Either my graphics card or motherboard is toast but I can't sort out which. Help!

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PJLondon

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Jun 22, 2014
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Hello,

I inherited gaming desktop from a friend a while back. Recently, I am no longer getting any display on either my TV or the monitors that I've tested with. The graphics card is a Sapphire HD 4850. When I open it up, I can see the machine fire up per usual, quick red light on the sapphire and even the fan spinning. Problem is, no display. I've swapped out the cables, the VGA-DVI adapter but still no dice. One of my monitors displays a color test when there's nothing connected and that goes away when I connect it to the card. Trouble is that nothing seems to work.

I've also tried re-seating the card and the RAM. To add to this, the on-board VGA doesn't seem to work which led me to think that maybe it was disabled when the card was connected (can't see anything which means that I can check the BIOS).

Am now contemplating buying a new graphics card in the hopes that this is the issue. However, this leads me to a question of (how do I install the drivers if I can't see anything? Would it be worth trying to find the same make/model on Ebay and using that? Its a few years old which means that those are out there, but used/refurb'd.

Any other tricks or hacks that anyone has to work around this are GREATLY appreciated.
 
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lfkfkfkffs

lfkfkfkffs

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If I remember correctly the sapphire 4000 series card if the led gave a quick red flash or stayed red it meant a power issue with the 12v rail. If the card is toast you may want to consider buying something like a cheap r7 250x and then buttering up your toasted card yum,
 
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PJLondon

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Jun 22, 2014
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Thanks for the fast follow up. Quick question. When you say "power issue with the 12v rail", is that the slot on the motherboard or is that on the card itself?
 
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lfkfkfkffs

lfkfkfkffs

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It normally is the power supply not giving enough power on its 12v rail through the pci-e connector. So if you have another power supply I would test it out with that. You can try using a weaker card for the moment that doesn't require that much power also. But I would try a few steps like pushing on the connectors of everything to make sure they are clipped in and snug, remove the video card and use a clean pencil eraser to clean the gold fingers on the card, and then blow on the card slot with either a can of compressed air, or even by being careful with your mouth. If all of that fails try to reset the cmos by taking out the battery for a full minute. If not that would pin point the problem to the power supply.
 
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Y0GI

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I've also tried re-seating the card and the RAM. To add to this, the on-board VGA doesn't seem to work which led me to think that maybe it was disabled when the card was connected (can't see anything which means that I can check the BIOS).
Click to expand...

What mobo/CPU do you have? Does it have integrated GPU? Typically, the IGPU is disabled when a discrete gfx card is installed. If so, uninstall the Sapphire HD 4850. Reboot and enter the BIOS and be sure that IGPU is enabled. Save and exit BIOS. Reboot with monitor connected to the mobo. If this works, you can rule out the mobo as the culprit.

Yogi
 
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PJLondon

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Going to try an answer you both in one follow up. So, this afternoon, I went out and picked up a radeon HD5450. Wasn't terribly expensive and, from what I could tell, was lower power than the Sapphire card. Dropped that in but still no dice. Popped out the CMOS batter for a couple of minutes but that didn't make a difference. Don't have any jumpers around to reset it that way but will track some down tomorrow.

When I fire up the box, two red lights come up on the graphics card and then both go out after a second. On the new card, I tried the DVI and VGA ports but neither work.

@lfk, about the only thing that I haven't done yet is swap the battery, as I would need to buy a new one. Is that common for a battery to be enough to run the board, spinning the multiple fans on the CPU, spin the hard drive and even spin the fan on the graphics card itself but still causing this issue?

@Yogi, here are the specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Socket 775 (3.0GHz) 1333FSB 6MB L2 Cache Retail Boxed Processor
Gigabyte GA-73PVM-S2H GeForce 7100 Socket 775 onboard VGA 8 channel audio mATX Motherboard
Corsair 4GB Kit (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 Memory Non-ECC Unbuffered CL5(5-5-5-18) Heat Spreader Lifetime Warranty
Sapphire HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 Dual DVI TV Out PCI-E Graphics Card

Thanks for all of your input so far and for any thoughts on the above!
 
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PJLondon

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@Yogi, sorry. Forgot to answer your other question. The problem is that I am unable to get a display of any kind which makes getting in to do anything in the BIOS impossible. Thanks.
 
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Y0GI

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I understand.

Have you tried:
Removing the coin battery for a short period, like one minute,
Removing the Sapphire GPU
Connecting the monitor to the mobo's IGPU
Restarting the computer.

Yogi

 
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PJLondon

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@lfk, thanks for that suggestion. Am going to see if I can track down a replacement power supply today to see if that does the trick. Will let you know how it goes.

@Y0gi, I had tried all of those steps w/no success.
 
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PJLondon

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Well, one new CX750M power supply later and the situation is still the same. Definitely getting power to the fans, the HD and even the GPU (fan and two red lights at power on/off), but still no display.

At this point, the only swap, besides the motherboard that I haven't tried is the RAM.

Very frustrated with this, although, to be fair, it was my first crack at swapping out a power supply. Was a good learning experience.

Any thoughts are, as always, genuinely appreciated.
 
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