I have a newbie question here... but a question nonetheless. I am attempting to build my first computer and am having a bit of difficulty. I bought an MSI KT3 Ultra2 motherboard and acquired all the other components (CPU-RAM-HDD-CDROM) to get it up and running. Now.. the motherboard did not come with on board video, but has an AGP slot. I have 2 older PCI video cards and was going to use these. Anyways, I try to boot it up and get nothing. The fans spin, the CD ROM light comes on, the HDD has a little activity.. then nothing. I get no video. (BTW... this is with only the HDD, CD ROM, CPU, RAM, and the video card on the board - No extra components yet.) Do I HAVE to have an AGP video card? And yes.. the RAM is compatible. It's actually listed on the manufacturers list of compatible RAM modules. What does this sound like? Where should I start looking/troubleshooting? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

ALSO... all components, besides the RAM which I do not have the capacity to check, have been tested and work fine.

Well, it's not a RAM issue, and an AGP video card isn't mandatory. But how old are these PCI vid cards?

you may need to enter the system setup (cmos)and select AGP or PCI video from one of the menus. (in your case PCI) Your mainboard manual should have this information in more detail. Good Luck.

To Moto: One video cards is about 2 years old and one is really old (maybe 5 or 6 years old). To Chris: I would love to enter system setup. Except that I have NO VIDEO and would have no idea where to go.

i am having this same problem!!! it is frustrating. i swapped everything from vid card to processor and mem. still no video!!!???? there is only two jumpers on the mainboard also! one to reset bios and other to select fsb speed