his is going to be something very simple stupid. Any help you can give will be much, much appreciated.

Jim
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Hi Jim, ignore more or less the antec instructions, use the motherboard instructions, the antec ones are generic, as you can see, I forgot that little part, it's annoying.

However, I believe the gigabyte mobo wiring diagrams are pretty accurate, though it's really hard to see those little suckers when you install them.

And, of course, make sure the physical power switch in back of the pc, on the power supply, isn't turned off :-) how many times have I made that mistake, I don't want to count.

Keep us posted.
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Thanks for the quick reply.

I've tried these connections in each orientation I can, even just went with the Power SW and nothing else, figuring that was the important one. Still no go.

Is there anything else I should check?

I have to run out for the evening and don't think I'll be able to give this a shot when I get back, but first thing in the a.m. I'll be back at it.

Jim
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Just opened my box and found that the red and black power wire is on the second set of two pins from the left side on the top row of the F_PANEL, with the label on the jumper facing up toward the processor. Is that what you needed to know?

On the second box like this I built, I found that the switch on the back of the power supply was somehow coming into play, too. I can't remember exactly, but it's like power would come on for just an instant when I pressed the front power button and the power supply was off.

You're going to be pleased with performance when you're done. This is a great machine!
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Thanks for going through the trouble to check that, Matthew.

I've tried it with that orientation and it was no go, but now that I know the way it's supposed to be I can at least rule that out as the problem.



That's basically what I'm getting when the power supply switch is on, just enough to spin all the fans for a second or so, then nada.

I'm just getting set to tackle it again now, have the decks cleared for a good long work session. Hopefully all will go well in the light of a new day. Will let you know how it goes.

Thanks again,

Jim
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check to see if the main motherboard power plug is properly seated, of course unplug main cord first, check to see if all pci cards and the memory is properly seated, recheck all the power lines from box front panel to mobo.

Make sure the processor fan also spins up, see if you can tell. If it's not the power cables may not be right.
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Duh!! Call me a dunderhead!!!



If I would have really let that sink in when I read it...to me, "O" is always going to be "ON" -- not OFF.

So, now that I have my brain wrapped around "O = Off" and "| = On" it's all so very simple -- and it works!

All I have to do hardware-wise is go back and change the direction of one of the fans. Of course it's the front one, behind the hard drive cage. Kind of knew I would have to do this -- would be nice if they told you which way the wind blows.

All in all it went well so far, just those small bits of frustration, like when Antec tells you to "use the supplied phillips head screws" to mount the motherboard. What? There's like six different types of phillips head screws in that bag. Oh well, pick one and move on.

I'll let you know how the driver and OS stuff goes later on.
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If you're still at a point where you can do this, I suggest you mount your hard-drive as near to the middle of the cage as possible, so that big fan can blow on both sides of it. I mounted mine in the top slot at first, ran the computer for awhile setting things up and it wasn't long before the hard drive was, well, not exactly burning hot, but too hot to touch comfortably. I moved it down a couple of slots and now it stays nice and cool all the time.

Just out of curiousity, are you from Central Illinois? My grandpa knows a guy by your name from around here somewhere . . .
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Good idea on the HD. I have it in the top slot also, was actually going to do move it down earlier, but got impatient to move along. I'll take the time to do it.

Problem I have right now is that I can't get the system to recognize the CD drive. I have it set as master on the secondary IDE channel -- or so I thought -- and the boot order is CD, floppy, HD, but can't get the system to boot from the W2K CD.

Now, I swear that when I first got it all up and went into BIOS that the CD showed as the IDE Secondary Master, but it ain't there now. Think I'll try shorting that CMOS clear switch and see if the CD magically reappears.

Nope, Brooklyn born and bred, now Manhattan, though I have been to Illinois a few times.
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Okay, resetting the CMOS worked, the system now recognizes the CD and I can boot from the W2K disc.

That's nice, but now it doesn't recognize the hard drive. I tried setting the RAID to normal, but keep getting a RAID configuration error, probably because it can't see the HD. But at one point during POST the system does seem to see it as it lists the model number and size.

Well, just a few more minutes on this and then time to call it a day.
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