Assuming there is nothing wrong with your motherboard should you not be able to get a boot screen with nothing but the motherboard bios? Even if the cpu is not working and the hard drive is not working should not the bios alone give you the initial boot sequence on your monitor? I just installed a replacement motherboard but I get nothing on the screen. The fans and all the leds come on but nothing comes up on the screen. I know the monitor is ok. The hard drive may be faulty but I should still get the basic boot. What about the cpu? If it is bad would that prevent the bios boot?
You need a CPU, if you have a PC speaker hooked up to the MB you should hear a series of beeps telling you what is going on, google bios sound codes and you will know what the motherboard is asking for whether its video card, memory cpu etc. Mike