Hey guys im into my build and im having an issue with my display. Right now im just trying to get the bios to pop up so I can do some configurations but the vid card wont even light the display. The mobo has no onboard serial ports to hook the monitor up to so if the vid card wont light it up im kinda just stuck. Any suggestions?

Vid card: EVGA Geforce 4 7900 GT SLI ready
Monitor: Samsung syncmaster 19" 940b
MOBO DFI lanparty UT nF4 sli-dr expert
CPU" Athalon 64 3700+ San Diego

Simplify the system. Plug nothing into the mobo but power connections, CPU, CPU fan, and the video card. If it still doesn't light up, it's got to be something wrong with the mobo, CPU, Video card, or psu.

"Milk was a bad choice!"

Ive done that...This is the one thing that im nto sure about as it is new to me. This mobo has 2 DVI ports and thats what im plugging into. I dont have a dvi cable so im useing the adapters that came with the vid card atm and plugging the serial cable into the serial port on the display. would that have an effect on this situation?

Edit to last post... The vid card has 2 DVI ports not MOBO.

also this is my first expeariance with PCIe and sli ready components... does it matter which PCIe slot I put the vid card in if im only running one vid card atm?

You should consult your manual for answers to both questions.

"Milk was a bad choice!"

Yes it matters which slot you put the video card in the motherboard but I don't think it matters for which DVI port you use on the video card. As suggested read the manuals of both the video card and motherboard. The adapters should work but get a DVI cable.

LANPARTY UT NF4 SLI-DR Expert
SLI mode
- Use 2 SLI-ready PCI Express x16 graphics cards (use identical cards) on the PCI Express x16 slots.
- Each x16 slot operates at x8 bandwidth. When the graphics cards are connected via the SLI bridge, the total bandwidth of the two graphics cards is x16.
Single VGA mode
- 1 PCI Express graphics card on the PCIE1 slot operates at x16 bandwidth.
- The other PCI Express x16 slot (PCIE4) operates at x2 bandwidth.

Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-SLI
AMD Athlon 64 FX-55
Corsair 512X4 2048mb
2X WD Raptor 74gb 10K
2X 256 6800 GT
Raid-0
WinXP Pro X64

Make sure you have the power cable that attaches to the video card hooked up. A lot of people don't realize that they need to hook straight into the PSU instead of just using the PCI-e slot for power.

GOOGLE IS YOUR FRIEND

Your card takes the funny six-pin power cable to power it, not the PCIe bus, so gometro is right. If your psu doesn't have this dedicated cable you will need to use an adaptor that converts two 4-pin Molex connectors, which is a pain in the ass for cheap psus that only have 4 of those connectors.

Also check your manual to see if your motherboard is properly set up to handle a single-card solution. Some boards like the Gigabyte SLI boards have a chip or a jumper that you need to reverse to toggle between normal and SLI mode.

What is the monitor doing while your computer POSTs? Does it go into power savings or no signal mode, or what?