So, this is my second home built system. My first worked for 3 or 4 years before my RAIDmax pooped out and I got a macbook. However, with some new exciting games coming out, I wanted to get back on the PC (tired of playing WoW).

Here are the original system specs...

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* 1 x ASUS TA-853 (generic) Black/ White Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 350W Power Supply
* 1 x Nippon Labs 4-Pin PC power to 2 x SATA Converter Cables Model POW-SATA-2
* 1 x ASUS P5N-MX LGA 775 NVIDIA GeForce 7050 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
* 1 x ASUS EN8500GT TOP/HTP/256M GeForce 8500GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready Video Card
* 1 x Intel Core 2 Duo E4600 Allendale 2.4GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80557E4600
* 1 x G.SKILL 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5S-2GBPQ
* 1 x Western Digital Caviar SE WD3200AAJS 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
* 1 x Acer AL1916WAbd Black 19" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor
* 1 x PHILIPS 20X DVD±R DVD Burner Black SATA Model SPD2513BM/17

You're probably saying, "Why the MicroATX?" I don't know honestly, I didn't need many slots or anything just the pcie slot & the price was right.

Hooked it all in, went for the first power up, which usually goes wrong because I miss a power cord or something - BOOM IT POWERS UP! I'm pretty happy with myself at this point, and I go to turn on the monitor - no video signal. turn it off and on a few times, check all the connections - it's all there, but nothing is working. I take out the video card - put the vga cable in the monitor, switch it to the onboard and still nothing. So, I reseat the RAM, and it powers on. NOW IM EXCITED!!!! Video signal and everything. I install xp, blah blah blah, then I put my video card back in. no video signal. I take it back out, no video signal, I reseat the ram - no video signal. Every fan comes on, and the LED on the case, the hard drive spins, the cd rom spins.

For some reason, I decide it's one of three things at this point without thinking through it. Mobo, RAM, Vid Card. I throw the video card in my gf's computer, and it comes up. Keep in mind, her computer is using a pcie card, and she has a 305 watt PSu, so at this point I'm really not thinking that is the issue. So... we come back to the MicroATX Mobo, and I'm thinking - well if I decide I need some more slots or something later, I guess I will just grab a new full size mobo and eliminate that problem.

ENTER:
1 x ASUS P5K SE EPU LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard

Put this in last night. Same problem. So I start reading some stuff, and now I feel like it could be the RAM - luckily I have a friend coming over tonight to test out his RAM which should be compatible on my board (my gf's ram was pc4200, I think a little too old) so I can test that out. If that is not the issue, what's the next step? CPU? PSu? I've taken the battery out and reset the CTRAM, reset the jumpers here and there, and nothing seems to work and I'm really beginning to get frustrated as I've had this computer in my house built and all but working for over a week now.

I think you're right about needing to check with different RAM.
Or with 1 stick of RAM, then test with the other if the first didnt work.
It could be just 1 bad stick of the two you have.

Your power supply should have at least 18 amps on the 12v rails. Check the label please.
If you are using the PCI-E card, you should disable onboard video.

You may need to set the voltage in the bios for the memory you are using.

Your GSkil F2-6400CL5S-2GBPQ RAM is 1.8-1.9V so its not likely a RAM voltage issue. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] CL5S-2GBPQ

plug into the onboard video, restart

go into bios, change default video to PCI-E, hit F10 to save changes and exit, BUT pull the video cable from onboard to the vid card before you hit enter.

Hit enter. it should restart and show video now. if it doesn't, listen to hear if it sounds like it's booting to Windows (you hear the hd clicking, maybe even hear the windows bootup thing, if you have speakers)

The onboard video doesn't work anymore because the new mobo doesn't have onboard video so I can't change anything in the bios besides just resetting it. i will have to check the power supply stuff... and it is 1 stick of 2gb ram, even though i thought i was buying 2 sticks of 1 gb ram, which i would much prefer. I forgot to mention this though...

The keyboard - USB, lights up on the powerup and then doesn't respond - can't hit numlock and make the light come on or anything. the hard drive light also stays red the whole time - and I don't hear any beeps although the speaker is hooked up as far as i can tell, but I wouldn't count on it, there's no 4 pin in a row speaker plug...

I'm looking at a picture of it online and it seems to have 18a on the 12v rails.

So just to reiterate - Once I took the video card back out and hooked it back up to the onboard video, there was STILL no video signal - even after reseating the RAM - no video signal for any kind of configuration.

also - thanks for the replies so fast - has been really helpful.

UPDATE - even though no one is responding...

went and bought a new power supply, installed it - however now instead of booting up and showing no video, the computer powers on and then powers off immediately - at this point i have not had a chance to go in and replace anything in the **** bios, plz don't say "go change this in your bios"

I went and got some silver thermal compound thinking it was the processor not heating up well enough, or the computer shutting down due to heat. I've reset the cmos - plugged the cpu fan into cha fan, nothing - it comes up for an even less amount of time.