Topic: Cannot see anything on Screen - Newly Built

[Moreno]

Hi Guys & gals,



Just built myself a new machine and am having a little bit of trouble. I bought myself the ASROCK 775dual-VSTA  MotherboardMotherboard

I have put a Dvdrw and CDrw in there with a Intel Pentium D Processor 820. I have installed 2gb ddrII ram. I have one SATA hard drive and one IDE hard drive. All seems to boot up ok, but I see nothing on screen when i plug the monitor cable into the graphics card I have. I originally had the Saphire ATi X1300xt installed which basically had no on screen display. I then went and bought myself a GeForce 7600GS PNY, which again did not work. Here is the supported list of VGA cards for the motherboard I haveVGA List

I am not really sure what to do. I bought the graphics card as it was on the list, but the only thing I can say is that the 7600 was made by PNY and not by asus or gigabyte as said on the list.

Anyone have any ideas or suggestions as to what I can do?

I look forward to hearing from you



GeForce 7600GS which is on the list, but they list the Gigabyte and Asus version

[Simon]

Have you set the BIOS to boot from the new graphics card?  If the motherboard has onboard graphics, it will probably select those by default.

Edit:-  I just looked at the motherboard specs, and it seems it doesn't have onboard graphics, but it still might be worth checking if the BIOS is set correctly to find your graphics card.

[Sandra]

Is this the same pc that you mentioned here that started and shut down ?

http://www.pc-pals.com/smf/index.php?topic=21377.msg139082#msg139082

The make of grahics card shouldnt really matter as they all use the same chipsets for the same model name.

[Moreno]

This is the same PC, but I had the CPU in wrongly..... All boots up fine now.

I have been told to set the BIOS, but cannot do this if I cannot see anything onscreen! Nothing actually comes up at all, so am really stumped as to what to do. I don't want to just send back the motherboard. I have tried a basic PCI card which still shows nothing.

??

[Sandra]

People may not know about this mobo but it has the option of using either an AGP or a PCI-E graphics card.

As you cant get into the bios I would use the clear cmos jumper to reset it to its defaults.

Use the Nvidia gfx card and see if that sorts it, I assume that you have a PSU that has the PCI-E power connector for the gfx card ?

[Moreno]

I have actually taken the Nvidia card back, so am going to try and get one that IS on the asrock supported list from the web. I will try resetting the MOBO with the CMOS jumper and then re plug in the card and see what happens. The card came with like a PSU splitter for the normal power supply connections...is this the connection you mean?

[Sandra]

Yes it should have a small connector similar to the one that goes to the floppy drive that goes to the gfx card itself.

Try the ATI one of you still have it but reset the cmos first.

[Moreno]

Thanks Sandra,

Errrmmmm not sure I have seen this connection coming from the power supply, but then I ahve to say that the one I took back yesterday did have a normal HD power supply connection.


I will try the ATI PCI one after I have reset the CMOS and then will report what happens to you.

Cheers for now!!! 

[Moreno]

One question.....

Do you think that the one I have at home should work "Saphire ATi X1300xt"? It has no external power source, but I have been told by an IT guru at work that he had a problem similar to mine, and it was rectified by using a card that was fed by the PSU. The Nvidia I bought yesterday was, but this made no difference! 

[Sandra]

Without reading the manual again I cant remember exactly what it said about the GFX cards but there was something about the voltage for the AGP card that had to be the correct one which is unusual these days as the slots are usually designed to only accept the correct voltage or a dual voltage card.

The PCI-e cards are all the same voltage so that shouldnt apply, is the ATI one an AGP or a PCI-e one ?

I would have thought that even without the power connection on a PCI-e card that it would still work to some extent but wouldnt handle the higher resolutions or refresh rates that it would with the added power supply.

I do recall someone on Ebuyer saying that your mobo only supported 4 x PCI-e cards whereas all the PCI-e gfx cards I have seen have been 16 x , although there is no mention of it only being a 4 x slot on the makers site.

I havent tried mine with a PCI-e GFX card yet as I am using an old Nvidia GeForce MX 440 AGP until I upgrade my main pc and use the 6800GS from that.

[Moreno]

I will have a look when I am at home with what I have. Do you think that the Saphire I bought should work?

I will have a look when I get home and try the whole CMOS resetting and then report.

The saga continues.....

[Moreno]

Ok....well have tried a few things.....   

Firstly disconnected everything, replaced the CPU and fan and with one stick of ram. I then placed the Jumper on top of the CMOS pins and then after 10 seconds took it off. I then replaced the Saphire ATi X1300xt and then plugged the monitor cable into it. After I did this I connected my SATA hard drive and the PSU to the Motherboard and then turned the PC on. Basically its still the same....the CPU fan starts, the Hard drive starts and the graphics card fan even starts!

What could I be doing wrong? I even replaced the Saphire with an older Radeon 9200SE 128mb DDR pci card, and plugged this into one of the four normal PCI slots.....once again everything boots but nothing onscreen!!!

If I have the jumper on the CMOS pins the PC won't start....just making sure thats ok.

Any further things I can try?

[Sandra]

The jumper has to be in the run position, check the manual for how it goes, conneting the centre pin and one end resets the cmos, connecting the centre and the other end is the run position.

What is your PSU rated at in watts ?

[Moreno]

The jumper has to be in the run position, check the manual for how it goes, conneting the centre pin and one end resets the cmos, connecting the centre and the other end is the run position.

What is your PSU rated at in watts ?

The PSU is 450 W and the cmos pins consist of two pins only. I covered both pins with a jumper. If I cover both pins the PC will not start.

[Sandra]

I just checked the manual and was surprised to see that it is a 2 pin clear cmos, thats the first time I have seen one like that.

The PSU should be ok, I assume it has the extra 4 pin connector to the motherboard for P4 cpus.

Its looking like theres a fault on the motherboard if its still not showing anything on the display