General Computer question

[the3eyedblindman]

was building computer for mame cab and no video would show up on the screen. My first instinct was bad video card, so i installed that video card on my working computer and video showed up, so it has to be a bad motherboard right? cuz even with a bad processor or hd video would still show up, so motherboard?

[RayB]

Are you using the same monitor when you test on each computer? Are you using the same cables?

Does the harddrive spin? Do you see the motherboard light come on?

Do you hear BEEPS?

[ThePaul]

What about video card from good PC in bad PC ?

[spystyle]

No video could be any one of many things.

Read over your motherboard manual and be super sure all of your jumpers/switches are correct.

Verify that the CPU and RAM are correctly inserted.

I'm assuming you did get power (fans running) if not make sure your ATX switches are wired correctly (motherboard manual)

Start the computer bare : just CPU,RAM and video card. Everything else unplugged

If it dosent start after all of that pull the CPU/RAM and test them in another board

Groovy?
Craig
spystyle@yahoo.com

[the3eyedblindman]

Ok all the fans start, the light comes on, the drives open, the hd spins, but there are no beeps, and no video will show up on the screen. Video card tested good when in good computer, but no "boot failure, system halted" messages on the bad one. Im assuming its the motherboard, what do u think?

[the3eyedblindman]

Im not near the computer. My sousin in law who is an expert at computers, he use to build them and worked at global, after testing, sed its probably the motherboard, cuz he sed somethin like " theres no beeps, so that my be a problem with the bios in the motherboard" and the video card worked with the good computer, and all the drives worked, so im guessin the power and video are ok, its just the motherboard, plus i got the motherboard for 17 bucks in the back of tiger direct, onea the untested ones,

[SteveJ34]

Is it a new motherboard with a 1.5v AGP slot?

Are you certain you are not using a 3.3v AGP card in a 1.5v AGP slot?

I recently had a motherboard with a 1.5v AGP slot that was not keyed so  you could fit a 3.3V AGP card in.....it didn't hurt the card or motherboard but symptoms were exctaly the same, no video, no beep, at first i thought the motherboard was bad.

Then the thought occurred, that's probably a 1.5v AGP slot, sure enough, put in a PCI video and up she came, replaced the 3.3v AGP card with a newer 1.5v and up she came.