First time builder problems

[agroupofletters]

This is my first time building a computer and obviously i've run into some problems.

I have a brand new mobo, cpu (stock intel heatsink and fan), ram, PS and am using a less than 1 year old 8600gt graphics card, and less than 3 month old wd hard drive.

I managed to put everything together in what i thought was the right way but then when i went to power it on the fans spun for about 12 seconds, all the lights on the case lit up, so did the light on my optical drive and i was able to open and close the tray, but then it just shut off, and a few seconds went by then it would do the same thing over and over until i shut off the power supply. I' tried removing the cpu and heat sink and when i did that the computer stayed on but i didn't get any output on my monitor. I know it's probably a very stupid question but does a computer still post without a processor? i figured id get some type of bios screen. So now i'm thinking that both my processor and video card are bad. Can anyone with some experience give me some advice?

 

[cmichael138]

Please post all of your specs.

 

[tecmo34]

^+1 cmichael138

By you sayng it stayed on when you messed with the CPU & heatsink, I would double check if you had the heatsink seated right with thermal paste. If it wasn't, the PC will shutdown to protect the CPU from being damaged