Hi,
I bought an Antec Sonata II case (with built-in 450W PSU) from OcUK, and a Gigabyte GA-K8N51GMF motherboard. It has onboard video (nvidia 6100 gpu). I installed a brand new Athlon Sempron 3000, reference heat sink, one stick of memory and it just won't boot, even to the bios.
To the motherboard I connected just the power switch + speaker, nothing else (other than 24-pin power + 4-pin ATX of course, and cpu fan). I plugged in a standard PS2 keyboard, mouse and my iiyama monitor to the on-board VGA port.
Everything starts-up, the rear Tri-Cool fan spins, the heat sink fan spins, the case LEDs work (when plugged into the mb), but I never get as far as even a POST screen, the monitor constantly says 'no signal'.
So, I tried a totally different stick of memory (which I know works fine) - the same. I tried a different heat sink (Arctic Cooling) - no change. I have actually tried a completely different motherboard (ASRock K8NF4G, again with onboard 6100 gpu) and the exact same problems exist, I never even get to the bios
Would you say I have tried all I could possibly try, and should declare my cpu utterly borked? Or does anyone have more suggestions?
Stupidly I bought the cpu off -insert common auction site here- instead of from OcUK (it was brand new, unopened box though). I'll never bloody do that again!
Edit Update: I've just handed over a wad of (virtual) notes to OcUK for a new Athlon as I'm convinced that is the root of my problem. Should have done that in the first place really. Costly mistake to learn!
I bought an Antec Sonata II case (with built-in 450W PSU) from OcUK, and a Gigabyte GA-K8N51GMF motherboard. It has onboard video (nvidia 6100 gpu). I installed a brand new Athlon Sempron 3000, reference heat sink, one stick of memory and it just won't boot, even to the bios.
To the motherboard I connected just the power switch + speaker, nothing else (other than 24-pin power + 4-pin ATX of course, and cpu fan). I plugged in a standard PS2 keyboard, mouse and my iiyama monitor to the on-board VGA port.
Everything starts-up, the rear Tri-Cool fan spins, the heat sink fan spins, the case LEDs work (when plugged into the mb), but I never get as far as even a POST screen, the monitor constantly says 'no signal'.
So, I tried a totally different stick of memory (which I know works fine) - the same. I tried a different heat sink (Arctic Cooling) - no change. I have actually tried a completely different motherboard (ASRock K8NF4G, again with onboard 6100 gpu) and the exact same problems exist, I never even get to the bios

Would you say I have tried all I could possibly try, and should declare my cpu utterly borked? Or does anyone have more suggestions?
Stupidly I bought the cpu off -insert common auction site here- instead of from OcUK (it was brand new, unopened box though). I'll never bloody do that again!
Edit Update: I've just handed over a wad of (virtual) notes to OcUK for a new Athlon as I'm convinced that is the root of my problem. Should have done that in the first place really. Costly mistake to learn!
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