Help getting mates pc going

geeza · 28 Dec 2007 at 21:33

He ordered the stuff semi-pro waster suggested -

Corsair VX 450W ATX PSU (CMPSU-450VXUK) £37.99
(£44.64) £37.99
(£44.64)
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) £24.99
(£29.36) £24.99
(£29.36)
OcUK GeForce 8800 GT 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £139.99
(£164.49) £139.99
(£164.49)
Sub Total : £202.97
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £37.09
Total : £249.01

to go with his Athlon 4800+ and AMD690gm-m2 motherboard. The new stuff has arrived and its in the new case. He's connected everything and the cpu and graphics card fan spins around.

The only problem (and quite a big one) is that there is no picture displayed on the screen. He says its just a black screen, no beeps or anything.

Ive told him to try taking the graphics card and out putting it back in again

What could he be missing?

semi-pro waster · 28 Dec 2007 at 21:39

No beeps would suggest to me that the motherboard reckons the graphics card is present and correct. Does the monitor definitely work? Does it have another input (DVI instead of VGA or vice versa) that he could try? Is there another graphics card that he could try, just in case it is a graphics card problem?

Reseating all the parts can often solve problems but it is a bit of a hassle unfortunately.

geeza · 28 Dec 2007 at 21:46

His monitor is pretty old and is VGA only. The new PCIE 8800GT will only go in the new motherboard and he hasnt got another PCIE card to try. (Just a broken AGP geforce i think)

semi-pro waster · 28 Dec 2007 at 21:52

I don't know how close you live to him and it is a bit of a hassle but if your PC has compatible parts then it would help to narrow it down if you could test them because without an alternative to test for the parts it is really just guesswork.

I would suggest double-checking the connections first though to be absolutely sure, sometimes a cable can look connected but it isn't properly seated.

TheMorningStar · 28 Dec 2007 at 21:59

also check for hard drive activity. some mobos will post and load with a gfx card error. the 8800gt is also incompatable with some mobos it seems, they are incompatable with my shuttle sn25p for instance, check for a bios upgrade.

if he still has his old components (if there where any) he could start swopping things out to identify the spacific problem.