Custom-built PC gets power but no POST/display/etc.

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First off let me say Hi, and let it be known that I've searched the web far and wide for answers to my problem, but to no avail.

About two weeks ago my fiancé ordered some computer parts in attempt to construct a new PC to replace my piece of rubbish that was hanging on to its life by a piece of tape. Literally...

He's put computers together for a living before, and he's a game developer graduate with a love for computers, so he knows what he's doing, but I don't. He did everything, I touched nothing but watched.

Here are the parts, which arrived last Monday and Tuesday, respectively:

XCLIO A380BK Black Case
CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ \2.6GHz AM2 Processor
Sunbeam PSU-HUSH680-US-BL 680W Power Supply
ASUS M3A78-EMH HDMI AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
Rosewill RCX-Z1 CPU Cooler
Arctic Silver Ceramique Thermal Compound

I used my same ol' 250Gb harddrive, which worked fine just days before I received the parts, so I know that works perfectly well.

Everything was smoothly put together and powered up like clockwork. Eager to get started installing Windows XP, we hooked it up to my monitor. Powered up and everything seemed good to go... fans worked, mobo light worked...dvd drive worked....led lights came on....harddrive spun up.... but absolutely no display hit that monitor, nor did we hear any beeps.

To diagnose, we tried the following:

- With and without RAM.
- With different RAM.
- With videocard plugged in and with the onboard video card just plugged in.
- Tried removing and reseating the videocard.
- Tried removing and reseating the mobo onto the antistatic wrapping (as a last resort mostly...)
- Shoved a windows XP disc in to see if it'd boot from that. No dice.
- Tried hooking it up to his (working) monitor.
- Reset the CMOS/bios battery and such. No dice there either.

There's probably more but I can't think of exactly what at the moment. Feel free to toss ideas. However, we're sending the motherboard back tomorrow and ordering a new one either at the end of this week or on Monday most likely.

So my question is, does anybody know if our assumption is correct? We're pretty sure it's the motherboard, but not 100% positive. There's no other compatible machines to work with for diagnostics, apart from his Alienware, which is no way in hell getting taken apart for me to mess with, so...

Another thing to note is that, when plugged directly into the back of the PC, no keyboard lights came on either.

Thanks ahead of time. I'm trying to find some reassurance or redirection on the matter. Hopefully this matter won't stump you as much as it's stumped he and I and a few tech-savvy friends even...
 
captaincranky said:
Did we either wipe the HDD, or try booting without it?

Tried booting without the harddrive attached as well. We tried just booting with the motherboard, cpu, psu, and ram installed. No display, no beeps, but all else working fine seemingly...
 
OK you put the video card in before the first boot, yes? Then you reset the cmos before you tried to boot it with just the integrated video.
You did make double extra super certain that there aren't any extra mobo standoffs in play?
Why can't the CPU be bad? I don't know, I'm just sayin'.
 
captaincranky said:
OK you put the video card in before the first boot, yes? Then you reset the cmos before you tried to boot it with just the integrated video.
You did make double extra super certain that there aren't any extra mobo standoffs in play?
Why can't the CPU be bad? I don't know, I'm just sayin'.

Yes, we put everything in before the first boot. A CMOS reset was done only after a few other things were tried, though I don't remember in any certain sequence what occurred. We checked multiple times each and every cord (and meticulously so at that) and nook and cranny, so to speak, looking for anything that may be in the wrong place or what have you. Double-checked this against all manuals and such.

Don't know whatcha mean by standoffs, if you'll pardon my oblivious nature. When I said I know jack-all, I meant it. However, I heard the word standoffs used in reference to the pegs used to prop up the mobo, which were the ones that came with it, so...

As for the CPU, no idea why it can't be bad. We haven't ruled it out nor definitively stated that it is in fact the CPU at all. We just would hope it isn't, and everything seems to point to the mobo, from our perspectives as well as many an internet similar issue. Just trying to figure out what might be going on.

So odd that brand new parts just won't work like this... the other instances in which these problems occurred only occurred AFTER the PC had been working for a while, or somebody had messed with things.

Ironically enough, my fiancé was working on a computer with this EXACT same problem at his workplace just recently. After being unable to diagnose definitively, just like now, it ended up going to the shop. Though a good idea, we can't afford to do the same.
 
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