Bennett

thank you for the reply, i realised upon reassembling the pc i left out the 4pin system speaker, i plugged it back in and started up without the ram- and then without the ram and graphics card, no beep on all accounts, im guessing its pointing to the motherboard as u mentioned, i also checked the cpu when i reapplied the thermal compound to the heatsink, all pins looked to be intact and had no problems. i have a spare motherboard but it does not cater the needs of a P4 prescott that is more than 3Ghz so i can not be completly sure that trying tha motherboard would rule out any problems. seems im in for some shopping:(