well this is whats going on. i have no signal from my video card.
video card is working cause i verified it with my other computer.
i assume my motherboard is working cause the cpu fans are turning on and the cd drive light is working.
my monitor is working cause if not i wouldn't write this message.
if someone could please help me out that would be great

The card could be incompatible with the AGP voltage. If your board is AGP 8 it might only use the new voltage alone, whereas mine is backward compatible with AGP 1 (2x) AGP 1.1 (4x) and AGP 2 (8x), all of which different voltages. ATI cards i know are the worst for the incompatability.

Hope that helps

Jake

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Main:
AMD Athlon 2600+ 333Mhz Thoroughbred | 512Mb in 2x 256Mb DaneElec DDR PC2700 | XFX NF2S-ALH with nForce 2 400Pro | Asus GeForce FX5200 128Mb Magic! | Creative 5.1! Live! | Maxtor DM+9 80Gb and Maxtor DM+8 20Gb | LiteON 832S DVD+-R/RW Dual Layer 8x | LiteOn 48x12x48x CD-RW | Full Black server case with 500W PSU | Relisys 17" Monitor | Wireless Optical Mouse | Logitech Surfer | XP Professional SP1

Server: Intel (Oh no!) 2x Pent

You need to give further information about your rig (RAM, HDD).
I recommend you anyway to check RAM, install one DIMM, boot, and so on.
If it still doesn't work, do a clear CMOS to make sure the defaut setup is loaded.

what vid card you are trying would be helpful also.

guys thank you for your help. i found out that it was either a loose cable or my ide hard drive. i had heard the ide hard drives have problems with 2885's but w.e thanks alot and keep posting