Hi i recently bought a few new things for my pc, more ram, a new HD and a ATI 9800 card. There is no problem with the ram or HD but when i plug the GFX card in my monitor won't work, the computer goes through its boot sequence but the monitor stays in standby mode(it turns on for a secound after you turn the pc on but doesn't display anything) I have tried my old card with my new hardware and it works, so the problem probably lies in the card. My mother board as build in ATI 9100 graphics and I thought that could have been a problem except i have been running a 9250 in the AGP slot for a while now (although i did have some issues with the monitor turning off and system freezing in middle of some games). I have not turned off on board gfx cause i don't know how, my mother board manual doesn't mention anything about jumpers to turn it off and i can't find the bios setting.

There should be a setting in the bios somewhere that says "graphics boot from" "initialise display first" [AGP/PCI/ONBOARD] or something similar.

I had a look but i can't see it, The advanced chipset menu was the only thing that mentioned any graphics stuff, the graphis options where AGP aperture size (64, don't know what this means), display devices(monitor only) and tv format

Look in the 'Integrated Peripherals window. It might be labeled something like 'Init first' (AGP or PCI display).

ok i will do that soon although i'm not entirly sure that is the problem seeing how i can get it to work with my 9250 agp card. Anyway i have some extra info now, when starting with 9250 in agp and monitor in integrated graphics port no display but i can hear boot sequence and hd detection, but when the 9800 is in no display and i hear the first part of boot sequence but not the detection of HD's, so it must be stopping for somereason before it detects HD's. Also just extra info that u prolly allready know but when the monitor cable is unplugged the screens green light is on and a message saying no signal is displayed, when it is plugged in the monitor goes into standby (orange light), when it usually starts up it will start from orange and then go green and start displaying when it gets to the part where it detects HD's

Yeah i just changed the 'Init first' (AGP or PCI display). it was on pci i changed to AGP but it didn't make a difference it is still in standby mode, also i tried the integrated port with nothing in the agp and it displays straight away.

I feel like an idiot!! I fixed the problem, see i have never had a video card that requires external power as well so i didn't realise until just now that that is what my problem was, well thanks for the help anyway.