caraig | Update And Technical Help?

You might be wondering why I'm concerned about all this while my mother is in the hospital. Well, quite frankly, doing this was supposed to get my mind off of these issues for a little while. (Instead my blood pressure shoots up anytime I contemplate cracking open the case to my computer. This is why I have a Mac here, as well.) In addition, Mom is doing well, though we got a miserable surprise today when the doctor announced she was a candidate for the hospital's rehab program. It was "miserable" because Mom just wants to come home and not spend another week in the hospital. Still, she and we kinda think that it might help in the long run, so we'll give it a go for a few days. Maybe it'll help more than her trying to rehabilitate and grow stronger here at home. But I tell you, I think she'll be happier here at home. She's spent way too bloody long in the hospital. So we'll see what happens.

Now, on to the question! Normally, I'm the Computer Faith Healer. If someone asks me to fix a computer, I can pretty much just sit at it and get it working.

This mutant super power fails when it's my own computer in question. Oh, how the mighty are fallen. And my brother thinks I should apply for a job with Geek Squad?

I've finally gotten an upgrade -- motherboard, video card, memory -- together. Now, the moboard, proc, and memory were all tested by the company that sent me this, since I didn't want to be screwed over by companies that send things and fail to do even remotely adequate Q&A. (Such as: the large-print keyboard I tried to order for Mom. Second one received, and keys are out of place. How? Beats the hell-all out of me.)

Anyway. I'm thinking that it should be easy, right? Plug in the IDE cables, the floppy drive cables, power up, ready to rock. Except... no. Of course. Power comes on, drives spin up, fans spin up... monitor gets no signal. No POST. No boot. No CMOS settings, even.

I'm going with a few assumptions here: that the tests they did actually MEANT something and I don't have bum memory; that the processor is likewise not bum; that the motherboard actually works and is set correctly. Considering that the testing they did was signed off on, and I got a motherboard with memory and processor attached, I'm presuming that they tested the lot. I have attempted starting it barebones, with no cards but for the video card. I have fiddled with the chassis switch/lights jumper wires (I can't plug in the power on light lead because the moboard has only two pins and my chassis uses three. WTF happened to standards? However, this shouldn't affect things.) I have pulled the front panel USB leads from the moboard (which had been offenders the last time I had an issue.) The moboard gets power (the CPU fan is plugged into the moboard) and the system gets power, but I can't figure out where the point of failure is.

Can someone give any suggestions as to what I might be missing?