Nothing Appears on Monitor

[Roark26]

I finished building a computer with the following specs:

Motherboard - ASUS P5B-Plus LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel
CPU - Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775
PSU - COOLER MASTER eXtreme Power RP-650-PCAR ATX from factor 12V V2.01 650W
Memory - G.SKILL 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
GFX Card - SAPPHIRE 100218L Radeon HD 2600XT 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16

I initially built it in the case, hooked up the monitor, and powered up. The case fans came on, the mobo LED came on, the PSU/CPU/GFX card fans came on, but nothing else happened. I rechecked everything, made sure everything was seated, and tried again, with the same result. Not even any beeping.

So I took everything out of the case and just rigged up the essentials as per this topic. Did it on a non-conductive surface, with only mobo, CPU/heatsink, 1 stick ram, and the gfx card with the appropriate power hookups. Then I hooked up the monitor and shorted the two power pins.

Again the fans (cpu/gfx/psu) turned on, and the mobo LED came on, but no display on the monitor. Brought the case over and hooked up the speaker pin thing in the appropriate spot on mobo, but didn't hear any beeping. Took out the 1 stick of RAM and tried and still no beep.

Any thoughts? Did I choose the wrong motherboard or CPU? Did I get a defective MB or CPU? Am I doing something else wrong? Discouraged first time builder here, thanks in advance for the help.

[Cricket]

Are you plugging in all necessary power connections to the motherboard? Does the video card have a power connection as well?

Cricket

[Roark26]

There is a 24-pin/hole power connector that is labelled "P1" coming from my PSU, and a 24 pin/hole place to plug it in on the side of the motherboard. This was identified in the MB manual as the main power hookup so I assume it's the right one. There is also a 4 pin/hole on the board next to the CPU labeled "EATX12V" and I plugged the 4 pin/hole power cord from the PSU marked "P2" into that one.

The graphics card does not appear to have a power hookup, and I assume it has power since the fan on it spins fine.

[Alaron]

Do you have another PSU to try? You can borrow one as well. Cooler Master's aren't the best, it could be dud.

[SL1CKZ]

Did you check the refresh rate? I had a problem when it was set to 85 hertz, and my friend who made it at his house had a CRT which can handle that, but my LCD couldn't. Had to take it back to his house and reduced the refresh rate, and took it home, worked fine.

[Roark26]

I don't have any spare power supplies, processors, or motherboards. Like I said, this is the first system I've built and I was purely on laptops before it.

I've tried two different LCDs and an old CRT with no results so I'm pretty sure the monitor at least is ruled out as the problem.

[The Village Idiot]

Sounds more like an incorrectly seated CPU Cooler, make sure its damn solidly stuck down, it can take some brute force. I was getting the same effects as you where I hadn't seated the CPU cooler in the right spot and it was just appearing with a blank screen, everything on, but just a blank screen with the screen on stand bye.

[Roark26]

Well I've tried two different fans on the cpu, the stock one and a thermaltake one that i had ordered separately. I tightened both down pretty good and it worked with neither.

Even if it was a cooling problem, wouldn't the symptoms be different? It seems like the motherboard would at least post before the cpu overheated. With this setup I've got, nothing happens, no beeps (when the case speaker is hooked up), no display on the monitor, no posting. I don't think it's a PSU problem since power is getting to all the components to run the fans, even the gfx card which has no direct power hookup but instead gets power through the mobo (which has that lit green LED).

I've checked the power many times, checked the cpu, ram, etc. I've reset CMOS with the jumpers and by pulling out the battery for a minute (as per the manual). I've checked all the other jumpers with the manual and they are all on defaults.

[Katreat]

Edit: OK, I checked the manual and there is no seperate power connector for the vid card so my post was wrong, guess I was thinking about the 2900.

I would look around and try to find someone with a PSU and PCI vid card laying around. If it is a good friend they might even take them out of there case. Another option would be to find a local computer shop and see about borrowing something. I know in my area the local shop is always saving parts out of old computers and would let me borrow used parts to try out. You dont need top of the line hardware to test the system, any moderate sized 2.0 psu and PCI vid card should let you know if the problem are with those parts.

Kat

[Cricket]

Since you've already done the out-of-case troubleshooter and the system still doesn't power up, you know it's one of the core components that is defective or DOA. At this point it's hard to determine which is actually causing the problem unless you have compatible working spares to swap in to test with. Looking at your parts list the first thing I would swap out is the power supply.

Cricket

[Roark26]

I swapped out the power supply and the motherboard with new ones, no change.