i boot up my pc, hear 1 beep and get no reply from monitor...

[Poulton]

basically, I dont know a lot about hardware of pc's, i have used them for the past 8 years but that was while my brother set them up for me and so fourth learning bits at a time.i know i can attach cards easily enough along with ram, but i never really played with the cpu. i try my best to understand though. :P
i have at the moment

Elsa Gladiac 920 - in a agppro slot
belkin network card - PCI slot
built in sound
and DDR 333 ram...

My Motherboard is a asus a7v333, My brother said this was my original problem so i went out and bought a new motherboard today - it is a ASRock K7S41GX
why do pc bits have funny names? gah! ^^ eitherway - my pc will boot up litterally a second after i press the start button i hear a beep - then the hdd starts spinning (i think) then after that i retrieve no output what so ever, i am now puzzled to if something else is broke. i have a 2nd G-card which i tried also but that had no effect - not sure if the 2nd g-card even works though. sadly i dont have a backup peice of ram. and have no idea how to check is my cpu is ok or not - i got my brother to put the cpu chip in the new motherboard as well.

Any help will be much appreciated, Thanks, Aiden

[preet]

Hi.
I would suggest you to use another RAM. And before this try to clear CMOS and boot the system.

[Sylvander]

1. A Windows installation is matched to the hardware on which it was installed.
You should not expect to be able to change the hardware on which the HDD with its Windows installation is running, and have Windows work well.
Changing the motherboard was a major hardware change.

2. You need to arrange that the Windows installation is matched to the presently connected hardware.
Two ways to do this:
a. A new fresh Windows installation [after a reformat of the C: partition].

b. A "repair" reinstallation of the existing Windows installation.
This has the disadvantage that the registry is rather bloated with unnecessary data because it includes settings to make BOTH sets of hardware work, when only the new settings are needed.

3. The above doesn't consider other factors that may be causing additional problems.
a. e.g. Are the BIOS's configuration settings as shown in "BIOS Setup" appropriate for the hardware its working with?
e.g. Are all the drives set to "Auto"? In particular, is the HDD being "Dynamically Auto-detected and Configured" so that its parameters are correctly set?

4. How far is the Startup sequence getting in the list below?
You get the single short beep which is good, but do you get any display whatever on the monitor?
If Startup gets to step15, then it's probably just the Windows installation not matched to the hardware.
Try booting from a floppy or optical disk instead of the HDD.
Do you know how to do that?

A typical and successful startup sequence
1. Start of Boot Troubleshooting Walkthrough
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/boot/walk/index.htm
2. Yes: The system power supply is functioning
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/boot/walk/power1.htm
------------------------------------------------------
You should hear a single short beep at about this point indicating the successful running/completion of the POST.
Some PC’s beep much later, possibly as late as just before step 12.
------------------------------------------------------
3. Yes: Something is being written to the screen during boot up [This may be only a flashing cursor]
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/boot/walk/video1.htm
4. The video BIOS message is displayed on the screen for a few seconds and then clears from the screen, or more messages display under it
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/boot/walk/vbios1.htm
5. Yes: The system BIOS startup screen is appearing
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/boot/walk/bios1.htm
6. The memory test completes successfully
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/boot/walk/ram1.htm
7. The BIOS accesses the floppy drives and the boot continues
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/boot/walk/seek1.htm
8. The system is able to autodetect IDE devices successfully
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/boot/walk/auto1.htm
9. The system is not Plug and Play compatible, has no Plug and Play devices, or has PnP devices but identifies them properly
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/boot/walk/pnp1.htm
10. Boot sequence is A: before C: (floppy disk first)
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/boot/walk/seqAC.htm
11. The floppy disk makes a noise and the light comes on
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/boot/walk/fd1.htm
12. The floppy disk light goes off and the hard disk light comes on as it starts booting
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/boot/walk/fd1hdd.htm
13. The hard disk boot process will continue here, if you want to follow it.
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/boot/walk/hd1.htm
14. The system continues booting from the hard disk and the message "Starting MS-DOS" or "Starting Windows 95" is displayed
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/boot/walk/hd1os.htm
15. Operating System Loaded From Hard Disk. The system has found a boot sector on the hard disk and is now starting the load of the operating system. The hard disk is working. You have successfully completed the hardware part of the boot process. Any problems encountered after this point should be diagnosed by looking for a more specific problem with a component, or under the section that contains run-time error messages.

5. Use these for background...
Sylvander’s Diagnostic Flowcharts
Download a copy of my diagnostic flowcharts from here
www.erniek.eclipse.co.uk/downloads/sylvanderdiags.zip
and print them to leaf through.
Begin on the STARTUP chart.

[Poulton]

I have no display what so ever, this originally made me think it was either the graphics card or agp port, after reading alot of forum posts though i do think its the ram, i think ill see if its that. also when i did remove the monitor cable from the pc a box came up saying no signal on the monitor. dont know if that will help ^^
Thanks for the help. Aiden

[Sylvander]

Do you see any signs that Startup is proceeding normally, but totally unseen because of no display on the monitor?

e.g.
a. Blinking LED's on the optical drives.
b. Blinking LED's on the keyboard.
c. Buzz of the FDD being accessed.
d. HDD led lit or blinking, and sound of it spinning and being read.

I'm looking for some indication that the POST completes.
Right after the POST completes, the BIOS attempts to boot from one of the drives [FDD, optical, HDD]
Try booting a bootable floppy [preferred because it's more obvious when this is happening] or optical disk.

If the POST completes...
But there's no ouput from the video card...
And the monitor is known to work because it works on another PC...
Then that problem needs to be studied more closely.

e.g. You will see on page DF3: DISPLAY of the diagnostic charts...
With the monitor in a working state ["screen lit"] and the signal lead connecting [OK], that indicates a problem with the video adapter and/or mobo [could be unsuitable BIOS configuration settings].