Here are the specs of the PC: Asus P4C800-E Deluxe P4C 2.8 GHz Northwood Antec 430W True Power PSU 2x512 DDR 400 OCZ Gold 128mb Radeon 9800 Pro Audigy 2 ZS 80GB Western Digital IDE HD Sony CD/RW Sony DVD/RW I built the machine and had some problems, so i took it to my friend's. Turned out to be a simple boot order problem and was easily fixed. We installed Win XP on the computer and everything was going fine. I took the PC home, plugged everything in, turned it on, and THE MONITOR WILL NOT COME ON. It stays in the yellow standby mode. To make the steps ive done simpler consider the PC with the problem to be PC-1 and my other PC (working fine) to be PC-2 1. I tried PC-2's monitor in PC-1. It didn't work. 2. I plugged PC-1's monitor into PC-2, it worked. 3. I swapped video cards. PC-1's 128 9800 went into PC-2 and worked fine. PC-2's 256 9800 went into PC-1 and did not work. That is the extent of what I have tried based on what I know. The conclusions i've reached so far is that the problem is not with the monitor or the video card. When I start up PC-1 with either monitor I do not hear any beeps, it seems to be booting up normally to XP, but I just can't see what is happening. Any help would be appreciated.

i know this probably seem's very patronising but you are plugging your monitor cable into the right port on your pc. i ask because i had a friend who upgraded his graphics card and disabled on board graphics. he then moved his pc and plugged his monitor back into the on board port instead of his new g/c port silly boy Athlon xp 2000+ @1.7 pc 2100 256mb ram radeon 8500 win xp home oem several other things new pc on way

Yes, of course. If you could go to this thread, I have some on-going back and forth with the problem: http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?p=3115230#post3115230 I've now narrowed down the problem to the motherboard's ability to interface with the RAM. A possible cause is the BIOS settings. Either that or the MB is completely borked. I'm trying to rest the CMOS again, this time by leaving it off for a few hours. Does anyone recomend I remove the battery to help with the resetting? Thanks, I appreciate it guys.

There should be a jumper setting to reset the CMOS but you'll need the MB handbook to find it - failing that I'd sat popping the battery out for a few seconds should do it - just leaving the system powered off will not. Have you tried restoring the default BIOS settings? At anyrate the fact that the machine seems to power up normally makes me doubt a bios problem. The fact that the monitor stays in standby mode is odd - means its getting no signal at all. In most cases one would at least expect to see BIOS or Graphics Card init messages. Have you tried the card in a different slot? Does the MB have onboard graphics in which case have you tried using that instead?

LOL some of you had good suggestions ... especially Simon hehehe Resetting the CMOS could probably very well solve the problem since I am thinking that somehow the BIOS has it in its own mind that it is going to allow the video card to send a signal to his monitor that was previously "okay" to be sent to his friend's monitor, but obviously (unless the card went bad in transit) there has to be signal going from the card to the monitor otherwise he would get a "no signal" message on the monitor - right?? So if there is signal (a blank screen even a blinking light) but no message, then the problem is a video setting either in Windows (or whatever OS you use), or in the BIOS - change them back to defaults and then you can see again :-) Signalling is a tricky thing. I have had this problem before so I know what I am talking about. Expecting a computer to be able to "cope" equally between the signalling demands of 1 monitor, and another, is unrealistic. Each monitor can auto-adjust its signalling requirements with the video card. This is all what DPMS and DDC1/2b signalling standards along the video cable, pertaining to the monitor and video card are all about! What he needs to do is: 1. go back to his friends house with the computer 2. go into his BIOS, reset any video settings in there to DEFAULTS 3. then boot into Windows while there, change the "monitor" refresh rate to "Adapter default" and make sure his Graphics card is NOT overclocked!!! 4. then power down ... bring it home, then all should be well with his monitor at home.