Computer envy. one of the eight deadly sins!

do you get the bios showing?

have you got moitor port on thr mobo?

Nothing shows. Monitor is blank. No bios showing. Everything seems to be humming away quite happily just nothing comin up.

Sorry mate but I am not exactly clear on what you mean. The monitor port on my motherboard? Well my gpu is plugged in and my monitor is plugged in to the back of that.

ok it could be th gfx card is just not sitting in right,

what i mean is if you take your gfx card out can you plug your monitor into your motherboard.


if you can then take the gfx card out and try that.

if not then try taking the gfx card out putting it back in just to check,

really sorry mate, i went out tonight to celebrate the end of exams etc, make sure that the monitor is plugged into the graphics card and not the motherboard. Also check the gfx card is plugged in properly as crack said. It rings a bell, i think ive had a similar problem before but i would prob be more reliable in te morning when i don't have alcohol in my system

@ monkeyboy: i wish i could lie and say i had some magic qualification that means they invite me but in fact they do free .NET conferences throughout the year,all you have to do is register this one was developer developer developer south west, there were some scottish people there but there is also one in scotland that would be more accessible to you what development do you do? All i have is a BSc in multimedia computing but my bro is an MVC so usually finds out about these things

Cheers guys. Still not working though.

Crack- don't have a monitor plug on my motherboard. So it has to go through the graphics card.

Have taken card out and put it back in again. No change.

Any ideas?

hi kev, check that your ram is seated properly, both the clips on the side of the ram should be pushed in until they are vertical,the same as the slots without ram. If it still doesn't work,remove all of the ram and just put on module in, if it still doesn't work try a different slot untik it does. The clips should be in the same position as the empty slots, you may have to push the modules in quite hard. Get back to me if this doesn't work

If this doesn't work we'll try taking the computer back to basics. Unplug the USB expansion card, second hard drive, DVD drives and all but on module of RAM. Ensure that the PSU is plugged in to all the right places, the motherboard may have 2 power slots, one large one and one small 4 pin in the corner, ensure that they are both powered. Next make sure that the RAM is definitely in the first slot and plugged in completely. Finally ensure that the HDD with Windows installed is plugged in to the first SATA slot and has power from the PSU (keep the new one unplugged for now). Finally ensure that the graphics card is also plugged in properly and has all the power it needs.

If the computer boots then slowly add components one by one until it stops working, making sure that every component is plugged in and powered properly.

If the computer still doesn't boot with the vanilla setup then unplug all the RAM modules, when you try to turn the computer on you should hear a beeping sound, if you don't hear this then the mobo may be broken. As one final check try each of the different RAM modules in each of the slots just to make sure it isn't one of the modules with the problem.

I hope you get it sorted soon, this happens sometimes; the first time I built my PC I turned it on for the first time and it made a really loud clicking sound, i instantly turned it off and thought 'fuck what have i done'. Turns out there was a wire resting on the PSU fan which was being clipped as the fan turned on. Once I moved it everything was perfect. I'm sure your problem will be simple, we just need to find it

Cheers man. I am out at the moment will try that out when I get home

Any progress?

No. Unfortunatly not. All of the above done apart from loading without any ram. Only had a few hours yesterday to plug away at it. Gonna have a go this evening when u get back from work.

My gut feeling from what I have read in all the forums I could find online and my mobo instruction manual is that the mobo is working correctly. It only does one short beep when starting up. This could mean three things according to the manual 1. display detected 2. Quick boot disabled 3. No keyboard detected. I am wondering now if the fact that a USB keyboard is a problem. I cannot establish when USB ports are enabled on the boot up process and whether or not a non USB keyboard (whatever that special plug is called) is what is needed when first booting up. However, this is is probably a red herring!

Will start again at it tonight

hmm that's a shame. The non-usb keyboard is called a PS2 keyboard. I use a usb keyboard with my comp but you could well be right about it wanting PS2 on the first startup. When I had a similar problem I saw the boot screen and it came up with a message saying 'no keyboard detected' so I'm not sure this is the problem.

The annoying thing is that it sounds so familiar, I think I've had the same problem at one point but at the moment I really can't think what it was. Have you tried using the different output on your graphics card? Does the monitor definitely have power and just go to sleep? The fact that you hear a beep is a good sign that the mobo should be ok and if there were ram or processor errors you would hear lots of beeps.

First try the keyboard; you can get a ps2 keyboard for a couple of quid and see if it lets you boot with that. If that doesn't work try removing the mobo from the case and starting from scratch on the anti static bag provided with the mobo. Unplug everything (leave the processor or you may remove some of the thermal paste) and start plugging things in from scratch but outside the case. Use only the basic components so 1 stick of ram, gfx, processor and one hdd and see if you can get it to boot.

Don't worry we'll get it working

Ok wil do all that this evening. Will try the keyboard thing aswell. Could be the graphics card? Maybe got damaged in the transfer? I could pick a cheap one up at pc world for 20 quid to find out. What do you think?

As to your points above. I have tried both outputs on the graphics card. The monitor is sfinetlh plugged in both ends and there is power going to it

cool, replacing the graphics card will be the last thing to do if none of this works but don't worry about it just yet. I'll keep thinking while you d that

Iwould hold off mate I very much doubt its the gfx card,

Had this problem twice. Just can't remember how the hell I fixed it.

My thoughts exactly, I can't believe I can't remember how to sort it! As I said, try by rewiring it all, it could be that you've put something in the wrong place or missed something out. We'll sort it

The thing is after Reading the mobo manual so many times I now understand every plug and socket I have and can picture where every thing goes. I honestly don't think I have left anything out ( famous last words!) .but I have no problem perservering with this. Will crack the code at some point. Thanks for your guidance guys. Much appreciated. Good to bounce ideas off people. Will be taking the. Whole thing apart shortly and constructing on my desk.

Even if everything is in the correct place it could just be that there is dust or something blocking the conacts or something. Computers are wonderful things, sometimes they work brilliantly and make you very happy, other times you hate them more than anything

U said it rellic Any time I build a rig I expect some problem to occur.

Just remember kev if you building it on your desk but anti static bags at the bottom of the mobo so you don't get any grouding issues.

And its not a bad idea I was holding back on it cause I know it can be a pain.

What to do is when its on your desk just have the cpu 1 stick of ram the psu and the graphics card attached, and to turn it the 2 pins to power switch connects just touch both pins with a screwdriver this will turn it on.

If it works like that there is a chance you have a grouding issue in the pc, I. Highly doubt it but most of the time it will just shut off if you do

Err.....I had a little fliddy moment and broke one of the fans off the the heat sink fan. Lol. Have ordered a new one. Being delivered Wednesday. All fun and games. Quite chuffed with my performance so far. Lol

Hehe don't worry about it man its your 1st time doing it, I ve doing it for years and still get problams lol

haha as crack said, we've all done it! Keep cool and take your time

Hey it's all cool. I'm having fun.

Makes me chuckle.

Lol brillant mate welcome to the club

Any news?

New heat sink fan installed about 45 mins ago. .....nothing. Not entirely sure if I am getting beeps where I should get beeps. Going to try the ram removeald tommorrow. Off to bed now. Got to work tommorrow and I can see this taking more than 5 minutes. When I first started earlier the system wouldn't get up and running at all, fans would wind up to get going and then stop before reaching full pelt ( so to speak). Got in a loop doing this and did it contiually for 20 mins. I think the problem was some excess spacers i had put in the case ( may gave been shorting out the mobo). Now things are whirring but still a blank screen. One thing that does work that didn't work before is the reset button on the case but that's it. Going to have a proper bash at it tommorrow.