eVGA 750i FTW Video concerns

[Rommel]

Specs: (all except PSU, Monitor and RAM is new, never used and had to be opened prior to usage)
eVGA 750i FTW Motherboard
Intel Core2 Duo E8400 (Stock speeds)
Mushkin XP Series PC2-8500 DDR2 RAM 2x1GB
Seagate Barracuda 500GB SATAII 32MB Hard Drive
BFG 800W PSU
2 x eVGA 9600GT 512MB KO edition (intended for SLI)
Samsung 22inch LCD 226BW monitor
Gigabyte Aurora Case

Hello all. I recently completed a build and went to POST and noticed that I cannot get a video signal. When I POST, the on-board LEDs read FF (which means Boot) but I cannot get neither a Digital nor Analog (via DVI-VGA dongle) signal. Initially I tested the Video Cards in SLI mode (with the bridge of course) and no luck. I then tried each card seperately and still no signal. In all attempts the power connector is attached from the PSU. The GPU fans spin at proper speeds in all tests.

Tonight I will try another card (ATI 3870) but it seems upon browsing the internet this has occurred to a few individuals without resolve, the most recent posting I found was on June 28th 2008. It seems this affects newer generation cards.

Would a reset of the CMOS assist? Perhaps the RAM?

I had the Motherboard and CPU quickmounted at the store I bought it from and it worked fine for them.

[tzetsin]

of course the very first thing you should notice when booting is the post beep. You say your not getting vidio signal, but didnt mention if you definatly posted or not. If you didnt get the post beep, the first thing i would do is remove EVERYTHING that is non essential, one stick of ram, one vid card, proc, no hard drive no dvd drive, if you can, use a different keyboard and mouse (usb mice and keyboard have been known to screw up the boot process) If you get the post been with none of the other things installed then you can assume its a piece of hardware ruining your boot. and of course after you are down to that bare minimum hardware, reset the cmos by removing the battery and setting the jumper. a good indicator of a failed boot is (of course no post beep) the fans spool up to max but dont slow down after, fans usually speed up to 100% at boot and then slowdown for a noticable difference in noise, they dont spool down on a failed boot. If all that still produces no boot, if you can, use a different video card, pci if you have one.

have you ran this perticular motherboard before? are you 100% sure it works? how about the ram? have you used it before?

If you still cannot post, try using the proc/ram in another board,

dont hesitate to reset the cmos numorous times, sometimes it doesnt go the first time you try it.

[Rommel]

Thanks for the help.

I am strongly leaning towards a failed motherboard. I have tried 4 cards on the board in a variety of combinations from SLI, to single card nVidia in either slot (once for each card), to single card ATI in either slot (once for each card). Nothing.

I then tested both nVidia cards in my main machine and surprise, both of them work without flaw.

I then tested single RAM pieces in a variety of slot combinations (i.e. across all four slots). Nothing again!

Next I tested resetting the CMOS with the reset button multiple times to no avail. I even popped the battery out and let it sit for 10 minutes before trying again. Still no luck.

What I noticed during all of my tests is that FF on the Post LED indicator would always display instantly, including without video cards and RAM on board. I also noticed that the onboard reset button did not work, nor does the pin-head connector for reset.

Tomorrow I am taking full advantage of my instant product replacement at the store and swapping it.

[tzetsin]

that sounds about right. good luck.

[3.0charlie]

Try first a different stick of ram, with a default voltage of 1.8V. Those Mushkin sticks need 2.0V for proper boot.