No Visual Output

[tjcinnamon]

I can't get any visual output out of my computer. I am thinking its the motherboard or processor.

I tested 2 different video cards as well as 2 different monitors so I pretty much deduced that it is not the video card nor the monitor.

I am going to leave it on for a while to see if the processor is generating heat (to possibly see if its getting power).

When I turn it on the DVD drives green light blinks.

The motherboard does not give a posting beep not any kind of diagnostic beat codes.

Could it be the motherboards PCI-Express 16x slot?

Any other ideas on why there would be no visual output?

Thanks,
JOe K.

 

[mpilchfamily]

I wouldn't leave it on. Are the fans spinning? In order for the board to give a beep code it either needs a speaker plugged into it or it needs one built onto the board.

Now one thing that will really help us help you would be a list of your system's hardware.

 

[tjcinnamon]

SPECS:
Q6600
Gigabyte GA-PE35 DS3L
2GB PC8500 Corsair Dominator (2GB are in the process of being RMA'd)
Radeon HD3850
The machine is not overclocked and everything is running at stock settings.

It actually turned out to be the RAM. I replaced the RAM with Dimms from a different machine and it worked perfectly.

I now have to RMA all 4 sticks of RAM. Do you think all 4 RAM sticks can be bad? I bought them in 2 separate batches about a year and a half ago, 2 dimms at a time. I bought 2 dimms and then 2 dimms 1 week later.

I sent 2 of them in about a week ago to Corsair for an RMA replacement.

The computer worked fine for this last week. Today I tried to take it out of sleep but it wouldn't. I restarted and the problem started.

Do you think all four sticks of RAM are bad or do you think the motherboard could be corrupting or damaging the RAM?

Thanks,
JOe K.

 

[krnmastersgt]

What you do is test each stick 1 by one, when the system fails to boot with a certain stick, you've identified the bad egg in the batch. However since you're using 4 sticks, you might need to feed the memory bus with some more voltage, this would involve going into the bios and upping the voltage manually. A quick way to see if you have a bad stick or ram however, is individually test the sticks at the recommended operational voltages for each stick, if they all boot the system without problems, you don't have a bad stick but rather not enough voltage to the memory when all 4 sticks are being used at the same time.

 

[tjcinnamon]

Would the voltage issues (shortages) overtime? The computer was working fine for the past 8 months.

Would these voltage issues degrade the quality or "break" the ram?

thanks for all of your help,
JOe K.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Well if the system has been fine for 8 months with all 4 sticks I see no reason why they'd crap out now, I guess it's not a voltage issue IF you've run those exact 4 sticks for the past 8 months. And no, the thing with ram is some models/brands recommend you up the voltage, when you really look at ram overall, the higher "clocked" speeds of ram are just higher clocks, which you could achieve via overclocking.

In that sense, often time you'll get PC6400 (800mhz) and higher ram modules that need more than the default 1.8volts supplied by the motherboard, so if they're not getting enough voltage they don't work properly at the speeds they've been set to. Overvolting ram over time would damage them, but there's a safe range of voltages that most ram modules would perform at for quite a few years. Check the packaging your ram came in, there's usually a recommended voltage you should run these ram sticks at, the problem being there's additional wear and tear + power consumption when you run 2 different sets of ram together.

 

[tjcinnamon]

I will get the replacement sticks and then be sure to use the correct voltages. I plan to save this memory for when I build another system.

Any recommendations for brands of ram? I want get some new sticks anyway.

Thanks,

JOe K.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Crucial, Patriot, OCZ (some are iffy on this but I like them), G. Skill, Corsair, Mushkin, Kingston. Super Talent are all good companies, when it comes to RAM this is what I usually do:
1. Go to the desktop memory section on Newegg
2. Specify for Free Shipping
3. Specify the amount of ram I want in the correct configuration, ex. 4gb (2x2gb)
4. Search using the lowest price, write down the lowest cost ram from one of the aforementioned companies.
5. Specify rebates only
6. Browse and look for the cheapest after rebate.
7. Finally, choose the cheapest set before or after rebate, depending on the money you wanna put up front.