What do I need to get a display?

[cmitch24]

I purchased a computer secondhand from a friend who was about to throw it out after stripping it of its RAM and Hard-Drive (got a nice birthday upgrade). Computer is a Lenovo Thinkcentre M800 Tower. It's processor is a Intel Core i5-6500 3.2G 4C, and the Motherboard is a P310 Motherboard IQ1X0MS.

I've never built a rig before, but I've been looking into for a while, and I was thinking that getting this computer into working condition may be an easier option for me considering my current budget. I have a Hard Drive from a previous laptop with a mounting bracket that is SATA, and some RAM I purchased some months back (Patriot Memory Performance Viper Elite DDR4 8GB Memory Kit PC4-17000 (2133MHZ) PVE48G213C4KGY Gray).

I got everything hooked up, but I'm not getting any display when I turn the computer on. From what I know about computers (not very much), this is likely related to the CPU, GPU, or RAM. My gut tells me that due to the fact that the RAM is the only thing in the computer that isn't original (other than my Hard Drive), the BIOS for the motherboard aren't updated enough to use this RAM.

I'm looking for any guidance on whether or not it's possible to update the BIOS without display (I do not have a disk drive to do it via CD), or whether or not that's even the likely issue? Any help is greatly appreciated, as well as patience with my limited computer knowledge.

 

[Kunra Zether]

Could be that the hard-drive is dead.
The ram should be supported.
Did you install a discreet GPU or are you trying to use the integrated graphics from the i5?

If you are trying to use a discreet GPU then you may need to upgrade the power supply some of these towers only came with a 210 watt psu and some came with a 400+ psu.

The other thing that I can think of is something has come loose inside some where when you friend was pillaging her.

 

[cmitch24]

Thanks for the quick response. I found the culprit! My hard drive was toast. I tried plugging it into another friend's computer and got nothing. Looks like I need to purchase a new one! Again, thank you!

 

[Kunra Zether]

Anytime I'm happy Ives's able to help you. Same thing happened to my wife's laptop awhile back when she dropped it while it was on and it killed the laptop unfortunately she trashed it before I was able to look at it lol. Hdd can be very delicate at times.