I started using linux about a month ago, and I liked it, so I thought I'd setup a dedicated linux systen. I got a Gigabyte GA-7S748-L motherboard with an Athlon 2600+ chip. I decided to use my old 32mb Geforce MX card with it. So i setup everything, boot the system, and it wont do anything at all. System powers up, cpu fan and the memory led turns on, but the screen stays blank. It wont even start, period. I cant tell whats wrong. Someone help me out here. Thanks.


Dirtybird

Screen stays blank?
Seems like your graphics card isn't working properly.
Try another one to see if thats the problem.

check the card already, its fine. somethig's wrong with the system. you know how your system beeps when at the bios screen, well it doesnt even beep. So im guessing that the system is not even starting up. What can the problem be?

Well, if the system doesn't boot up at all, no beep, no screen, then either the graphics card has some problem (which is not the case in your case as you say, have you tried another card in that system too, or just that card in another system?) or the cpu isn't working.
If the memory has some malfunction you should get a beep i believe.
If disks aren't plugged correctly, you should see a boot screen anyway, same with floppy and other ide's.
If keyboard not plugged in, you still get to the boot up screen.

You see, my guess is graphics card or cpu.

Have you patched up the pc yourself, so it would be possible that you messed it up?

yeah..i put together the system myself. But I have done that before too without any problems.

I checked the cpu, its fitted well in the socket with the fan fitted properly on it. What else could be wrong with the cpu?

I'm now having the same problem as described, plus a couple other interesting effects.

I just bought and assembled a computer with a little help from newegg. I've only built one computer before with no problems whatsoever. Here's my problem computer:

Hard Drive: Seagate 160GB Barracuda 7200.7 7200RPM SATA
RAM: Rosewill 184-Pin 256MB DDR PC-3200 (two of these)
Motherboard: Albatron "PX915P PRO"
Processor: Intel LGA 775 Pentium 4 530 3.0 GHz, 800MHz FSB, 1MB L2 Cache, Hyper Threading Technology
Video Card: VGA ASUS|RADEON AX300SE/T/128 RTL

Test 1 (Long beeps): I plugged everything in as usual and tried to power up. The "stby" led on the motherboard lit up, the fans started, but I started hearing long, repetative beeps. 5 seconds on, 2 seconds off, 5 on, 2 off, etc. Nothing on the monitor either.

Test 2 (Long beeps): I then unplugged all the chords in the back (keyboard, mouse, monitor, etc) except for the power chord only to hear the same results.

Test 3 (Long beeps): I unplugged the DVD player, Video card, hard drive with the same results.

Test 4 (NO beeps!): I then took out one of the memory cards and retried with the same results, except there were no beeps at all. After reseating the RAM and trying again, I got the beeps back again.

Test 5 (No beeps): I put everything back together except for the second RAM card including monitor to see if it was booting up. Nope. Still no video or any sign it was booting.

Evidently, that one RAM card was causing the beeps, but no matter what I did I couldn't get the computer to boot. I guess tomorrow I'll try reseating the CPU and heatsink. Oh yeah! That reminds me. I didn't have any white sludge for the processor/heatsink contact point and just seated the heatsink to the processor with the stock foamy stuff. Would the computer not boot (and not beep) if something was wrong with that area of the motherboard?

Beebop

a heat sink doesn't need anything inbetween it and the cpu, in fact i've never seen or heard of that before. If your pc doesn't boot up it is probley your CPU or Chipset. Of course having a CPU fit doesn't mean you installed it right, but of course if you installed it wrong you'd have smoke and all sorts of fun things to look at afterwords, so i'd suggests taking everything appart and making sure its seated all the way in and locked. Also you might not have your motherboard grounded well enough. Check to make sure you have at least 3-4 screws used on your motherboard. If the CPU and Chipsets work then there will be beeps and errors messages to alert you to anything else that is not working, so you must fix those 2 problems first.

I've always used thermal compound, just to be safe. Here's a quick google I did:

"Why an interface material between the CPU and the heatsink?
The surface of a CPU or a heatsink is never entirely flat; if you place a heatsink directly on a CPU, there will be tiny (invisible) gaps between the two. Since air conducts heat poorly, these gaps have a very negative effect on the heat transfer. Therefore, an interface material with a high thermal conductivity is needed to fill these gaps, and thus improve heat conductivity."

As for grounding the motherboard, I never knew that was important. I'm missing one out of 9 screws (well, by screws I mean those little things that separate the MoBo from the case - one side of the screw screws into the case and the other side of the screw has threads to screw the MoBo to, if you get my drift)

With regards to dirtybird04's problem, have to plugged in the 12 direct line into the motherboard. High power athlon's and p4's need a power supply directly form the PSU not just through the motherboard. Im told that you wont even get a beep with direct power to the psu.

It should be a small square lead and it should be clear where it needs to go if ya have a looksey on the mobo.

Hope that helps,

cypher

Maybe your geforce-card is to old, your motherboard only support 4xAGP and 8xAGP .

Got it finally.

It was the motherboard's memory connections that were bad. It had dual channel RAM, with 4 connections. The first 2 connections were channel one and the other 2 were channel two. I moved my 2 memory cards from slots 1 and 3 to slots 2 and 4. Every works perfectly so far!

Always learning,

Beebop

Congrats on solving the problem, and also for posting back with the solution. I'd suggest that if you just bought the mobo and it has defects, to return it for a new one. You may need/want those slots later, and if they're toast, you'll be out of luck.

As for the thermal paste, Yes, you are correct. A dab of it (about half the size of a pea) should be sufficient. Don't go nuts and coat the CPU as if you were applying sunscreen. -- J.W.

I generally just use the thermal pad that most heatsinks come with. I'm not an overclocker and have never had any real temperature issues, and it seems to work fine, with a lot less mess.

On another note: NO beeps indicates a CPU problem. Even with bad memory, you WILL get beeps. The three most common causes of this are insufficient power (i.e., P4 connector not connected), improperly seated CPU (less common these days without breaking pins on the CPU) and jumpers (also uncommon on new computers). A dead CPU is also always a possibility, but I have never received a brand new CPU that was dead. I have, however, killed a 1.7 GHz Celeron, and it will not beep. (Read: another user removed the heatsink and I didn't check for it before trying to run the system)

CPU problem?? If you read my posts above, I wasn't getting a beep after swapping around my memory cards. And I quote,

"Test 4 (NO beeps!): I then took out one of the memory cards and retried with the same results, except there were no beeps at all. After reseating the RAM and trying again, I got the beeps back again."

Everything works now, of course, but I'm just curious why that would cause no beeps. Would the CPU not beep with only 1 memory card installed in a dual channel system?

Why should it beep under those conditions? If the one memory card is good, and the CPU is good, why beep at all?