I am no longer able to get a video signal from my computer after attempting to install a SATA drive.
The machine was working fine with an IDE hard drive and DVD. I put in a sata drive in preparation for installing OpenSUSE 11.0 and was not able to see any video signal, not even from BIOS. There was enough power while in this lack of video state to eject the DVD. Video did not return after the sata drive was unplugged nor after all drives were unplugged.
It is an Asus Crossfire capable AM2 motherboard with a blackbox 5000+ Athlon X2 cpu, 4 Gb RAM (2 @ 2 Gb DDR2-800) and a Radeon HD2600PRO video card. I’m using DVI currently with the video. It has a good quality 350W power supply and I suspect (hope) that I fried something in the power supply when the sata drive was added to the power draw.
The drive bay area was crowded and it took a little effort to squeeze the sata drive in. Not as much force as is required for stubborn DIMMs, but in retrospect I think next time I will unplug stuff instead of squeezing a drive in.
Two things I am thinking to try are to put in an available high quality 450W power supply and to see if there is VGA video signal. I don’t have on hand a spare mobo or cpu to test those components. If swapping the power supply and the video line does not answer my question (of what is wrong) what are some other things to try? What does it sound like I did?
Thanks!