Last night I put together my newly purchased computer. This is my 5th computer to build but its been 5 years since my last build. I put everything together last night and the first time I went to turn it on I received no picture. Every thing seems to be running in the computer (even the keyboard's, plugged into the keyboard port, light turns on) but nothing is happening on the video side. Here are my computer specs:
DVD BURN LITE-ON
HD 640G
VGA MSI N9600GT 512M OC RT
CPU INTEL C2D E8400 3G 775 45N
CASE ANTEC THREE HUNDRED
MB GIGABYTE GA-EP45-DS3L 775 P45 RT
PSU ANTEC EA500 500W RT
MEM 2gig X 2 PATRIOT
CPU COOLER CM RR-CCH-L9U1-GP

Any and all advise would be appreciated.

Do you get a beep?

No, beep but I'm not sure if I have an internal speaker.

Well try a video card from an old computer.

There are supposed to be wee little cables that go on the motherboard. One of those I think, is the mobo audible beep on startup. Other small cables do other things (like power lights)

Refer to your mobo manual on putting those ones in the right place (using the manual, I got them right the first try).

Once you have those in, and you're sure they're in right, if you don't hear an audible beep on startup, your mobo might not be working properly...

Thanks for the help. I will let you know tonight how your suggestions pan out. Thanks again

If you have a RAM problem you'll get no display at all, so that's a possible thing to look at. Happened to me twice before, once a stick wasn't fully seated properly and the other time just a dodgy stick following a power surge (The joys of living close to a substation).

Connecting/Adding an internal speaker would be a lot of help, as they beep a certain amount of times to indicate different problems.


Try the graphics card in a PC that you know is working fine to rule that out, it's generally easier than putting a working card into a machine that may have another fault.