Computer won't start

[Shadowmeph]

Originally Posted by great_big_abyss

Please don't give up so easily. Building and troubleshooting PCs is a very rewarding experience. It just takes some time and patience.

Plus, a 'professional' at a store won't put half as much care and effort as you would into your build. Sure, he'll plug everything into the right places, but he won't give a frak about cable management or a 'clean' build.

Take everything apart again, watch some videos on youtube

like this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea_bs5G1yYU,

take a deep breath and then start over. When your rig finally comes to life and posts, you'll be the happiest man on the planet.

ya that is what I used to have to do stop and then pull everything out and then try it out side the case

[Whitelight77]

Okay, I tried it out of the case and sure enough it was running which I guess points to grounding issues. I still have to get my monitor working cause I'm getting nothign on screen but I'll have to pause and comtinue this tomorrow as I have to get to work now. I'll edit this with my findings when I get back to it.

Sigh.. the monitor doesn't want to display, it wants me to start with connecting the HDMI cable from the monitor to the old tower but I don't have an HDMI port in this tower :(

Whitelight77 - Saved Builds - PCPartPicker Canada

this is the monitor in question

Samsung LC27B750XS/ZA 27IN Widescreen LED Backlit LCD Monitor 1920x1080 5MS HDMI USB3.0 w/ Speakers

i got it on sale and if it's this difficult to use I can see why it was on sale. When my old rig is looking for drivers for the new monitor my antivirus pops up with all these messages saying it's unsafe and won't even give me the option to ignore. Looks like I'll have to use this monitor to start thigns off but this build has been nothing but grief, not sure how you guys put up with building computers or people like me that have an issue with them every 30 seconds

[random_2]

Darn...too bad. This may not be your issue, but sometimes these monitors are kinda picky about the monitor input setting and cables, e.g. RGB, HDMI, Component. Try selecting a different input mode in the monitors on screen menu.

[3.0charlie]

Hold on... your MSI Z77 board has onboard GPU outputs. Probably the BIOS is default to those, and not your discrete GPU (the HD7950). Remove the GPU and the power cable(s) to it. Connect a cable (be it VGA [blue] or DVI [white]) between your board and the monitor. Try to boot again.

[Whitelight77]

3.0 Charlie, you're right. I can see the prompt for me to enter the boot disk Thank you so kindly. I'm curious though how I should go about my video card now? Do I install windows 7 then install the graphics card driver CD? Can I turn off my computer and replug my graphics card in? I'd imagine if I did that I'd have the same problem as before.

Update: So windows is installed now (yay) but that was without the graphics card installed. I loaded the driver disk in and installed the driver (would most likely need to be updated once I hook it up to internet) but when I turned it off and installed the Graphics card and turned my computer on again I got nothing on the screen.

I guess wha I mean to ask is; how do I get the motherboard to recognize the Graphics Card?

[IRQ Conflict]

You have to turn off the integrated graphic in the BIOS. It should be under PEG control or some such. Just change it so the computer uses the dedicated GPU rather than the integrated GPU. I'm not sure about the newer BIOS's. Or it may be a setting in "Onboard peripherals"

[Whitelight77]

Well I've embarrassed myself numerous times so one more shouldn't make a difference. I had my monitor plugged into the motherboard, when I realised this I plugged it into the actual video card and presto.

I'm actually typing this from my now new working computer and installed the motherboard driver disk, then found the video driver latest installment and it looks like they've all taken without incident. I love how quick boot up time is with my SSD drive (my HDD is my secondary drive and I should get in the habit of using it for mundane things). I should however find a better antivirus than the stock one on the motherboard disk. Not to mention overclocking and such, but that has yet to be touched and the screen flashes so fast I can't see what I even have to press to take me to BIOS.

I'd like to thank you all for getting me this far throughout my grieving frustration

Maybe this now needs to move to a new forum cause it sounds like I've moved into software based questions such as what's the best free antivirus? Where to begin to overclock? ect..

[3.0charlie]

If running Windows 7, Microsoft Security Essentials is good enough.

Press the Delete key the second you press the Power button, and keep on hitting it until you get the BIOS screen.

Overclock? List all your hardware.

[Whitelight77]

Whitelight77 - Saved Builds - PCPartPicker Canada

It's also not reading the secondary HDD drive, so I should power down and make sure the everything is securely connected. Or perhaps it's an option I have to alter in BIOS? I'll try checking connctions first.

Yeah connections are firm and because it's drawing power from the same cord as the other drives I know it's not that. I'll get into BIOS now though and look around to become familiar with it.

[3.0charlie]

In which motherboard SATA port did you connect the 2nd HDD? If SATA 6, it needs a driver.

OC'ing - search for MSI Z77A-GD55 overclocking guide.