yes I did try an old pci card which I borrowed from work. It was an Ati mach64 but still no luck in having any video output.
This thread is getting a bit big, not sure this was suggested before, but did you try a different monitor and/or cable ?
And to add to this, I had 1 weird experience myslef with a monitor (TFT) that woukd show a 640*480 and a 1024*768 but not a 800*600 screen, so even if the monitor works on another setup, try another as well
