ok
i have

Asus A8N-Sli Deluxe
AMD 3500+ 64bit
1gb ram, 512x2
ati radeon 9200 128mb pci
30 gb hdd

i put it in all start ok... fans, cpu fan, hdd loads up, cd rom works, only nothing on the screen...
i tried diff methods.. i even took it out of the case (motherboard) and connected only cpu, ram and videocard, and still not loading.. i took out the ram.. no beep...

anyone got ideas? post em up please!!!

You've pluged the screen into the computer AND the wall right? lol, sorry.. thats apparently a common problem.

I'm not hardware guru, so im not certain; but have you checked to make sure all your hardware is compatable? Sometimes certain mobo's and vid cards or vid cards/processors dont seem to like eachother.

MAGGOT

does that mobo have onboard video?
if it does, plug your monitor into the connection off your mobo. Then go into the bios, disable onboard video, switch the monitor cable around again and it should work.

No, this board does not have onboard video. Maybe this board doesn´t even support PCI gfx...
Try to lend a PCIexpress gfx card from someone. Only for testing.

The board Does support pci, that's not the problem.

Yeah, probably.
But since the graphics card seems to be the problem it may be a good idea to test a proper video card for PCI express instead of PCI.
Some of the PCI cards cause problems.

Hm...just checked the manual of your motherboard...nothing useful there.

mate is that 30GB HDD from a previous machine with windows installed on it?

if so, by hooking it up to a completely different motherboard and chipset it wont be able to boot at all. i had the same thing happen to me - ending up with a blank black screen

the best bet is to get a bootable winxp install disk and reinstall. its the only way really

Well, even with NO disk attached he would get boot messages on his screen.
Windows may be not working, but there would be a boot screen at least

Quote from OPK :

Well, even with NO disk attached he would get boot messages on his screen.
Windows may be not working, but there would be a boot screen at least

hmm i missed that bit

what power supply are you running then

I would say, GFX Card Issue. Get a spare one, even if its just a 2mb jobbie. Put it in, boot PC, if you see the post screen, bobs ur uncle, GFX card.

If you still don't see Post screen, well then fanny's your aunt back to drawing board.

As basic as possible, it should be possible to boot PC with just CPU and GFX card with no memory. You should get Beeps ( memory not detected error beeps, 2 or 3 if memory serves me correctly. )

Also, have you tried different PCI slots?

last but no means least, just in case ( had to do this once ) reset the CMOS, if will be in your manual. Sometimes the MB's come out with wrong settings, and you might have Assign IRQ for VGA disabled.

But my friend, its the great art of elimination.

Fordie

I guess either the BIOS doesn't recognice PCI-gfx boards (only PCIe) or the power isn't sufficient.

Vain

Simple reason is that Asus A8N-Sli Deluxe does not support PCI video cards at all.

PCI-E is supported, but PCI video cards are legacy technology and not supported:
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=98&type=expert

Sorry mate, looks like you're out of luck here with that PCI card

Unlikely, even w/o the card it will still beep. No beep means no cpu, make sure you have connected the 4 pin cpu power cable to the mobo as well otherwise it wont boot.

No. The PC architecture does nothing when no GPU is detected. It doesn't even beep.
At least this is my experience from the PCs I've built. I might have also just been unlucky.

Vain

Some BIOS manufacturers implemented a "beep" - code for GFX card issues.
My EPOX 8KHA+ had this kinda error code.

I presume the status LED on the board is on since you have power.
Have you tried just the CPU (i.e. nothing plugged in but power and CPU)
If you can't get any beeps out of the board at all, I'd be leaning towards a faulty CPU / Mobo as every ATX motherboard I have encountered emits some kind of error code, visual (status LED) or audible.

If that gets you a beep, try the RAM, and make sure to check the manual for the recommended slot/bank if you aren't filling all of the slots.

If that 'seems' to boot, still leave the GFX out and try plugging in a pair of headphones in to the green socket on the onboard sound. I *think* it should boot without GFX, but I'm not sure, as some boards I have here do, and some don't. IIRC, default BIOS configurations for ASUS boards have the POST speech reporting switched on by default, so that might give you some extra clues if the board is getting that far.

It's been my experience that in order to boot you need at least these items plugged into the motherboard:

power (obviously)
CPU (make sure you didn't just slip the pins into the socket without raising the lever first, I've done that once and was very lucky the pins didn't get bent)
RAM
video card

I would have to agree with others here, though. Most likely the board doesn't like your PCI video card and won't run without a PCI-Express one.

I had the exact same problem at the beginning of the year. No display, no nothing, and no beeping. Got my new 6800 so that ruled out the GFX card, took my RAM out with no beeps so that ruled that out, tried another mothboard as we have a few lying around and it wasnt that. Turned out to be a b0rked CPU, just my luck i lost the receipt so had to buy another one (would of still been under warranty).

My guess is that it will be the CPU, but if you can then mix and match a few hardware parts to try and rule things out.

Is your motherboard definately getting power? Northbride fans/fans on mobo headers are spinning?

Got a mate that was running a PCI GFX card on his board while his 7800 was away on a RMA and he had no problems at all, apart from an insanely low FPS. Cant confirm anything, but do you have to tell your BIOS that your outputting the image via the PCI rather than the PCI-E?

hey but i like took out the ram, outta the mobo.. and it didnt beep or anything...

i dont get it..
and pci card? ok i guess ill go buy one to test it...

Quote from noob4ever :

hey but i like took out the ram, outta the mobo.. and it didnt beep or anything...

i dont get it..
and pci card? ok i guess ill go buy one to test it...

No a PCI-e Card not a PCI card, these are totally different cards.

Yea definately sounds like a graphic card issue, had similar once myself. I got power and everything seemed normal for few seconds but display was just black and nothing happened. Found out that graphics card wasn't compatible with the mobo.

And like Fordman said, PCI-E graphic card not PCI, these are totally different things

Quote from Sracer :

Yea definately sounds like a graphic card issue

If it was the GFX card when he took the RAM out the board would beep. Something connecting to the RAM is borked if the board didnt detect the RAM had been removed.

It doesn't even check the RAM when no GFX board is there. The BIOS starts the GFX bios as one of the first things. Even before it checks for RAM. (afaik)
That is this way because the BIOS would like to output the result of the RAM check on a monitor.

Vain

Actually, a whole assload of stuff is checked before GFX including some basic ram tests (addresing stuffs, which would fail if there was no ram), chipset and bus initialization.

Then the GFX is initialized, and the full ram test executes, amongst a ton of other stuff, but the board should almost definitely beep on failure of ram, GFX or no GFX.

Also, I've done a bit of digging through the A8N Sli manual; It DOES support PCI graphics cards, as long as the graphics card can either operate on a shared IRQ, or do not require an IRQ.

In addition to that, my memory served me well when I wrote my last post, because the POST speech reporter is active by default. It should tell you what is wrong, even without a CPU. As mentioned afore, try plugging a set of headphones in to the green headphone jack of the onbooard sound and see what it tells you. If it doesn't say anything, it could be a faulty motherboard.