A plea for aid

[General Havoc]

So, I have a question for those so-inclined.

I possess two computers at present, my 800 Mhz G4 Macintosh ('Hornet'), and my 1.8 Ghz Athlon 64 PC ('Reaper'). Reaper, the newer of the two, is getting to the point where it can no longer run all of the software I would like it to, and thus a few weeks ago I started purchasing components to assemble my newest machine ('name undetermined'). I got them all this week, and assembled them today.

There was a hitch.

Once everything was assembled and put together, I started the computer up and found that there was nothing on the monitor whatsoever. All the fans were spinning, all the lights were blinking, but the monitor was pitch dark. No BIOS information, no error message, nothing, as though the monitor was broken. I triple checked every connection, and when all of them seemed to be in order, I started testing the various components in different circumstances to try and figure out what the problem was.

That was many hours ago.

I thought that the video card might not be working, so a friend of mine leant me his computer and I tested the vid-card in that, and found it worked fine. I thought then that the Power Supply might be broken, but once again I was able to make my friend's computer work with my new power supply. I then tested my friend's power supply and video card (both known to work) in my new machine, individually and together, and still the monitor showed nothing. I changed out monitors, no effect. I changed out connection cables, no effect. I worried for a moment that my power supply might be working, but insufficiently powerful to run everything in my computer, and so I tested it with all of my top-of-the-line components in my friend's computer, and it worked just fine (700 megawatt). Nothing I tried to replace or change out was broken, and nothing I added to my new rig made the slightest difference.

I'm now thinking that the problem might be with the Motherboard, perhaps a broken PCI express port? I simply cannot figure out what else would cause the symptoms I am seeing. Broken hard drives, dead RAM sticks, even broken motherboards all have their own special error messages that appear, at least that is my understanding. A blank screen tends to mean a dead video card, yet I've proven that this card works in another computer.

Does anyone have any suggestions for the things I'm not seeing, because as it stands I cannot figure out what the hell I'm missing.

[Ace Pace]

Does the Mobo POST? I.E does it beep upon startup or does it throw error messages? If it does neither, it's the mobo. Even if the CPU was problematic it would throw a bunch of errors, not be dead.

[General Havoc]

The motherboard neither beeps upon startup nor throw error messages that I have been able to determine. All of the fans are spinning and the internal lights and LEDs are functional, but there is no sign of what is the matter save for the total non-functionality of the monitor.

I suppose I shall replace the motherboard and see what happens, unless anyone has any better ideas.

[Dark Silver]

Motherboard would be the best bet then.

I had a work comp which did the same thing recently...had to bring it into the shop from the field - everything else worked so it came down to a mobo problem

make sure you secure the motherboard down tight and all of the holes are screwed, so you have a good ground. I fried a mobo myself doing that once.

[B4UTRUST]

I had a similar problem about two years ago with my current rig. The mobo I had bought while it matched the chip series (775chipset) that my CPU was, the mobo didn't support that particular model. Double check your specs and make sure your CPU and mobo are compatible. After that, it may be a bad mobo or a bad CPU. Also check to make sure all your power connectors are in the correct places. I'm sure you've done that but double check connections. It's the simple things that go wrong sometimes.