My first time building a box and boo hoo. Bought the below pieces, assembled everything and powered on but nothing displays on my monitor. Everything powers on properly (cpu fan, system fan, HD, CD/DVD, etc.). I thought it was my vid card but I replaced it with a different one and same deal. I also never hear any beeps, I disconnected everything so only CPU and case front panel is powered. I expected to hear beeps related to missing memory, but it never happened. Yes my case speaker is hooked up (I bought one for $2), and all fans spin, CPU heats up, etc. So no video and no beeps, I'm thinking motherboard is DOA?

Another strange thing I noticed - every time I power on, everything (CPU, PSU, HD, etc.) would power on for 2 sec, then shut down for 2 sec, then powers on again and stays on. I searched the forum for this behavior but no luck. Could this be related to any of the problems I have? This happens no matter what i have connected - minimum stuff or with everything like memory, vide card, etc.

Am I correct in that my mobo is DOA? Or is there something else I should try?

Specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6550
GIGABYTE GA-965P-S3 LGA 775 Intel P965
Thermaltake TR2 W0070RUC ATX 430W PSU
G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
WD Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s
SAPPHIRE 100196L Radeon X1950PRO 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express
Rosewill R604-P SL 120mm Fan ATX Mid Tower

have you tried flashing the bios? made sure the aux 4pin cpu power is plugged in?

1. Check the 4/8 pin connector to the mainboard (if this is not in you will get nothing)

2. Is the HSF/CPU seated correctly with thermal paste (if these are not getting proper contact you will get nothing)

3. Try resetting BIOS either by jumper setting or removing BIOS battery (this will restore bios for factory defaults hopfully resolving any bios setting related problem)

4. Make sure additional power connector in plugged into GPU that you are using, without this you may experience no POST.

5. After checking all of these are correct i would power on machine for at least 30secs - 1min with nothing but bare essentials plugged in. If still no POST i would assume DOA

hope this helped

I believe you have a compatability issue. I looked on Gigabyte wedsite, and it has an N/A for 965-S3 and E6550. Need to get a ver 3 of 965-DS3, or better yet get the P35 board; or get a 1066 FSB C2D processor.

thanks RetiredChief, that makes a whole lot of sense now!!! I just assumed it would work, but i guess not.