Noob question about computer I'm putting together

Hi I have a quick general question (without getting into specs) to ask before I look into other possible problems with the system I'm building.

I've put everything in the case where it goes and plugged everything in. I have put one computer together before so I know where things go in general. The motherboard is new, the case and power supply are new, the CPU is old, the hard drive is old, the jumpers are set to where they should be, and everything is compatible.

PROBLEM: Nothing is appearing on the monitor when I start the computer. The video card is in and the video card fan spinning, the cpu fan is spinning, the case fans are working and the LEDs are working.

When I take the video card out and try to run the system off the integrated graphics it still doesn't work.

I can have my friends lend me stuff to try in the case if I can get a general idea of what could be wrong.

Memory bad? Hard drive bad? Processor bad? What is most likely wrong? This is a general question I can have my friends help me fix it but they didn't know what the problem was either. Any response you can offer will be better than me going into fixing it blindfolded. Thanks.

 

i agree with everything DDP said, but personally i would try all of his steps except i would still tryo to run it off the integrated graphics first.....

 

Thanks for the replies.

Ok the jumper was in the right place (followed the instruction manual for that earlier) and I have reseated things. Still a no go.

If something on the computer was shorted what would it most likely be? Nothing appears to be broken but I did touch the processor and especially the hard drive (I was grounded first) more than I should have when taking them out of my old case. Any possibilities that I should consider when my friends come and take a look at it again?

 

here is a simply try at it, i highly doubt this will work,, but are you sure the mointer works ok? have you tried a dif mointer cord? and how old is your HD? is it serial ata?

 

I would agree and at least try a different monitor. But I am not sure I understood everything you said. Are you saying that the computer posts properly and the HD is working/flashing making one think that it is getting to where it should be, or just dead out of the gate?

 

I think it might be the hard drive since I handled it a little rough. There is no sign that it is working. I am going to test the computer with one of my friend's extra hard drives and if that doesn't work I'm going to test it with different memory.

If that still doesn't work I'm going to try plugging everything into my old motherboard and see if it works. I have narrowed it down enough so that my friends won't get frustrated with me haha. Thanks for all your help.

 

no it would not be the harddrive. it would still post. I would like to know did it post out side of the case if so you have it mounted wrong.

 

Couldn't get it to work. Replaced my new motherboard with my old one and it worked fine again as expected. So it was the motherboard that was messed up.

When I tried it with my video card in it started fine the first time (and I was able to install drivers for the video card) but after it told me to restart I could not get it to work. It gets to the windows loading screen then the monitor turns off.

Any clues as to what the problem is this time? Thanks.

 

I wouldnt be suprised if the mother board mest up the video card... Also, what video card is it??

 

Are you using VGA or DVI-D as your video in and out?

And as asked before, what Make/Model of video card are you using?

 

VGA. I am using an LCD monitor but it should technically still work right? I think it should be new enough that it would be compatible but I dunno. I didn't see anything in the manual saying it wouldn't.

I'm trying to use a Mad Dog Radeon 9250 PCI card that I picked up from the CompUSA sale a few weeks back.

Since nothing worked on my new motherboard I'm using my junk old one that has no AGP slots (so I can only use the Mad Dog video card)

 

Jeoff

I know of some problems with folks trying to boot to a DVI-D plug instead of a VGA but since you are using just VGA that took care of that possible problem. Next is the fact that your PC booted in standard VGA mode but when you loaded the drivers, it halts. You need to boot in safe mode, and unistall the drivers you loaded. Also, what Windows version are you using? I didn't see it in this thread.

 

Ah ok I try that tomorrow thanks. I'm using Windows XP

 

Follow up: Tried starting in safe mode and installing drivers from the cd but it didn't work.

But good news! I went over to my sister's and installed it and it worked perfectly! No messing with safe mode or anything. So she has a new video card and the world is again a happy place. I still don't know what was going wrong. Thanks guys.

 

good point ddp, since some of the old AGP's were 1x only.