I have an odd scenario and I'm having trouble figuring out which is the faulty component.

First of all, the video doesn't work, monitor says it's not getting a signal. Monitor's not faulty (works on other computer) so the first suspect was video card.

However 2 things make me think it's not the video card. (Don't have another machine with PCIe around to test definitively) First, the GPU fan is spinning so it's getting power. Second, tried putting in an older PCI video card that is known to be working (pulled out of another working machine) and there's still no video.

Normally if it's not the video card I'd suspect the motherboard, but everything's getting power on the mobo, so I'm not sure. The case apparently doesn't have system speakers, so can't hear any of the diagnostic beeps either.

Also not sure whether a faulty CPU would cause no image at all either.

The parts are brand new so something's going to get RMA'd but I'm not sure which component is to blame in this case.

(Only slightly related, but I also accidentally put too much thermal paste on the CPU. The fan/heatsink instructions said to put the whole tube which seemed like a lot compared to previous experience, and as I started squeezing I knew it was definitely too much and stopped at about 1/3 but against my better judgement I didn't wipe any off. I'm not sure whether that would cause problems other than not cooling as effectively as it should)