Help! NO Vga at all on boot

[kablammo1961]

oh man. I had a bad memory stick on my box. I bought a new PNY DDR400 512 mb, a new fan/heatsink, and arctic silver thermal paste.

When restarted after all the assembly done, PSU turns on by switch, reset seems to work, but no video siignal at all. I did reset the cMOS with the jumper before powering up. Any suggestions? I am freaking out after having dropped 900$ to end up with a super expensive paperweight?

p4 3.0e prescott w HT
ECS 848P-a rev 2.0 mobo
MGE vigor 400w PSU (I know it sux)
brand new aTI Radeon 9800 pro 128
Creative labs audigy zS
DVD burner
CD burner
Hitachi 200Gbyte hDD (ATA100)

dangit, it was running, just erroring out from mem before. Now no video signal at all.
I did take the whole mobo out to install new heatsink, had adapter bracket thingie

HELP!

 

[darkpark]

hmmm... did you check that everthing is seated nice and tight? (memory, cpu, vga cable)
also, are you getting any beeps when it posts?

 

[kablammo1961]

no beeps, no nuthin, all fans on, HDD spins up

 

[kablammo1961]

bump

I am gonna take it all apart and try again. Maybe thermal paste got somewhere it shouldnt have. oh man, soooo, bumming. Took a day off to fix my box and have a EQ2 marathon, now this..depressing. Took it all apart before already, once more into the breach?

 

[primea]

try to put it together outside the case ... check to see if it will post ... just CPU, mobo, RAM and video card ...

 

[kablammo1961]

used different PSU, and tried original and then a different video card (had a reg PCI Cougar Maxi gamer 3d), hooked up w only mouse/kybd/psu/RAM/video, speaker and power switch on table, PSU turns on hS/FAN spinning, no beeps, no sign of POST, no video at all. tried old mem stick too, no go

Mayybe put old HS/fan back on?

 

[kablammo1961]

Replaced original Intel HS...pOSTS like a champ

 

[kablammo1961]

Reinstalled AERO COOL HS, failed again

Reinstalled original INTEL heatsink/FAN...posts good again

Unbelievable. I had to confirm it cause I couldnt believe it. I thought maybe because I i cleaned up excess Arctic Silver thermal paste, and a fingerprint off mobo PCB, that was the cause. But NOPE, its the damn heatsink.

Only thing I can figure after closer inspection, is that that the crossbar metal support on the bottom has a pad, with rubber and what looks like teflon cover was punctured by the extreme inner pins of the CPU backside pins. Maybe shorting or something stupid, anyways, going back together YAY

I am sooo gonna have a Kitten all over COMPUSA