thank you for the reply, I have managed to get it working by using the geforce 8400 gs and a trick I derived from a blog that suggests waiting for the motherboard to completely power down and the holding the power button switching it on and then releasing the power button after 2 seconds. I have to do this every time I start up the pc though. I have to say in the meantime I re updated the bios and reset cmos. I still can not get it to work with my geforce 6600 gt I think it has a dual gpu. the card works in another box but in mine there is still no visual even though all the lights turn on and the hard drives and there are no warning beeps or anything. with that card i have tried it with minimal components.
any suggestions?