Hi, can anyone help me with my problem? I have just tried to rebuild my 3220 pc, which was given to me by a friend, he said it was dead & would I like it to play with. I have replaced the power supply, added an extra case fan, a working HDD, 512mb DDR memo, all parts come alive on switching on machine, even the mobo power light. My problem is that there is no video whatsoever, not even a BIOS screen. I have connected my monitor to the onboard video connector, & also tried a PCI graphics card, but alas still nothing to see but a blank screen. I have also tried two different CPU's, the original 2.8 Celeron & another working 1.7 Celeron, taken from another machine I have been working on. Anyone who can help me before I lose the will to live, I would be most grateful.

The problem is not likely with the video. People just assume that because everything else 'seems' to be working. But LEDs can flash, fans run and drives spin even if the problem is with the motherboard or PSU. Disconnect all the cards except video and all the drives. Does it work now? If so, the problem is with something you disconnected. Do you get any beeps when starting it up? If it doesn't work then the motherboard is probably bad. You've replaced the CPU and power supply. If that was done correctly then the problem is not with them. The motherboard is the only thing left.

emachines systems have a reputation of using el-cheapo power supplies in their systems that tend to malfunction and fail a lot more often than average, and when they DO fail, they are a lot more likely than average to damage something else while failing, often the mboard. This is especially likely if the make of the PS is BESTEC. There was a successful class action suit against emachines in the US not all that long ago regarding problems mostly caused by those el-cheapo power supplies! If the original PS is a BESTEC, it's quite likely it damaged the mboard!

Thank you for your rapid response to my help message, I had some memory hanging around & as a last resort I swapped them out & BINGO, now have working pc. Thank you once again for you help much appreciated.

You should have mentioned in your first post that you installed memory that wasn't in it before. The ram has to be compatible with the mboard's chipset, or on recent mboards, compatible with the memory controller built into the cpu.. In the worst cases of incompatibility, the mboard WILL NOT BOOT when the incompatible ram is installed. Actual BAD ram is extremely rare. 99% or more of the time, if a mboard won't boot when certain ram is installed, it's either incomptible with the mboard's chipset, or it has a poor connection in the ram slots, or the ram is not seated properly. There's probably nothing wrong with the ram that was in it and it will work fine in a mboard it is compatible with. ........... If you DO have a BESTEC power supply, if I were you I would gtet rid of it.