Newbie Question

[Neil Jones]

This is my first system build.

All my hardware (ASUS P5KPL-CM motherboard, DVD, RAM, Nvidia Quadro video card, CPU and fan) are installed.

I powered the system up. The fan comes on and the green LED on the motherboard comes on. The monitor is plugged into the VGA port. I'm using a USB mouse. Nothing comes on the monitor. It stays dark.

What is the next step? I tried putting my Windows XP Pro disk in the DVD and this didn't help. I don't get a BIOS message or anything. The monitor stays dark except for the on / off button which shows the monitor has power. I know the monitor is good because I use it everyday.

What am I doing wrong?

 

[tju2an]

Are you sure you have Monitor Power Source connected?
have you inserted the VGA cable into a VGA connection on your Mobo or Video Card?
Have you powered the GPU?

 

[skora]

As Tju2an said, check to make sure the vid cable is in the Quadro. If it is and isn't working, take the Quadro out and plug in the cable to the mobo. You might have to go into the bios and disable the onboard VGA to get the Quadro to work.

 

[Helloworld_98]

have you plugged in the power cable's inside the PC?

 

[Neil Jones]

Hooking direct to the video card worked and I'm now formatting the new hard drive with Windows XP Pro. I figured I would need to use the VGA port as there are no drivers installed for the video card and there is no operating system yet. When you plug a video card in it disables the VGA port?

 

[Paperdoc]

When you plug in a video card. many BIOS's are smart enough to detect that and assume they should shut off their on-board video, since you obviously planned for something different. The BIOS and Windows Install software will deal with the card by default as a plain old VGA card to start. At some point in the Install process Windows looks at the details of all the devices in the system and loads its own version of the correct drivers for them all, including the best driver it has for your card. When done it reboots and you'll usually notice immediately that it changes you screen resolution to what Windows thinks is best.

After Windows is all done, you will have CD-s full of drivers, etc for video and audio cards, motherboard devices, etc., etc. which you should load. Some will be better than the ones Windows had on its own Install Disk. Many people go further and seek from hardware manufacturers' websites the very latest drivers for their components and install them to optimize.