Can not get monitor to display anything at all

[theD3COY]

I am helping my little brother build his first PC. After months of gathering parts we finally put it together today. When completed we turned it on and the monitor stayed black. So, we got out an old CRT monitor and tried that in case the 1st monitor was faulty (got it used). The display remained black. Then I disconnected the monitor on my PC (the one I am currently using) and tried it there. Still no display.

I thought that maybe his video card was not working so we took it out and put in my current video card to try it. Nothing changed, there is still no display. Not even the BIOS will display.

The only thing that I can come up from here is a faulty motherboard. Is there anything else that I could try before returning the motherboard and getting a different one? (the motherboard that I am questioning is an AsRock z77 extreme 4)

 

[techgeek]

Make sure you have all the power cables plugged into the motherboard. Particularly the EPS or CPU (named either) gets forgotten quite a bit.

Do the fans or anything come on when you hit the power button?

 

[theD3COY]

Yes all of the fans come on and the CPU/EPS is plugged in and spinning. The fans on the GPU are also spinning.

 

[techgeek]

Try re-seating the RAM and see if that helps. If that doesn't work try only using one DIMM, and if that doesn't work, try using only the other DIMM. Try different sockets as well. Improperly seated, or faulty RAM is a common reason for new builds not POSTing.

 

[theD3COY]

Okay, I have been extremely busy so I finally got to working on this problem again. I did as you said and found out that it was in fact one of the sticks of RAM. So this problem is solved. I would like to thank you as I truly appreciate the time you took. I had no idea that a bad stick of RAM could do this.

 

[techgeek]

Yes RAM is quite a common problem for POST'ing. I just went through this myself not so long ago. Fortunately for me, I was installing new RAM, so I knew my system was working beforehand. One stick was bad, RMA'd and got a new kit and everything was fine.

Glad I could help. Hope your little brother likes his new computer.