I decided to clean my heat sync and fans before I attempted to unlock my Athlon to make sure that the cooling I got was sufficient.

I removed all the IDE cables and unplugged all the power cables, took my motherboard out of the case so I could get at things more easily. Then I detached the sync and fan so I could use the vacuum cleaner on them and wiped the old heat sync compound from my processor with cotton Qtipps and rubbing alcohol.

When I came to rebuild the computer I put fresh compound on and put everything back as it was, connected all the cables and try'd to boot up the computer to check the temps but the monitor stayed in standby mode. I’ve try'd a different monitor and no luck.

When i boot up the HDD light comes on for a while then goes off, all the fans spin and it seems as if its booting normally can anyone suggest what might be wrong.

NeedKarma

With no video card installed you have no hope in troubleshooting your problem because you will never get past the monitor/standby issue - that's completely normal for that message to appear if you have no video card installed.

edit: I just noticed you mentioned on-board graphics - d'oh!
Had you possibly disabled that to use an add-in card?

willdud

Nope, i tried using two old AGP graphics cards and neither helped so i'm clueless as to what is wrong once again

NeedKarma

Did you mention if you are able to access the BIOS? Does everything look ok there i.e. you can see all hard drives, settings look correct...?

willdud

I can't see if i can access the BIOS because its before then that the monitor doesnt work.

NeedKarma

God, I can be such an idiot some times. <sigh>
Of course you are correct.

Well trying different video cards would be pointless if the onboard video was not disabled and you can't do that 'cause you can't acess the BIOS so it's looking like chipset (video or other) blown on the mobo.