I just finished building a computer. I have an Soyo K7VIA with an Athlon 600 mhz processor. I get everything into the casing and when I power up I get no posting of any kind just a blank screen. The power supply I'm using is a 300 W one. I hear no beeps whatsoever so I'm wondering what is going on? I want to figure out if the mother board is bad or if the cpu is bad but I have no idea how to figure that out. I tried shorting the cmos out but I still have no post. Can someone please help me pinpoint my problem?

Thanks
Helpless

Sounds similar to an earlier post of a newly built computer not quite coming up right. Check the obvious:

1) Make sure the motherboard is connect to the power supply. Use a multimeter on the power connectors from the power supply to check for 12 and 5 volts present. Make sure the power connect is connect in the right way. If AT power supply, make sure you don't have the two power connectors reversed.

2) Make sure you have RAM installed properly

3) You might check your ribbon cable connections to your hard drive, cdrom and floppy. Sometimes if those are on backwards, it kind of grounds the system and nothing happens, so make sure the "red stripe" on the ribbon cable is closest to "pin 1" of the connector on which you connect it.

dale

Make sure your video card is properly seated, especially if it's AGP. (Remember that the AGP slot sits further from the backplane than a PCI slot, so make sure the card doesn't just seat at the front of the slot.)

David http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/cool.gif

Also check *all* the jumpers on the motherboard. Common problem.

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If this is a new case, check that the voltage selector switch is set properly. In the USA this means 115V.

First, reseat the video card. Then:

I would take the whole thing apart and bench test it. Plug in and boot with only motherboard, memory, CPU and video card attached, lying on a table, not inside the case. And a keyboard...If you then get a picture, I'd suspect the motherboard is shorting to the case. Install only the same components in the case and see if it gets no picture. This will prove it.
If it's a short, look around at computer shops for some cardboard washers mad efor that purpose. If it's not, bench testing might help narrow the possibilities down quite a bit.

After testing with only those components, add one thing at a time and make sure each one works before adding more hardware to confuse the issue. Start with floppy drive. And watch all ribbon cables, make sure the colored stripe matches the #1 pin.

Sorry if it sounds like a lot of trouble, but that's the best way to locate the problem...Bring it down to bare minimum and add one thing at a time. In this case, preferably on a tabletop.

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