Help - First Time Builder Having Problems

My son and I are trying to build our first computer together, but we ran into problems right away. Here are the components:

Antec Sonata II Case
Gigabyte M57SLI-S4
AMD A64 X2 3600 (Brisbane)
Corsair 2gig XMS DDR2-675
XFX GeForce 8600 GT
Seagate SATA HD 320
Samsung SATA recordable DVD
Logitech X 710 keyboard and mouse
Vista 32

Everything is installed and appears to be secured in the case properly. When we turn the power on, the motherboard gets power but nothing comes on the screen (no BIOS setup or anything else). It appears almost like no signal is coming from the motherboard or video card.

I know the motherboard is getting power because the CPU fan, the case fan, and the video-card fan all come on when I press the power button.

I tried the monitor (it is a 4 year old Dell LCD) on my old computer and works fine. However, nothing shows on the monitor when it is plugged in to the new build computer.

Any ideas? What should I look for first? Any troubleshooting guide online that anyone can suggest?

I don't have another computer that I can check the video card with.

Also, although I have read that the motherboard has various beep codes for certain errors, the motherboard appears silent and has given me no error beeps, so I'm at a loss as to where to start with the troubleshooting.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Heck, don't turn on a mobo that sits on its anti-static bag. Only the paper cardbox. The back of it or a cardbox insert from the box.

Building & testing the barebone out of the case is the 1st thing I do. If something is DOA, I don't have to waste time to remove it from the case.

If mobo's connected to a speaker, there's no beep code when it's on. Maybe it's not working right. Clear cmos as per manual. There should be one short beep at post. Some mobos may not beep at all.

8600gt doesn't have a pci-e power connector:

http://images.google.ca/images?q=8 [...] illa:en-GBfficial&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi

I'd try the other dvi output. Sometimes a dvi-to-vga connecter can be "dead". It doesn't work on every card.

Finally, try each stick of ram in each of the slots.

lol the 4-pin demon claims another victim

awwww how centremental.

none the less their is a four pin CPU plug that need a good plugging and a molex plug for auxillery power.