I just finished putting together my first build and after lots of fighting and much ado it's all together, now the only problem is the monitor refuses to show anything...

I thought it was the video card at first so I removed that and used the onboard video but when I do that the monitor just turns itself on and off (not just the blinking green light because I can hear it power up and then an audible *click* as it shuts off)

when I plug in the video card it just blinks green...

needless to say I can't tell if anything else is working if the video won't even work... best I can tell the hard drive is working and everythning is ok except for the monitor issue

any help would be great... thanks in advance

Welcome to the Forums!

Are the fans spinning?

First you need to try a minimal boot to try and get to the POST screen.

Disconnect all drives, cd roms, hard drives and any peripheral devices, any PCI cards, sound cards, modems etc.

All you want connected are CPU, memory, video card, monitor, keyboard and mouse. Recheck all the connections for these. Make sure RAM is inserted. Double check video card. Sometimes it takes a bit of pressure to get it in the slot all the way. Check that the heatsink is on the CPU squarely, not at an angle (my guess is the cpu heatsink is not installed properly). Check connections at back of monitor.

Try to start that way. If you can get video, add everything else one at a time. If you can't get video, post back giving more details on your hardware, type of processor, what motherboard, video card, type and size of RAM, etc.

Good luck.

ok tried that and didn't even get it to post...

the fans spin except for the ones on the video card itself...

removed the heatsink/fan and reinstalled it... no difference...

system specs

Asus p4p800-VM

2gig ddr3200

GeForce FX 5950

Seagate 200gig 7200rpm HD

P4 3.4ghz

Is the GeForce plugged into a power supply connector?

Are both the 20 pin and 4-pin 12V power connectors plugged into the motherboard?

Try it with just one stick of RAM.

PS- You tried all this in the last 10 minutes? Or you tried it all before?:p

i'm sitting right next to the system and i've been working on it for the past 12 hours... so anything new I can try I do...

tried it with one stick of ram... still no go... got the card powered and the board... it's getting less and less hopeful each minute..

thanks for all the help... no idea what was wrong but I took it all aprart and started from scratch and it works fine now... hopefully i don't have to ask another question here again

thanks again

Hehe, right on!

Must have been just a loose connection, something not quite making contact.

Don't disappear on us though!

Glad it worked out. Enjoy your new machine!