No display on new build

[bburow]

I am working on my first build and I am getting no display when powered up. I have checked all connections, there is no power connector on the GPU, onboard graphics are not present on this board, and the cooling fan on the GPU works when I try to power up the system.

Some more details on my system:
AMD Athlon II X2 3.8GHz
4GB Dual Channel DDR3 1333 SDRAM (2x2)
ASUS GeForce 9500GT 1024MB DDR2, PCI Express 2.0 (and yes my mobo is PCIe 2.0 compliant)
Hitachi 1TB 7200 SATA HDD

Does it matter if my GPU is DDR2 while my system supports DDR3 memory? I have also moved the ram around and tried with each stick seperatly with no difference.

Any help is appreciated.

[Bob_180_Bob]

Hi,
OK, you have the fan on the GPU, what about the fans in the case, PSU and CPU, lights on the motherboard or CD/DVD, hard drive, keyboard light etc? Any beeps on boot? Any change on monitor lights on boot? Can you hear any sounds from CD/DVD? What size is the PSU? Have you checked your monitor on another unit?

I am sure that the GPU being DDR2 has no bearing on the RAM being DDR3.

[bburow]

On boot, All lights on the system work. I have a case fan with LED that turns on and works, 2 LED fans on the CPU cooler that work, LEDs that run the trim on the front of the case and they all work. Light comes on for the DVDr drive but my CDRW drive doesn't have a light. Neither drive will open up though. As far as the monitor goes, I have tried with 2 different monitors as I thought at first it may have been a bad monitor, but I had my 17" LCD that I have used for years hooked up and nothing. I then took the new 23" LCD I bought and attached it to my laptop via HDMI and it worked flawlessly. I have tried attaching the 23" LCD to the build via HDMI, VGA, and DVI with the same results. No light changes at all, the 23" said something about no input and the 17" just turns it light orange until I unplug it from the GPU, then it does a self test before turning orange again. My PSU came with the case as a package deal, it is a 450w PSU. I wasnt sure if that will be big enough since the GPU claims minimum system requirements are 400w, so I was figuring on having to replace that sooner than later with something closer to 750w. There is 1 brief moment when I first hit the power switch when something makes a buzzing sound, not quite a beep but a buzzing sound like something is rubbing on a fan, only there is nothing rubbing on a fan and it only does it when I first power on. I figured it was from my CPU cooler because it is coming from that area. My keyboard lights will turn on briefly when I hit the switch on the back of the computer to give the board power, but when I actually power up the computer using the power switch on the front, there are no lights that come on on the keyboard.

[bburow]

I've had a few people tell me that Memory is a likely culprit for no display on a monitor, so I have put in an RMA for the memory to get that switched out. The memory came as a package deal with the board saving me $35, but after further review appears to not be the best quality. So I am probably going to sell the 4GB that I have of this memory and pick up some good quality DIMMs. I guess my main concern at this point is, do I have to worry about the mainboard being bad or the GPU being bad? I know I wont know if the memory switch fixes the problem until I get it and install it, but I have no way of testing the GPU on another board. I've included the actual items that i have in the system below:

ECS IC780M-A2 (V1.0A) AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard
OCZ Platinum 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666)
Thermaltake CL-P0464 DuOrb 80mm CPU Cooler
AMD Athlon II X2 240 2.8Ghz AM3 CPU
ASUS GeForce 9500 GT 1GB DDR2 PCIe
Hitachi 1TB Serial ATA HD 7200/16MB/SATA-3G

I had pulled the DVDr and CDRW drives from an older desktop and they were working. I currently don't have a sound card because I was going to use the soundblaster I had in the older desktop but I found out it wont work with the new board, so I have to order that yet.

[Bob_180_Bob]

Hi,
Yes memory is a very common problem with your reported problem but, you said the you have tried just one stick in different slots and I assume the other stick as well so the chance of it being two bad memory sticks is very small.
Just go through the machine again and unplug everything and replug (Cards as well) but as you have done it at least once I don't think it will help.
PSU, yes it should at least start up even if too small to run it when it is using full power. so that is not "THE" problem but it will not hurt to have a bigger supply for later.
See if you can test your GPU in another machine. 99.99% not the problem but try the RAM in another machine as well if you can.
Try, remove the RAM and GPU, disconnect the DVD and Cd and hard drive and try and boot and see if there are any beeps. then put in one stick of RAM and try again, then your GPU and monitor and check again. if there is a difference with any boot up we can start to look in that area.

[bburow]

Ok, so first thing I did was I unplugged the drives and took out the GPU and took out all the memory. I started it up and that buzzing sound lasted for about 6 seconds and then stopped. I added 1 stick of memory to the 3rd slot which is what the mainboard suggests for best performance, and I get just that real short buzz right after I hit the power switch. The buzz sound doesn't even last a second, it would be a beep if it didn't sound so "buzzy" :) So I guess that is my beep that I am looking for. No change from that short buzz if I install the second stick and install the GPU. It would appear to me that the board is detecting the memory though since there was an obvious change after removing all the memory.

[bburow]

As for testing my GPU in another machine, its not really possible. I dont know anyone who has a computer with a PCIe 2.0 slot(or they aren't willing to take apart their machine, or they live too far away) and I dont have another computer with it either. I'm not really networked out there too well.

[Laser]

Have you tried / are you able to try the video card in a different slot on the motherboard ?

[caperjack]

only one pci-e slot on the board !
i say the ram is good quality, at best the motherboard is a budget board ,and i would suspect it as the problem

[Bob_180_Bob]

Hi,
Well as far as I am concerned you are up that proverbial creek without a paddle.
Leave it for a while and see if some one here can offer another suggestion, but for me it would be off to the repair tech and hope he will give me a good price to tell what is wrong.

[Bob_180_Bob]

Hi caperjack,
I agree it could be the motherboard, but, there is no difference in boot, between the card in or out, so it could also be the card, No/Yes?

PS. Congratulations on passing 10,000 posts

[caperjack]

Hi caperjack,
I agree it could be the motherboard, but, there is no difference in boot, between the card in or out, so it could also be the card, No/Yes?

yes

PS. Congratulations on passing 10,000 posts

thanks, never even noticed

[bburow]

I think what I am going to do is start with replacing the GPU with an RMA. If that doesn't work, then I'll send in my motherboard, perhaps buy a different one, but it would seem the memory works or is at least detectable seeing the change in the buzz. I will update when I get the new GPU in see if it works.

[Bob_180_Bob]

Hi,
Your location seems to be a problem for you getting parts and checking them. I would guess that the video card is about 40% chance of being the problem and the motherboard about 50% with the other 10% for unlikely other options. Tell us how you get on as it will be interesting to know what is you problem.

[bburow]

Alright. So I figured out what the problem was, and I said I would update you so you knew what happened.

Apparently the screws that attach the CPU cooler to the backplate behind the CPU were longer than the risers that were used under the motherboard. So I had to loosen them up so they were shorter than the risers and weren't touching the case, I made sure my cooler was still stable, so I take it I overtightened the screws. In any case, Everything booted up, I had to clear CMOS to get to the BIOS but I was able to.

Fortunately, I dont think I fried anything. We shall see. I am having some problems, but will make a new thread for that as it is likely seperate from this.