New motherboard, new graphics card, problems.

[Shoeberto]

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I got a new motherboard/cpu and a new graphics card all installed just today, but when I turn the machine on, nothing shows up on the monitor. All of the video/power cables are connected, the motherboard is operating, and I can hear the drives making the normal buzzings and whatnot, but my monitor just shows up in standby mode. I've gotten the BIOS screen to show up once, but the monitor still turned over to standby. The graphics card is an AGP GeForce FX 5200, if that helps any.

[Dr Unne]

This is pathetic advice, but make sure the card is in the slot right. Last time I installed a graphics card, every time I even touched the thing, there was a 50/50 chance it'd either work next time I booted or I'd get no video output at all out of it. Wiggling it in the AGP slot or banging the heck out of it in frustration usually fixed it.

[crono_logical]

That's a lot of new stuff, any one of those things could be the cause :p

What I'd do is strip out everything except the essentials (GFX card, CPU, RAM) - that includes disconnecting the HDs/CD drives etc., then see if it'll boot. Also check all cables, both inside and outside, maybe the cable to the monitor is loose too :p If not, then one of those things is the problem - check the CPU, GFX card and RAM are seated properly in their slots and not loose. I believe the PC would beep nastilly at you anyway if the GFX card wasn' detected, so I think it could be the CPU dislodged, but check everything thoroughly.

If it works, then add thing one by one to untill it either fails, so you've found the cause, or you've put everything back in and it's working in which case somehow removing everything and putting them back in fixed it (maybe somethin else was dislodged) :p

[Shoeberto]

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I tried stripping it down of all of the outside devices, but it still wouldn't boot. I took the processor out and put it back in, switched the slot the ram was in, and took out and put back in the graphics card, but it still didn't work.



Something that I've noticed is that when the VGA cable isn't plugged in, the monitor gives me the message of "Monitor plugged in?", but when I put the VGA cable into the graphics card, it switches to standby. Could that possible mean something?

[crono_logical]

I think that monitor message is the monitor is questioning you as to whether it's plugged in or not when it's not plugged in due to lack of video signal, so I guess is normal :p

Try testing the GFX card in another PC/motherboard that works, and try a different video card thats known to work in your new motherboard and see if anything changes.

[Shoeberto]

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Well, I seem to have ran into something else that could help out with this. I can't get the case speaker plugged in. My case (an old HP Pavillion case) had one strip for the LEDs and power on/off switch, but the mb has two rows of pins, with another seperate for the internal speaker. I can't even really find the cable for the internal speaker

[Endless]

Pretty much all of the motherboards come with a map of all the pins/connectors on it. Referring to it might help. At worst, check the manufacturer's site.

Something else you can try is to boot with a PCI gfx card if you have an old one, and see if ti works, then check the bios settings so that it allows to start with agp as the display adapter.

[Shoeberto]

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The manual did have a map of the pins, but the pin layout on the motherboard is completely different from the plug that comes out from the case. Kind of like this:

Motherboard:
|o o|o o|-
|o o|o o|o |oooo|

From case:
|oo oo oo oo|



I tried the video card in my dad's computer, and it worked. I tried his in mine, but I got nothing. They're both AGP, though, and my old PC's graphics were on-board, so I can't try any PCI cards unless a friend lets me borrow one.

[Endless]

The PC speaker (the one that does beeps) shouldn't need 8 pins. Heck, two pins should be enough.

What brand of motherboard is it, and what model?

[Shoeberto]

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<b>EDIT:</b> Gah. I am such an idiot. I should never be allowed to touch the inside of a computer. I'm pretty sure the CPU is fried because, of course, I am stupid. Sorry to all who wasted their time on this.