Just built my first machine. Thought I had followed the manual as close as possible, hit the power button only to hear a continuous beeping with nothing really happening... Any ideas?
Continuous beeping means that something may not be connected correctly or something else entirely. We'd need to know more information about your machine to be able to help.
is it a "beeeeeeeeeep" continous, or a "beeeep beeeep beeeep beeeep" or a "beeeep bip bip" a good rule of thumb is: a single continous beep means its broken. a repeated long beep means its the ram or processor a 'beep bip bip' means its the graphics card. those are 'rule of thumb' beep codes, usually most of them can be solved by re-seating stuff (and blowing the crap out of the slots). you can find a lot of information on beep codes (and the beep codes for your motherboard) here
Please visit this link: http://www.pchell.com/hardware/beepcodes.shtml It tells you exactly what each type of beep translates to. Good luck!