noobiest noob question from noobtown

Reaper 392 · 28 Feb 2011 at 17:37

i have literally never built my own computer before, or installed an operating system on a newly built PC, so please dont laugh at how stupid i might sound.

the computer parts are all put together, everything is connected (even though i know i dont have the drivers for them yet), and its all switched on.

it is actually plugged into my TV with a VGA cable coming from the motherboard, and my TV is in PC mode. if it helps, my TV is a samsung LE26A457C1D

i have finally managed to burn a copy of windows 7 onto DVD+RW using my laptop, which is all unzipped, and is now sitting in the DVD tray of my PC.

however, absolutly no picture is appearing on my TV, and i have no other screen i can use until i go back home on the weekend. i know the TV works as a PC screen because i was using it last night to do just that.

currently the PC is all powered up with the disk inside, but i have no idea if its doing anything important or not, so i wouldnt want to just hit the big red off button if its in the middle of something.

so my question is, what the hell do i do?

what i am planning on doing is leaving it for a good while, unless it becomes alarmingly hot, then eject the DVD and turn it off. after that i will insert the motherboard driver CD and see what happens when i do that. if that doesnt work i will wait a while again, eject the DVD and turn off again, and look for a monitor from home. is there anything wrong with this?

Reaper 392 · 28 Feb 2011 at 17:46

Ewaf said:
Not true, I bought a digital copy legitimately and had to burn it to DVD. I suspect hes a student like me, so we get it dirt cheap

yep, i get many programs for free from my university, windows 7 and visual C++ to name but two

Reaper 392 · 28 Feb 2011 at 17:48

Brian8bit said:
Do you have a dedicated graphics card? My older brother made the mistake when he moved the PC I built for him, of plugging the monitor into the motherboard graphics. He called me to come and look at it and it was just a matter of plugging the monitor into the graphics card output, instead of the motherboard which he had put it in.

this could be the problem. i just plugged the VGA cable into the motherboard graphics because i dont have the right cable for the graphics card slots.

i know the PC is put together correctly because my dad, who has worked in the computer industry for 25 years, was doing the build with me over the weekend.

thanks for the suggestions, i guess my only option is to try the motherboard DVD and see if that works

Reaper 392 · 28 Feb 2011 at 18:20

GPU, CPU and PSU fans spin up for sure, not sure about front case fan

im about to try this again with no graphics card, just using the MoBos graphics card

*edit*

we have life, now, lets watch me fail the boot process

Reaper 392 · 28 Feb 2011 at 18:28

woooo. its booting from the MoBo disk

Reaper 392 · 28 Feb 2011 at 18:31

oh gawd, epic confusion already.

this is exactly what my screen shows:

Welcome to Asus Motherboard Make Disk for DOS menu
rev 1.0

a) Make AMD XP/XP64 bit AHCI/RAID driver disk
b) FreeDOS command prompt

please choose A ~ B

as i type this, A seems like the one to go for

Reaper 392 · 28 Feb 2011 at 18:35

Brian8bit said:
Why are you doing that? Can't you just install Windows first?

tried it, it said it wasnt a proper boot device

also, went for A

oh joy, it wants me to put a floppy into drive A, and i dont have a floppy drive or a floppy

Reaper 392 · 28 Feb 2011 at 18:40

Brian8bit said:
Make sure you've set the CD/DVD drive to boot first in the BIOS.

hmm, i think i'll wait till the weekend when my dad is around. i have literally no clue what im doing

Reaper 392 · 28 Feb 2011 at 19:00

Brian8bit said:
When you power on the computer, as it's booting up and posting, there should be information about how to access the BIOS. Normally it's either pressing the delete or F2 key on the keyboard. When you're in BIOS there should be a "Boot" menu. Use the arrow keys to navigate to that. When you get to that part of the menu, you should be able to set the boot device priority. Since you have Windows on CD/DVD, you want to make the CD/DVD drive first in the boot priority. Then the HDD second and any other methods (such as USB or whatever) last.

Then you exit BIOS and choose to save the options. The computer will restart, so put your CD/DVD in the drive and it should boot from that first.

thanks, but im just leaving it till dad is around