CharlesCS

Join Date 08/2006

+81

Oh mighty JU computer pros, please help me

Ok, once again I am invoking the brain powers of my fellow Joeuser (and all ofther Stardock cross-posted forums) computer pros to help me with a dilemma.

So, due to the video card on my laptop dying on me, my great friends from my online clan were kind enough to provide me with some spare computer parts so that I could rejoin the FPS world and play again. However I have a small problem and was wondering if anyone could give me some sujjestions on how to trouble shoot the problem.

The problem is that after putting all the parts together and connecting all the wires once I hit the power button the PC turns on but the monitor stays blank so i can't install Windows. I can tell some kind of signal is going thru because when the monitor is not connected you get the monitors menu stating no signal, but I am not getting this msg so it's getting some signal. What could I be missing? I will provide details of the parts below, the motherboard has onboard video and I tried connecting it to that with and without the video card connected to MoBo but nothing. The video card is DVI but my monitor is not so I got an adaptor for it, still nothing. What do you think it could be, any advise will be most appreciated. BTW, I tried on 2 monitors, both were working fine before I connected this PC and seemed to work fine when connected to their regular PCs.

Specs

MoBo - ASUS M2N-MX SE

CPU - AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200 Brisbane 2.7GHz Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Processor

Video Card - NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT PCIe

Power Supply - Cant remember but has all the cords necessary to run the parts

Memory - CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)

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Power Supply - Cant remember but has all the cords necessary to run the parts

...and the 6 pin is plugged into card?

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Have to agree with yrag...do you have the six pin connector from the power supply connected to the video card?

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Yes I do. There are 2 on this power supply, on has a small 2 pin connector that sticks out next to the 6 pin plug.

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Chuck, how many watts on the power supply?

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...and the 4 pin for the MB is plugged in?

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750 watts power supply. Really good one. 4 pin on MoBo? Yes.

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Un-plug computer.Push power button 3 times. Remove video card. Short Jbat jumper or remove cmos battery (in either case, count to 30). Power up w/ onboard and see if it posts.

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Are you not getting any beeping at all from the onboard speaker? It should have a "no video" beep code.

I am inclined to think there might be some kind of power issue and/or an issue with the mb. If you have everything plugged in and connected properly, there's really no reason why it shouldn't work. I have had a similar problem when I attempted using one of those crappy off-brand PSUs some years ago. Threw in another one, and it was fine.

Mike

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also it might be a faulty ram stick. I have had similar symptoms with a faulty ram stick in a customer's computer.

power down, remove ONE ram stick, power up, if not working power down, remove ram stick, install first removed ram stick, power up

harpo

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power supply is antec, all connected but dont know why monitor wont turn on

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For one remove the video card and connect to the vga connector for onboard graphics. Restart the system and check the bio for pci specs - that board or bio may need the pci slot turned on before it can be used. Most are automatic - I believe this one is not. Otherwise the video card will not be used... thus also when you switch to pci graphics it will not run the onboard graphics after bio start up. The blue socket is the vga!

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power supply is antec, all connected but dont know why monitor wont turn on

With answers like that NO ONE will ever know.......

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Shelby, as I stated on the article, I already tried that. The monitor will not turn on no matter where I connect it. A signal is just not reaching the monitor output of either the onboard or the video card.

With answers like that NO ONE will ever know.......

I am kinda repeating things here. Power supply is antec 650 watts(not 750 as thought), mobo power plug connected, 4 pin on mobo connected, 6pin pcie connected, what else?

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pull the ram boot the system with out ram .. be sure a speaker either on the motherboard or hooked up via the speaker out.

if it beeps at ya that is a good sign .

if not you may have a problem (be sure your speaker is working)

also pull the battery unplug let set (or read the manual on how to do a bios reset)

the retry to boot .

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starkers

Join Date 05/2004

+1153

I don't think it's either the on-board or 8800GT graphics cards... more likely this....

also it might be a faulty ram stick.

Yup, that could very well be the cause.... had it happen myself, PC would power up but wouldn't post because of faulty/bad ram. Try pulling all the currently installed RAM and rebooting with a known to be working stick. If it was the RAM your PC will/should post.

Another possibility, especially if the mobo is old/pre-used, is that one of the DIMM's (RAM slots) on the mobo is shot. If so, and a stick of RAM is inserted, it will act as though the RAM is faulty, even if it is good. I had an Asus board that did this once. Again, your PC will not post if this is true. Should one of your DIMMs prove to be faulty/shot, you will need to leave that slot empty

There are programs like MemTest to check if your RAM is fully functional... but you have to be able to post to run it.

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Chuck then pull the ram out of the board and also remove the bio battery as yrag has asked you to do. Besure to connect to the onboard graphics at the place I showed you. Unplug the power - take out the nvidia graphics card [pci] - remove the ram from the machine - do as yrag has asked to clear the bio by removing the bio battery.

If someone has messed with trying to set the bio settings wrong - the video settings are set wrong to use any graphics at all.

Remove that battery while you are not connected to power. Let it sit there for a while - press the power button a few times or that is hold down the power button for a while without it being connected to any power or having a bio battery.

Be sure you connect the monitor to the on board graphics. Put the bio battery back in again and start the machine with no memory and no pci graphics card. If it fails to post a bio setup on start - then that board I feel is toast.

If it is the board - forget about trying to use the cpu in another board. Get another one... You are just asking for more problems using what you have little history on or know what has happened to it.

But I think it may just be the bio needs to be cleared. If it post a bio finally do a reset to the preset optimal or just preset values defined in the exit page. It could be possible that someone else has tried to set the pci switch for that nvidia card and could not figure how to get back in to change it back when the card failed to work. As also the onboard would allow them to get back to the graphics either. Thus no graphics anywhere to see what is going on.

Like I said with all that hardware removed and you reset the bio by powering it down completely by removing the battery as such. The machine should post bio settings at startup with the onboard graphics connected to the monitor. If it does not - it is the board and it is not worth messing with.

Good luck...

Do this for use too...

Take picture of the connections for power or just a good photo how you got the board in the case or as such.

I want to see the power plug for the board [24pin] or such? and the power plug you have for the cpu [4pin] Mainly...ok

go to http://imageshack.us/ and upload the photos - click on the fullsize image afterwardsit will give you a link in the address bar. Post those photos here so we can see whats up there.

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After doing some research with my online friends we believe the problem is the motherboard. This motherboard is suppose to be brand new but my friend who sent it to me told me he had issues with this motherboard and returned it to Newegg and they sent him a new one. He never used it, kept it in the box. However, we found many people had issues with this particular board and its probably why newegg no longer has it in stock.

I tried every possible solution I could find online:

remove board battery

clear CMOS

hit power button with battery removed and CMOS jumper on clear and power disconnected

removed memory

replaced memory

tried with video card connected

tried with onboard vga connection

removed and reinstalled processor

tried monitor on different PC and worked fine

tried different monitor

At this point, short of testing every chip, wire, connection, resistor and capacitor on the MoBo, I have done everything possible to troubleshoot this problem and it would seem the MoBo is the culprit so the only way to test this will be to get my hands on another MoBo to try it out. Thanks for all your help, much appreciated.

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OK Chuck, sounds like it is the board and yes it is a bad apple.

Let us know what you get and how it comes out.

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