Alright, so I've finally assembled this computer minus a graphics card (which I'm in no hurry to get).

I know some people mentioned they don't like ASUS. This is not an ASUS-hate topic! Thanks!

The motherboard on it is an Asus P5K SE. I took the HDD from another computer and put it into my new one. It's a WD 250GB HDD and has XP installed on it (I intend to reformat this though). When the computer starts everything seems to go fine. It detects the 2GB of DDR2-800 RAM as far as I can tell, and all the fans are running properly. But I noticed for about 0.5 seconds it flashes a NO HARD DISK FOUND! message. Is it talking about my HDD? The HDD is set up in the SATA1 connection as instructed via manual, and it appears in the bios setup correctly. When it tries to start Windows, though, the Windows XP loading screen flashes for about a second and then the computer just restarts the whole process. I'm not sure what to do. :P

This is the first computer I've ever put together.

Open your BIOS setup and turn off all the other SATA connections aside from the one that has your OS's hard drive on it. Do you have another hard drive sitting around that you can test by installing like Linux or something on? Also try booting Windows in safe mode.

You can't just slap an xp installation on a different system and assume it will work. Try booting off of the windows xp install CD and seeing if that sees the drive. It should be connected properly if it's showing up in bios.

Maybe its hungry? Feed it a kitten.

I can't get the optical drive to work. Are those cables directional? When I plug in the optical drive it just hangs on 'initializing.'

Oh, and I guess I should mention this: I turned it on once and sparks came at me. I immediately turned it off. There doesn't appear to be any damage, and the everything is being picked up fine (or at least as fine as it was before). Is it possible that the sparks didn't do any damage? I really hope they didn't.

Where did the sparks fly out from?

you GUESS you should mention that sparks flew out of your computer? you GUESS?

thats the first thing you should have mentioned

you GUESS you should mention that sparks flew out of your computer? you GUESS?

thats the first thing you should have mentioned

Well I mentioned it in the post after it happened, right? So.

The sparks flew out from around the powersupply, but it definitely wasn't the power supply itself. I really have no idea what happened.

I'm wondering if this mobo is just defective or something.

... I'm speechless.

... I'm speechless.

I don't know why you bothered to post then.

btw, I got everything to work. New system is great guys. I think I may want another CPU fan as it idles pretty high at 55-60, but we'll see.

Sorry for double post, but I just want to make sure this gets seen and don't feel like starting a new topic, kkkk?

I put in my wireless card and installed the drivers for it. Everything seems to have gone fine. It identified the card and allows me to connect to my WAP, but when I do I cannot bring up any websites or connect to the internet. I went on another computer to check the router and it picks that one up as a wireless client but under the IP address it says "Unknown." So I'm guessing I can connect fine, but for some reason I'm not being assigned an IP address.

???

Is DHCP enabled?

Is DHCP enabled?

Yes, it was. It turns out I had accidentally installed a x64 version of Vista, instead of the x86. I reformatted again with the 32-bit version and all is well.

As for the sparks, I've come to believe they came out of the IDE/ATA connector on the motherboard. When I plugged in my IDE optical drive the computer would just hang on startup, but without it everything went fine. I went and bought a SATA optical drive (they were on sale, too!) and attempted to bypass the entire problem. It did. Everything ran smoothly.

Thanks guys, I've finally built my first computer from parts.

Yes, it was. It turns out I had accidentally installed a x64 version of Vista, instead of the x86. I reformatted again with the 32-bit version and all is well.

As for the sparks, I've come to believe they came out of the IDE/ATA connector on the motherboard. When I plugged in my IDE optical drive the computer would just hang on startup, but without it everything went fine. I went and bought a SATA optical drive (they were on sale, too!) and attempted to bypass the entire problem. It did. Everything ran smoothly.

Thanks guys, I've finally built my first computer from parts.

SATA is way better anyway. Your PC's airflow will thank you for every IDE cable you take out!