... any clues?

Its a tower I bought recently. Running XP2000+ CPU and some other bits. Seems to have an added on graphics card which the monitor is plugged in to. But... its not showing anything on the screen when I power it up. :(

Obvious place to start looking for a cause?

only a few things that can cause this, processor, ram, hard-disk, motherboard, video card or just wrong settings.

has it ever started for you?

Oh it starts and lights up fine, and I can hear stuff working in the case. (yeah, its some chavvish neon lit case etc) - Just nothing is going to the monitor. :(

Is there an onboard graphics card as well?

Do you have a spare card you can try in it from a different PC? That would rule out the graphics card if the symptoms are the same

No onboard Graphics - and no spare card either.

Oh hang on, I do have a spare card, but is quite old, and this board has no slots for it. Its got 3 PCI slots, one tiny little one down the bottom and the graphics is plugged into what I think is the AGP? (top one)

So what's the old card you have? ISA I suppose (very long slot required)

You could nick a known good card from your other PC for a few minutes for testing if needs be , or if not I'm sure I've got a pile of old PCI cards lying around at the office. I could send you one in a few days if you don't get anything sooner.

Did the PC ever work or was it like this when it arrived? Could be that something has come loose so try taking the cards out and reseating them all though even with no memory you should get *something* on the screen.

Was like this when it arrived..... And the seller on Ebay is no longer registered on Ebay. Think I may have been ripped off, as the power button is just hanging on a circuit board out the front, and the button never worked.... Still, it was cheap enough and I could probably recoup the cost in selling the bits. Pain in the *** though! :thumbdwn:

It could be the AGP card is incompatible with the board. A lot of boards don't work with the older AGP video cars any longer, and on several Intel boards it would actually blow up the board if you put in the older type (!!) - they tended to have a warning sticker on the slot though.

Only way to make sure is to rip out the motherboard. I tend to dry-run the board + CPU (HS + fan attached of course ) + RAM, disconnect all cabling, remove all add-on cards except the GFX. Connect up PSU. Then fire it up.

Connect up the speaker if it hasn't got an onboard bleeper.

Should work then. Some other things that may catch you out are CMOS reset jumpers that some manufacturers used to put on in the 'reset' position. Some boards will not start in that position. IIRC it's usually the 'el-cheapo' manufacturers that do this, I've had a few of those

If it doesn't work, drop us a line, I probably have a card somewhere you could try.

Afterthought - which CPU type is it and how new is the board? A lot of older boards will NOT run the later AMD chips, scratching head now but IIRC it's the Palomino core that was the last one that worked with every board, the Barton core and later didnt behave on several of my boards and I've had to swap CPUs to get working combinations in the past. That behaved exactly like you said, nothing wrong with anything else but no joy powering it up.

Cant see the obvious mentioned - Cable connection between card & monitor , check:-

1) The connection is secure ( dont tighten the holding screws fully tight as they can jam, connect & tighten 2 full turns as it only needs to be secure so it doesnt fall out)

&

2) the pins at either end of the cable are neither bent or broken.

2) the pins at either end of the cable are neither bent or broken.

See this quite a lot, especially on the pins on our expensive hard drives Definitely worth checking

Chris

Do you get the BIOS "Beep" when it powers up? It could be that the BIOs isn't even starting.

Phil

You're waiting for a POST beep. If that occurs then the card is seated properly - multiple/no beeps indicate a problem.

If it POSTs OK the easiest thing to test is the cable if you've a spare one lying around.

I get no beeps - just it powering up and the neon fans start whirring and glowing. I'm thinking I might just break it for spares now. :grumpy:

This implies the CPU is not seated properly (or the board's dead :thumbdwn: ) - pop it out and back in.

This implies the CPU is not seated properly (or the board's dead :thumbdwn: ) - pop it out and back in.

Or the internal speaker isn't wired correctly.