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?

stulid · 28 Feb 2011 at 17:41

Leaving it for a while wont do anything, you need a display to be able to see what the onscreen instructions are trying to prompt you to press/do.

There could be two reasons for no display,

1)something is connected wrong/faulty

2)if the tv is connected using HDMI? you may need to install graphic card drivers to get this to work, but you cant do this as you have no display!! catch22

Schizo · 28 Feb 2011 at 17:42

Reaper 392 said:
i

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.

is there anything wrong with this?

a cracked copy of windows and you ask if there is anything wrong !

try installing the motherboard drivers.

SeraphX · 28 Feb 2011 at 17:43

schizo said:
a cracked copy of windows and you ask if there is anything wrong !

this tbh!, hundreds on hardware and you cheap on pirate software? :rolleyes:

Brian8bit · 28 Feb 2011 at 17:43

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.

Ewaf · 28 Feb 2011 at 17:43

schizo said:
a cracked copy of windows and you ask if there is anything wrong !

try installing the motherboard drivers.

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

Gullanian · 28 Feb 2011 at 17:44

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.

+1 took me about 1 hour to figure this out. Sometimes you need to disable the onboard gfx via bios as well if you want to use your addon gfx card also.

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

pv123 · 28 Feb 2011 at 17:47

I once made the mistake of trying to attach the pc through the wrong display, basically I plugged the vga cable in the onboard graphics, thought the graphics card was dead, but it was actually just a case of switching...

Anyways how do you know the pc is well put together if you don't know anything about PC's?

Also try to fiddle with the resolution of the TV since no drivers have been installed maybe wrong resolution = wrong display. Also test the cable.

p.s. someone posted above me with the same error, I think it's common to plug in the mobo graphics

Ewaf · 28 Feb 2011 at 17:47

I'm going to miss being a student

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

Brian8bit · 28 Feb 2011 at 17:50

Reaper 392 said:
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.

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

Remove the graphics card for the time being and restart the computer with the graphics connected to the TV. Go through the usual installation process and get the computer up and running. Install the graphics card when you get the cable you need. I take it, it's dual DVI out/HDMI out and you have no DVI to VGA adapter?

Gammawolf · 28 Feb 2011 at 17:52

schizo said:
a cracked copy of windows and you ask if there is anything wrong !

try installing the motherboard drivers.

Very big and baseless assumption there.

Marvin · 28 Feb 2011 at 17:53

Try connecting your laptop to the TV and see if that works fine. Most laptops should have a VGA connection.

If not, then you have an answer (and two new problems).

Disco Boy · 28 Feb 2011 at 18:17

Do the fans spin up at all? How about the DVD?

If yes, does your gpu require any power cables (a lot of gpus require more power than provided by a pci-e lane) and have you plugged them in? Does your gpu can spin up?

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

Schizo · 28 Feb 2011 at 18:23

Gammawolf said:
Very big and baseless assumption there.

he did not say it was a digital copy so what else do you want us to think ?

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

Brian8bit · 28 Feb 2011 at 18:32

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