[TwoBah]

Pretty much what the title says. Its been a few years since I last built a PC (close to 10), so I did a bunch of research. Here are the conclusions I came up with (These are my preconceived notions; if they are wrong let me know please):

~Graphics cards will work with any motherboard.
~I wanted to use Linux and heard that AMD and nVidia are well supported whereas their rivals Intel and ATI aren't as much.
~I found very few motherboards that supported AMD and didn't have an ATI Radeon chip set. The ASRock K10N780SliX3-wifi looked to be the best when it came to PCIe ports and Memory support and being a reputable brand. (If anyone knows a more reputable brand that has similar specs and may have less issues please let me know.)
~BIOs's are dangerous to update and should only be updated when absolutely necessary. The BIOs I have for my motherboard is 1.40 whereas the most up to date (1.50) is described as "Patch Logitech USB illuminated Keyboard (LZ838BH)." so I am hesitant to update.
~I will be using this computer for audio recording and video/3D animation editing, so performance and quiet are good. With this in mind I purchased the Nexus 850 Watt silent power supply. I know the wattage is overkill right now, but I wanted to be higher than lower so I can expand in the next few years and being 80% efficient at all loads, I figured its safer to go over than under.

Ok, hopefully that has shed some light on how I got into my predicament.

The predicament:
I bought the parts, hooked them up, hit the power button and every thing whirred to life. The motherboard made a very quick double beep (onomatopoetic-aly: beedeep), then beeped quickly (~4/second) 8 times, then waited a long while (variable wait time) then beeped once. I quickly noticed that I was not getting any picture. I Googled the ASRock beep codes on my old system and found that 8 beeps is a video card issue. I called ASRock tech support and they said ask the retailer. Newegg said they don't offer any tech help call ASRock. I called them back, they said it was probably the video card. I called EVGA, they said it was the motherboard. I found another video card I had (a Zotac nVidia GeForce 8400gs) and tried it out. I get video output from the Zotac with it in the second PCIe slot with the EVGA in the primary slot. The EVGA card BIOs is up to date, and, as I said above, the motherboard bios is one down from the latest and that is described as only adding support for a keyboard, so I am hesitant to update unless I can find its needed, specially as the ASRock BIOs utilities are all for Windows and I am using Linux, and have no floppy drive and am unsure what letter my DVD drive ended up with.

What is the best way to solve this problem? Has anyone ever had a problem like this before (the techs at both ASRock and EVGA said they have never seen a problem like this in their entire history of working with computers)?

I would like to preemptively thank anyone who lends me their aid. Thanks.


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System Info (I don't know what is causing the problem, so I don't know what isn't):
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Motherboard: ASRock K10N780SliX3-wifi (I am not using the wifi and have removed the bundled card. I have a standard wired Ethernet connection and am using the wifi/usb header to run the card reader.)
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CPU: AMD Phenom II x4 940
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CPU Cooler: stock
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Memory: 4x Patriot 2GB PC2-8500 1066MHz 5-5-5-15
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Graphics: ZOTAC 188-03N01-00FTZ (nVidia GeForce 8400 GS chip) (PCIe) (Downloading the drivers in Ubuntu Studio causes the X server to not load, and the GUI to fail. I don't know if that means anything.)
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Graphics: EVGA 01G-P3-1287-AR (nVidia GTX 285 chip) (PCIe) (no video output when computer tries to boot, see first section of post)
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HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB WD1001FALS
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Sound: on board sound (working). Echo Gina 3G internal card/external box for recording (PCI) (not working as of yet, another problem for another post)
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Optical: LiteOn DVR-IHAS422-08 LiteScribe compatible DVD burner
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Multi-purpose Card Reader: I/O Flex IO-RCM620 3.5" internal card reader/writer (USB header, working)
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Case: Cooler Master HAF
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Overclocking: None. I've never overclocked before, not sure if I ever will, and definitely want everything working before I start to get fancy with the hardware tricks.

Edited by TwoBah, 17 March 2009 - 09:19 AM.

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Is it possible that I just received a faulty graphics card and I should swap it out? If anyone thinks that's the case, please let me know. I don't have much time left for the return policy. Thank you for your help.

[TwoBah]

Is it possible that I just received a faulty graphics card and I should swap it out? If anyone thinks that's the case, please let me know. I don't have much time left for the return policy. Thank you for your help.