No display - arghhh!

[Gaucherre]

Hi everyone. I have a perplexing problem and need your help and advice, please.
I'm building a second desktop computer from used parts. After mounting the motherboard & cpu, installing memory, hard drive, cd-drive, floppy drive, and AGP video card there is no display on the monitor when powering up the system. Will give you my parts list then list the steps used in troubleshooting so far. Can anyone tell me where I went wrong (besides using old parts!).

"X" indicates parts I used previously and that were OK when last used about a year ago:

Used generic mid-tower case with Antec TrueBlue 350w psu.

X - ASUS A7N8X(rev2.0) Deluxe motherboard.

X - Athlon XP2800+ Barton cpu

X - Arctic Cooling Silent Copper heatsink/fan mounted with Artic Silver paste.

X - 512MB Kingston ValuRAM DDR PC2700 CL2.5 (KVR333/512) (2 sticks of 512MB each).

X - ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB AGP

DVD-ROM drive (came with case).

Floppy drive (came with case).

20GB hard drive 9bought used from local computer store).

Standard keyboard (maybe Belkin).

Basic Logitec optical mouse - corded.

Cheapo small speakers.

HP 15-inch crt monitor.

Connected everything to motherboard following ASUS install guide. Installed 1 stick of memory in Slot 1, installed video card, connected power leads, IDE and floppy leads, etc. etc. Was careful to ground myself before touching any parts, and removed power cord before every step of troubleshooting.

Pressed power button. Fans came on (cpu, case, video card, power supply), power LED and hard drive LED come on, but monitor remains in Standby (amber light) - no display.

Turned monitor off, waited, turned monitor back on, still no display.

Checked all connections, no display.

Substituted newer NEC LCD monitor - no display.

Substituted different video card (which worked 2 weeks ago) - no display.

Tried memory in slot 2 then slot 3 - no display.

Substituted other memory stick - no display.

Tried both memory sticks together - no display.

Disconnected hard drive, floppy, and DVD-ROM cables - no display.

Checked all jumpers on motherboard - no display.

Removed round lithium battery from motherboard, moved jumper, reset jumper, replaced battery - no display.

Although the tiny case speaker is connected (plus cheapo outboard passive speakers) there are no beeps or warning sounds. Ironically, I think ASUS uses on-screen error messages!

Motherboard power LED (green) lights up as it should.

Motherboard AGP warning LED (red) is OFF as it should be.

I'm really stumped here. Can't get any display of any kind on the monitor - no splash, no dos lettering, nothing. Monitor(s) remain in standby mode.

Other than replacing that round battery on the motherboard what am I missing? I appreciate any help you guys can offer.

 

[LiLithTecH]

It may have something to do with the fact that the ASUS motherboard
only supports 1.5v @AGP 4X.

If you have 8X (0.8v) support enabled in the BIOS, it may be detecting the
card incorrectly.

Easiest way to get around the issue is if you have an old PCI video card
handy and try booting with that (after clearing the CMOS).

 

[Zepper]

Try reseating the CPU too. I once had to do that several times to get one mobo I was working on to boot up. Following are my normal boot problem solvers.

Boilerplate-01:
. Common causes of failure to boot (no video, no beeps) assuming PSU isn't totally dead:
1- RAM, CPU and/or AGP video card not seated properly, a bent pin or corrosion.
2- Drive data cable on upside down or only on half the pins or shifted a pin or two (usually Floppy or Zip drives).
3- CMOS needs to be cleared (AC power must usually be disconnected or . attempts to clear CMOS may fail) Unless your mobo does not use a power-off CMOS clear - check your mobo manual for specific info.
4- On some new mobos there is a CPU protection feature (esp. on Asus/Asrock Athlon/Socket A mobos) that will not allow the system to start if there is no fan (or a fan without a working speed sensor wire) connected to the CPU Fan power connector on the mobo (specifically marked "CPU Fan"). If you tried to start your machine without a fan properly connected, you have to attach a proper and working fan and clear the CMOS before it will boot.
.bh.


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