No video signal?...

[tfunk02]

Just built it, it has...
Athlon 64 3000+
1 GB Ram
Chaintech VNF3-250 MB
ATI AIW 9700 Pro
Audigy 2 ZS sound card
250 GB HD

I put it all together, it fires up, the disks start spinning, but no video signal is coming out of the video card. The fan on the video card spins. I tried a different video card and the fan on that card didn't spin at all. What's the deal? Can anyone help me out here? Thanks!!

-TFunk

 

[nanaki333]

mmm.. that would suck if your board had a bad agp port. so i'm guessing you reseated the card multiple times since you tried a different one. check to make sure you don't have a little screw that may have gotten away from you and might be in between the board and case. causing a short.

do you get any type of beep codes at all?

 

[tfunk02]

No beeping at all, and nothing stuck down in the agp port.
The weird thing to me is that with one vid card the fan spins and on the other it doesn't.

 

[hairygit1]

Hi,

I had a recent problem like this on a cheapie but ok mobo [cant remember what it was - asrock - or sommat like that].

Spent many happy hours reseating and sweating.

Turns out there was a setting in the BIOS - video card set to PCI as default!!!!!
Set it to AGP - all is well.

Hope this is the problem -

Good luck fella

 

[tfunk02]

How am I supposed to get into the bios when I can't see it?

 

[hairygit1]

good point batman. sorry


At least try resetting the bios. [take the battery out for a few minutes]

 

[exolution]

Maybe you can borrow a friend's crappy PCI video card? Just to rule out the motherboard issues.. which would suck. If that doesn't work maybe it's something to do with the PSU? How many watts are you pushing, and what brand is it? :X

 

[Nohr]

Unplug all the drives & cards except the video card. Try moving the memory sticks to different slots and trying each stick separately.

 

[tennesota]

Do you have power connected to both power connections? The A64 boards employ the secondary power connector that is seen on P4 boards.

 

[imported_raybay]

Most likely, something isn't connected properly. Check for bent pins, loose jumpers. Reseat the processor, fan, and fan plug. Remove all but one memory module and all other components except the AGP card. When reduced to the basic components, what happens. Then try a cheap PCI video card to see if the problem lies with the AGP slot. With the PCI card, if you get a screen, go take a careful look at the BIOS to see what you may have missed.

Usually a little friendly human error will cause you more frustration than a damaged card. I have seen damaged agp slots, but rarely and usualy from abuse. Video card failures on new units can happen, but again, rarely.

 

[Erasmus-X]

Even if the motherboard's BIOS defaults at PCI as the primary display adapter (I have found that even the newest motherboards are set this way at the factory), it should still see that an AGP card is there. Follow the above suggestion by trying to obtain an old PCI card. One of your friends is bound to have one. If it works with PCI and still not AGP regardless of what settings you try, you might actually have a defective motherboard.

 

[tfunk02]

Originally posted by: tennesota
Do you have power connected to both power connections? The A64 boards employ the secondary power connector that is seen on P4 boards.

We have a winner!
Man that makes me feel stupid! I've only built about three computers in the past and none had two power connections to the motherboard. I had days of frustration when it could have only taken five minutes of just reading the freaking instructions.

Thanks for the help! It's all up and running fine now.:beer: