So my new computer came and when I got home from work I decided to try hooking it up. I thought I hooked it up correctly. I plugged in the monitor (3 plugs - two biggies, on one of which I used a connector that came with the computer since the pins/shape wasn't the same - and the small pale green one), stuck in the cordless keyboard/mouse thingie and the power cable. I switched the computer on.

The power cable seems loose but I wiggled it and the on button worked. Then my problems started. What comes up is not a Windows screen but a wild mess of black/white/grey on which I can barely read that Windows has detected a startup problem. It gives me two options - let Windows try to detect the problems and fix them IF possible or restore to an earlier time. Well, there is no earlier time to restore to. And Windows can't repair the startup problems.

On a second attempt, something about a Gateway needing upgrading? came up and recommended that I go download it somewhere. Not much chance of that. Then the wild pattern of rectangles came up again. Same message about startup needing repair. What's going on? Did I do something or fail to do something?

Another cable came with and I have no idea what it's for or whether it should be connected. On the cable itself, it says SATA 6Gb/s (or it could be a 6, hard to read) ATA 6G.

Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated!

Gil.

There's a second cable that I totally forgot. It has HDMI on it.

It sounds like your video card may be loose.
Try reseating it.
Also check for other loose connections while you're at it. Make sure the hard drive cables are all firmly inserted.

Be sure to ground yourself against a metal part of the computer case before sticking your hands in, and try not to touch metal parts on the video card.

The SATA 6Gb cable may be for connecting a second hard drive, if you decide to add one later.

The HDMI cable would be used if you want to connect your TV or some other HDMI device to the computer.

No, you didn't do a thing. I agree with the things Jenny suggested, but if you don't want to mess around inside, make sure you contact Mike at ecollegePC by email immediately. And even if you do reseat the video card, you should still contact him. He will help you out. I had an issue with a power supply and he replied within 15 minutes during business hours and we had the issue resolved within 1/2 hour.

They will send you all the extra cables that come with the motherboard, so that's what all the extra stuff is.

I've got my fingers crossed for ya that this is a simple fix!

Thanks, both of you. I'll try.

Gil.

I'll be up for a couple of hours and will check back if you need more help...

Draclvr, I opened the case and pushed at the graphics card but it doesn't seem to be loose. There are a couple of vertical inserts above it that I take to be the memory. They seem as if they're seated. I pushed on everything that looked like a connection in case it was loose. No joy.

I'm having to remove the cables from this computer and attach them to that one each time so it's really frustrating. I can just see me trying to do anything Mike suggests since I had to go to YouTube to even figure out what a graphics card or a memory card looks like! Anyway, I have a feeling this is going to take a while. Maybe I should sign myself

Mr. Bill

Reading what Jenny said over again, a question occurs to me. What do you mean by "reseat"? Do you mean actually unscrew it, pull it out, push it back and screw it in again? That I didn't try.

Another edit. We seem to have a severe thunderstorm coming. I may disappear if the power goes out. Lol! What else?

Contact Mike tonight anyway. You can try reseating the video card like you say, but to be honest, I would suggest waiting to see what Mike says before you do any more since you are so unfamiliar with what things are supposed to look like. You can say that you took a cursory look and all APPEARS to be seated correctly.

Take a look at your RAM sticks again and make sure the little plastic retention tabs on both ends are snapped in place. Your RAM sticks won't look anything like the ones in this link with the huge heat spreaders, but it does show how the tabs should look if they are snapped in place correctly. The tabs should not be leaning out at all. Correctly Seated RAM Modules Go to page 2 to see what the little tabs on the RAM should look like. If you read on and look at the pictures, they show how to build a computer, so the pictures may help familiarize you with the insides of your computer if you need to do anything more it in.

When you contact Mike, please be as specific as you can with the exact wording of all the error messages you're getting.

Also, if you have the type of video card that has a power connector, like the one in the lower corner of ***this picture***, make sure the power connector hasn't fallen out. Power connectors may also look like ***this***.

I forgot that - good point, Jenny. He got a 1 GB GTX 460 video card which has two 6-pin power connectors.

The power connectors must be the two black things on the side of the graphics card away from the case. They're in there. I wish it could be that easy.

Btw, Draclvr, it's 'she'. I forget that people see my name and think I'm a guy.

Anyway, I took your advice and sent an email off to Mike. Nothing like starting someone's day off right. <g>

Gil.

Oh my goodness, traveler! I'm so sorry - I have no idea why I assumed you were a he! Maybe it's the "Gil" because the only Gils I know are guys. I hope Mike can help you resolve this quickly. I know they power these up when they install the operating system and then again to make sure everything works, but in the one I got last week, even though the power supply worked the day before when they built it, it didn't work the next day when I got it (I only live about 50 miles from them). Luckily I have a power supply tester and was able to figure it out in just a couple of minutes.

I am not sure if this pertains but in your first post you said you had three plugs from the computer to the monitor, two large and a small green one. The small one is for your sound, if you have sound in the monitor. Mine connects from my separate speakers to the computer itself. Then you have one DVI plug and one VGA plug, one is a light beige, the other blue. Even if you have both on your monitor and graphics card on the motherboard (in case) you only need one to be plugged in. I think the beige one is the more modern one, I forget which is which. You could try googling DVI and VGA to see what they look like. I know I did this and someone told me it was a no-no. Worth a try, if you have to use the adapter, than is ok.

Me again with a follow-up. As soon as I told Mike something that I forgot to mention to you - that before I got the streaky Win7 screen and the black and white mess, I briefly saw what looked like a splash screen for the motherboard - he emailed back that the video card was broken and to return just the card for a replacement. Talk about fast! I was impressed. Anyway, I'm stuck not being able to play anything but MS Solitaire for another week but I guess I can handle it. Maybe. (Aaaaaaaaaaaack!)

Thanks again for the encouragement oldbroad and the advice, Jenny, Draclvr and hawkavonpuka!

And Drac, think nothing of it. 'A boy named Sue' had it worse. <g>

Gil.

Yes, try to get THAT kind of service from other manufacturers! But, I'm still sorry you have to wait another week. At least when you take that video card out to return, you'll know what to do when you have to put the new one in. It's stone cold easy - just do like Jenny said and discharge any static by touching a metal part of the case first and you'll be fine both taking out the old one and installing the new one.

I've already had it out once. The hardest part was getting those two little screws back in. <g> And of course, I forgot to ground myself. Good thing it had been off all night!

Gil.

It's no biggie, it's just a precaution to ground yourself. I'm really liking that Cooler Master Black Elite case. I got the same one for this computer I ordered for my friend. Finally got the OS activated and all gazillion of the updates installed tonight.

Windows 7 does not come with things like Messenger or an email program installed. You download only the programs you want. If you use Outlook Express, that is gone and you will download Windows Live Mail and set it up. If you use a web-based email client like Yahoo or Gmail or Hotmail, you won't have to.

When you finally get it going and activate the OS, I'd highly recommend clicking on Getting Started in the Start Menu. There is a ton of info in there including links for downloads and the new features in Windows 7.

Thanks, Drac. I have Windows Live Mail now so I'm going to transfer that over. (I hope.) Download it and transfer all the current setup/email, that is.

Honestly, I'm thrilled to know I won't have all the proprietary garbage that Dell, HP, etc. install. I'm going to have to watch my backup/restore, though, to make sure nothing sneaks in that I don't want.

As for the rest, I'm going to take your advice and click on Getting Started. If I'd done that before, I'd have known about the peculiar way Win7 opens zip files. But, I'm like most adventure gamers: read the manual? Me? <g>

Gil.

It's pretty simple - you right click on a zipped file and select Extract All and then when you want it saved.

You will have to download Windows Live Mail - you can't transfer programs. Windows Easy Transfer will move all your contacts and emails over for you though. One thing is that Microsoft wants you to use Windows Live Mail 2011. I REALLY didn't like it, as I like my email program to be nice and simple. I uninstalled it and reinstalled Windows Live Mail 2009. But you may like all the nifty features in Live Mail 2011 (it's part of Live Essentials 2011).

I'm sorry to hear your video card was bad, Traveler. But at least you've got the new one on the way.

Here I am again and in a pickle, using my old computer which is very close to going to ask for help.

After some mishaps, I got a replacement computer today (at least, I think it's a replacement), hooked it up and when Windows loaded there was no taskbar, no start menu, nothing but a blue screen with the Windows logo. What do I do? I know you've set up one of these Coolermaster Elites, Draclvr, did you run into this?

Any help from anyone would be much appreciated!

Gil.

Are you sure it finished loading? If you left it a while (half an hour should be more than enough) and it still didn't show any signs of progress, I'd try Control-Alt-Delete and see if it had better luck on its second try.

Sometimes computers take a long time to load on their first boot, but it could be you have a bad disk image.

Is this the eCollege computer? If it is, try to contact them. I've never heard of anyone having so much trouble with an eCollege computer before.

I haven't either - I do remember the first time I started up Windows 7, I had to wait quite a while to let it "do it's thing." However, both of the ecollege PC's I've set up did not behave this way. Both booted up normally in just about 30 or 40 seconds. Try to reboot and see what happens.

Give it some time like Jenny says and if nothing happens, get back with Mike. This is very strange...

Thank you, both of you. I let it sit there and, while it took considerably longer than 30 or 40 seconds, the taskbar appeared and I breathed a Huge sigh of relief.

After I had that problem with the first graphics card, Mike sent a replacement. It worked, Windows loaded 'but' when I updated the new card at Nvidia, the opening splash screen came up just as this one did tonight, no taskbar, no start menu and it stayed that way while I tried to think what was wrong. I wouldn't think I'd need to sit there and give it a good while to upgrade and display the menu/taskbar again but maybe I was wrong. It won't be the first time and the twelve hour days I've been working recently haven't made my little grey cells any peppier.

I still think something else (other than the damage to the graphics card) happened to the computer in transit, having had a problem with FedEx before, but I don't know. Anyway, when I updated the driver at Nvidia tonight, I had no problem at all. So far, the computer is working beautifully and I am thrilled with it.

If I could stretch your patience just a little bit further, do you know whether or not you can choose "which" program settings will transfer when you use Windows Easy Transfer? I really don't want anything from HP finding its way onto this machine.

Again, thank you both for your help. I really do appreciate it.

Gil.

Please stretch away...

You can choose only those things you want to transfer, such as only documents or email, for instance. You do not need to transfer anything you don't want on the new computer. This is a pretty good tutorial for migrating from XP to Win 7 complete with my favorite, pictures. Windows Easy Transfer I usually just download Easy Transfer to the XP computer, plug an exterior drive in and run Easy Transfer, then hook it up to the Win 7 computer and run Easy Transfer there.

Don't forget that if you used Outlook Express for email, you will need to download Windows Live Mail or another email client. Windows 7 does not include Live Messenger or any of the other things that used to come with XP. I love that you only download the things you actually want.