Upgrade to Sapphire Nitro r9 390, no display signal from motherboard

skyguy41 · Nov 17, 2015

Hi folks! Would anyone be willing to help me troubleshoot my new video card upgrade? I had a Sapphire Radeon HD 6870 in my build and today I tried to replace it with a Sapphire Nitro R9 390. With the new card in my system, I can't get any DVI display output from the motherboard.

- removed 6870
- uninstalled AMD catalyst drivers via windows add/remove programs
- (carefully) removed backplate on new 390 so it would fit under my WLAN card in the slot above. Yes, the ~3 millimeters made the difference, and there's no contact with the other component.
- physically installed new 390: seated firmly in PCIe slot, two 6+2 pin leads firmly attached
- boot up with monitor connected to motherboard DVI output, no display signal, but the 390's fans are spinning and the system responds to keyboard commands after booting up despite lack of display signal
- power down, removed the new 390
- boot up with monitor attached to motherboard and no external video card, works fine.
- power down, re-insert old 6870 in same slot with monitor attached to motherboard, works fine.

The rest of the build -
ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 LGA 1155 motherboard
Corsair HX650 650W ATX12V PSU
Intel i5-2500k Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz
4x 4GB DDR3 RAM
Windows 7 64

Tried this several times and I find it strange that I get no display signal from the motherboard DVI output if and only if the new 390 is physically installed.

Is this likely a lingering display driver issue, and how can I diagnose or address it?
Should I consider a better PSU? The box says 750W minimum, but other resources I've seen suggest 650W is enough so I didn't invest in a new PSU.
How can I be reasonably convinced whether the card is bad?

rujoesmith · Nov 17, 2015

You can only output video from the graphics card OR the motherboard, not both simultaneously.

Edit: some motherboards do support using both the onboard video and video card at the same time. However yours does not.

skyguy41 · Nov 17, 2015

rujoesmith :

Hi, thanks for your reply. There's nothing connected to the graphics card, only to DVI output of the motherboard.

bignastyid · Nov 17, 2015

Did you try with the monitor plugged in to the 390?

rujoesmith · Nov 17, 2015

sorry, I accidentally deleted my answer... Anyway, when a graphics card is inserted, the onboard video is disabled. This is what most motherboards automatically do and is not a defect.

rujoesmith · Nov 17, 2015

From the manual: "IGD Multi-Monitor -- Use this to enable or disable IGD Multi-Monitor by Internal Graphics
Device. The default value is [Enabled]. For Windows® XP / XP 64-bit /VistaTM / VistaTM 64-bit users, if you plan to install the PCI Express graphics card for video output, please set this item to [Disabled] to disable the onboard VGA in advance."

page 62: http://66.226.78.22/downloadsite/Manual/Z68%20Extreme3%20Gen3.pdf

skyguy41 · Nov 17, 2015

rujoesmith :

Hey, thanks for both of your suggestions. There's no signal from the 390 either before trying the below.

What you said about the onboard graphics being disabled made sense. I followed the instructions linked from the z68 manual and set that setting to disabled. Rebooted after inserting the 390 and still no signal from either it or the motherboard DVI output.

Dumb question - am I supposed to install the new display drivers before the card is physically in? Just trying to catch any bad assumptions on my part. Thanks again for your suggestions.

bignastyid · Nov 17, 2015

Usually I remove the old drivers (using ddu) shutdown the system install the new card turn the system back on and install the new drivers. Are you using a different to vga adapter or a straight dvi cable to a dvi monitor?

skyguy41 · Nov 17, 2015

bignastyid :

Acer g235h DVI output - single link DVI-D cable to the motherboard or 390's DVI connector. My impression is single/dual link interface shouldn't matter since I'm using a single link cable, correct? Thanks for your reply.

bignastyid · Nov 17, 2015

That should be fine just wanted to make sure you werent trying to use a dvi to vga adapter. The 390 doesnt support any analog signals. Possible you have a doa card, can you test it in another system?

rujoesmith · Nov 17, 2015

You could try a cmos reset. Just make sure the graphics card is inserted when you do it. Many a time my problems have been fixed this way.

Nlg01 · Nov 17, 2015

I had a similar problem when I upgraded PC from a 5770 to a 7870XT. I solved it by going to the bios with the old card installed and changing the UEFI settings. You may want to give this a try.

skyguy41 · Nov 18, 2015

Nlg01 :

Hey, thanks for your message. Did you have the same motherboard? Any idea which UEFI settings were relevant? I'm not really sure what you're suggesting.

Last night I did run DDU in safe mode which detected and removed the old AMD drivers for the 6870 despite having uninstalled them in Windows as mentioned, but there was no change after that. DDU says only the onboard Intel drivers are left and I think those are supposed to stay.

I'm not able to try the card in another system, but I might have to ask around if I run out of options.

I'm hesitant to reset the cmos because I've never done that before. I understand there's a switch on the back of my motherboard for that - just unplug the power supply and press it? I see various ideas about how long or how many times to press the power/reset cmos buttons to discharge power.

bignastyid · Nov 18, 2015

Resetting bios defaults will just set it back to where it was when you first powered it on. You just need to power the system down(no need to unplug it) press and hold the clr cmos button for a few seconds then turn it back on. You will have to redo a couple basic things like time and date and reload the xmp profile for the memory pretty much same things you did after assembly.

skyguy41 · Nov 18, 2015

Got it, thanks for the details. Used the CMOS switch and that certainly changed some things. Had to look up the AHCI setting to get back to a bootable state. I thought there was some other problem so in the process I ended up doing a system restore which meant my old 6870 drivers were present again. Reran DDU to remove them. Went back into bios and disabled the IGD multi monitor setting again.

Now I'm back where I was and get no video output from either the 390 nor the motherboard while the 390 is physically installed.

I did do some more reading and found people have issues with the asrock z68 extreme3 gen3 board and some newer GPUs. However this persons problem is slightly different in that I think they said they did get output from the motherboard:
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2432814/z68-extreme3-gen3-recognizing-290-gpu.html
How can I find out whether the two are incompatible? Are there any other plausible explanations?

bignastyid · Nov 18, 2015

Have you updated the bios? The last two bios revs show updates for vga compatibility.
http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z68%20Extreme3%20Gen3/?cat=Download&os=BIOS

skyguy41 · Nov 18, 2015

bignastyid :

Let me know if I'm simplifying too much what's in here, but the indication seems to be that would be a bad idea with my Sandy Bridge processor on this motherboard: http://forums.tweaktown.com/asrock/54789-asrock-z68-extreme3-gen3-bios-update-questions.html

Assuming the GPU is good, it's kind of looking like a new motherboard and CPU at this point if I want to use the 390? Any suggestions?

Nlg01 · Nov 18, 2015

In your bios under boot settings, what is your PCI ROM priority? Legacy or EFI?

bignastyid · Nov 18, 2015

skyguy41 :

Read the 2nd post in this link.
http://forums.tweaktown.com/asrock/53784-important-bios-update-information-asrock-intel-6-series-x79-chipset-mother-boards.html
It seems the issues were caused by taking the flash drive out early.

skyguy41 · Nov 18, 2015

Nlg01 :

Hey, thanks for your response. It says Legacy. I'll have to read up on that setting, but what would you recommend I do?

Nlg01 · Nov 18, 2015

change to EFI, save and exit. Then install the 390 and boot.

skyguy41 · Nov 18, 2015

bignastyid :

Thanks for looking into that (big) thread with me - what did you think of the part in the first post, though? I thought it was a clear warning not to upgrade with a Sandy Bridge CPU:

The problem is this: If you use a Sandy Bridge (2nd Generation Intel Core Processor) CPU in your board, and do not plan on changing to an Ivy Bridge (3rd Generation Intel Core Processor) CPU, but update your BIOS/UEFI to the version that provides support for Ivy Bridge/Intel 3rd Generation CPUs, your PC will experience issues after the update. If you are NOT planning on changing your Sandy Bridge processor to an Ivy Bridge processor, DO NOT USE THIS BIOS UPDATE!

Hey Nlg01 -

change to EFI, save and exit. Then install the 390 and boot.

Thanks for following up and the suggestion. I tried saving the PCI ROM Priority to EFI and was able to boot to windows normally. I powered down, installed the 390 and booted back up. Still no change to my lack of signal.

I've also tried swapping out the power cable from my PSU to the 390, still no luck.

bignastyid · Nov 18, 2015

The problem the bios was causing with the Sandy bridge chips was due to the Intel ime firmware not being updated. The firmware doesn't update til after the system reboots and people were taking the flash drive out before it could update and the new bios needs the updated firmware to work properly with Sandy bridge but would work with ivy bridge without it. It looked to me like either the instructions for flashing the bios was unclear or people were not following the correct steps. As long as you follow the correct steps (in the link) you should be fine.

skyguy41 · Nov 18, 2015

bignastyid :

Oh, thanks for elaborating - I'm glad that you explained. I didn't read the second post as carefully after I read that initial part. I think that's worth trying then. I'll have a go at it and let you know what happens.

Upgrade to Sapphire Nitro r9 390, no display signal from motherboard

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