Black screen instead of booting

Question

I've got a strange computer problem and don't know how to start debugging.

When I switch on my computer, usually it shows the BIOS boot screen. But lately, sometimes it just shows a black screen, and not even the beep noise is coming up.
Just nothing. Although all the lights are on, all components obviously have power.

It's a quite new homebrew PC:

• Asus P8P67-M mainboard
• Intel Core i7 CPU
• 32G DDRam from GEIL
• XFX Radeon HD5750
• Intel Postville SSD

Since no system sound is played, I got no idea which component to check for problems. I already had memory testing running, but it found nothing.

Answer 1

You'll probably want to check your motherboard documentation for diagnostic LEDs on the mainboard. They usually let you diagnose many early boot problems.

based on what you say, that can be anything from bad contact / incompatible processor / RAM, to VGA card initialization. All of that can happen with homebrew PCs.

Good luck.

Note that some high-end motherboards send an output to speakers instead of lighting LEDs.