Computer boots, but no display output

[sseyler]

I started up my desktop today, and after about 10 seconds, I got a screen full of short red and white lines. Then the screen flashed and went black. I turned off the computer and rebooted and I get no output. I tried this numerous times after clearing the CMOS and turning off the PSU. Since I got a new 4870 a month ago, I thought it might be the problem, so I replaced my x850 XT and it still doesn't boot.

My guess that it's my motherboard that just died, but if my CPU actually died, would my motherboard give me some sort of no-cpu beep?

The weird thing is, my video card goes through the fan speed revving and goes back to idle during boot, so it seems like it's fine, just there's no display.

System:

CPU: Athlon X2 3600+ brisbane (OC 2.8 GHz 1.425V)
Motherboard: ASUS M2R32-MVP
Mem: 4x1 GB Crucial Ballistix (OC 1142 5-5-5-12 1.9V)
Vid Card: MSI 4870 OC (790 MHz 1100 Mhz)
Sound Card: Creative X-Fi Fatality Champion
HD: 2x250 GB WD Caviar (16MB) in RAID 0

I'm thinking I might just RMA my mobo. This will be the third time I've had reliability issues with ASUS motherboards.

 

[chookman]

What sort of PSU??? could be a power problem

 

[sseyler]

It's a Corsair HX620W. It's been quite faithful to me despite all my overclocking. I'm sure it's not the problem as all of the fans are spinning up and the hard drives are running.

 

[CrAy-Z]

does the computer actually give you a post beep?
do you have a soundcard/speaker setup connected? If so, if you leave it for the normal amount of boot up time do you hear anything to indicate that your OS successfully started? Happenned to a friend not that long ago that his DVI cable just up and died on him - nothing had changed, cable had not been disturbed that he was aware of - thought it was something much more sinister, but a new cable did the trick. Might want to try that first - inexpensive and easy. Failing that (and given the first failure you described) check your display on a different rig, or try a different display on yours. In his case the computer was booting fine, just couldn't see it.

 

[o1die]

Try disconnecting everything except cpu/heatsink, video, and memory. If your board has onboard video, try that instead of your video card.