TR Forums

New build -

Processor
Intel i7-3820 3.60 GHz 10MB
Motherboard
GIGABYTE GA-X79-UD3 LGA 2011
Video card
GIGABYTE GV-R775OC-1GI Radeon HD
Power Supply
KINGWIN LZP-750 750W
RAM
G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 16GB (4 x 4GB)
Fan
ZALMAN CNPS9900MAX-B
Solid State
Mushkin Enhanced Chronos
Case
Antec Three Hundred Illusion Black Steel
Optical Drive
SONY Black 18X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM

This was my first build it started fine then asked me if to reboot or enter a key, I tried hitting delete to enter bios but nothing happened. It read my driver disk but the only options were reboot or restore, it read my windows 7 disk but I couldn't install anything because it couldn't read my solid state. I tried removing all but 1 ram to make sure I didn't install it incorrectly, then removed the battery. Now it doesn't recognize either of the disks and although the screen is getting signal, it's nothing but a black screen. Does anyone know what I did wrong or have any ideas on how to fix it? Thanks

removing the battery might not be enough to clear your cmos. Remove the battery, unplug the computer from the wall, or turn off the switch on the power supply if it has one, and then check to see if your mobo has a jumper to clear the cmos as well. The jumper will help drain the excess current from the cmos, which removing the battery alone might not do.

As always when you hit a problem, step back and strip everything you don't absolutely need to get to the BIOS: just the CPU, motherboard, and one stick of RAM. Once you've got things sorted out, you can start adding pieces back in one at a time just in case one of them has a problem. (Even then, I prefer to get Windows up and running with all the other drivers installed before adding the video card, but I know that's not for everybody).

Also, before you install anything, you should run memtest (off bootable optical or flash storage) overnight to verify your memory subsystem is good to go -- if you can't trust your RAM, you can't trust any software that passes through it.