My new bits in a 550d... and nothing works (except sometimes it does!)

[fraggle_rock]

Hi I have just put together a new system with these parts
<cannot post a link as I don't have five posts so sorry about this block of text>
*
520W Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 RS520 Modular, 85% Eff', 80 PLUS Bronze, SLI/CrossFire, Quiet Fan, ATX v2.3, PSU
8GB Corsair DDR3 Vengeance Low Profile Jet Black PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, XMP, 1.5V
Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E SE With Black and White fan TY-143
Intel Core i7 4770K, 1150, Haswell, Quad Core, 3.5GHz, 3.9GHz Turbo, 1250MHz GPU, 35x Ratio, 84W, Retail
Asus Z87-A, Intel Z87, S 1150, DDR3, SATA III, SATA RAID, PCIe 3.0 (x16), D-Sub/DVI-D/HDMI, ATX
4GB MSI GTX 760 Twin Frozr OC, PCIe 3.0 (x16), 6008MHz GDDR5, GPU 980MHz, Boost 1033MHz, Cores 1152, DPort/DVI/HDMI

in a new Corsair 550D case.

I wired it all up... and got a bright red CPU light and nothing else but spinning fans.

Took everything out and built up the basics again with the motherboard out the case on cardboard (so cpu memory, no drives, or graphics) and it posts! All looks okay in the bios settings (cpu identified correctly etc)

Put it back in the case still minimum attached and it is fine... add things (case fans, front header sound and usb) all okay.

Put in the graphics card BOOM back to the red light of doom.

Go back to the graphics from the cpu and update the bios plug in the graphics card again...

Red light of death

Mess about a bit plugging things in and out and thank gods it boots to windows!

Amazing! and now I know all the components are functional.

Do some stuff (Skyrim!) and re-boot... back to red CPU light of fear and distress...

My feeling is that something must be shorting the motherboard when the graphics card is installed but I am unsure as to how to progress, I don't want to just randomly unplug everything again without some strategy for stopping identifying a short.

The motherboard seems to sit very close to the back of the case and the stand offs seemed no to align perfectly with the holes in the motherboard (ie once I centered the motherboard with the fixed centering pin the rest screw holes at the back of the case were off center whilst the holes towards the center of the case were dead center. however not enough to interfere with screwing the mobo down, and it does not look like the screws are interfering in any way with traces etc on the motherboard.

What can I try next?
(all bit bought from scan if that makes any difference!)

[GoNz0]

remount with cardboard under the mobo as a test m8. and double check all the holes are for mounting the board as I had one a few years ago with a hole that was not for mounting the mobo, god only knows why it was there!

[fraggle_rock]

Hey, It seems the case is not to blame! good job Corsair, and my apologies!

A bad power supply appears to be the culprit.
http://forums.hexus.net/help-quick-r...hics-card.html

[Greybeard]

Hey, It seems the case is not to blame! good job Corsair, and my apologies!

A bad power supply appears to be the culprit.
http://forums.hexus.net/help-quick-r...hics-card.html

There is no need to apologize.. I'm just glad that you've got it all sorted out

Sorry if I didn't see your post right away, I didn't check the forums during the weekends.