I am setting up a rig for a friend, Abit KN9 Ultra, nV Gforce 7600, 1x512 DDR2 533, 1 DVD-Rom, 1 IDE HDD, 1 FDD.

I clear the post, have video, and it registers the keyboard. When it asks "Boot to CD, press any key..." it flashes the "Detecting hardware" message, then blacks out and nothing loads. My moniter does not go into standby, and it just sits there forever...

Any ideas?

Bump?

Everything seated perfectly? Can you get to the BIOS and check temps and voltages to be sure they're correct?

Yeah. I post, I can get into the bios, I see the DVD-ROM in the bios with the HDD. I have tried a DVD-ROM and a regular CD-ROM, as well as 3 different hard drives......

Since you're losing video... have you checked to make sure you have the correct PCI version for the vid card? Double check that you have the correct voltages for the pci, ram and cpu. Possible to try swapping with another HD to be sure you didn't get a DOA?

Everything is loading with correct settings. I'll double check though. I am used optimized bios settings, and fail safe settings. Tried 3 HDDs like I mentioned before.

If I use another comp to load windows install files to the HDD, and then swapped comps for the install, do you think that would get me into windows set-up?

And I am using a PCI-X 16x card on the PCI-X 16x slot, so it should be fine. It's an nVidia chipset with an nVidia card as well.

::mumbles:: and this is why I switched to ATI......

an optimized bios? try using an official one.

Optimized SETTINGS in the bios.

DO you have another vid card you can test with?

is there onboard video to use? if so, i highly recommend it for this install...[and all future installs]

No onboard video, and no spare vid card I can use easily.

Friend of mine suggested PSU, which makes sense, since that is pretty much the only nessesary part I am re-using from an old build where the mobo died, and it blanks out when it changes video modes.