Why is my screen not turning on after building a new computer?

Question

All the BIOS beeps are solid, everything is looking good. I have built computers in the past and everything looks solid with this installation.

Is there something that I need to do to get my screen to work now?

No BIOS beeps, good install, NVidia motherboard 780i and graphics card, any ideas?

Answer 1

Have you checked the obvious:

• All cards properly seated?
• All power leads connected - including the one to the graphics card?
• All data leads properly connected?
• Video cable properly connected to graphics card? Check all outputs (if more than one)
• Monitor turned on? :)

Other than that, take the graphics card out and check you get an output from the motherboard's onboard graphics.

Answer 2

When I run out of options, I always try disconnecting / disassembling everything, then putting it back together. Sometimes you may miss something the first time, or it's not fully connected, etc, and redoing it solves the problem.

Another thing to consider is one of those diagnostic cards that plug into a PCI slot and print out a 2-digit hex code. It sometimes helps narrow down where those problems are. My motherboard actually has this feature built in (the motherboard itself has the 2 digit display on it), and it's helped in the past. Never tried the addon card before, but they're cheap, so not much to lose. One problem with dealextreme.com though is that their shipping takes ages. You'll end up waiting a few weeks, so if you don't mind paying more to get it sooner, you can search around for another shop that sells these kind of things.