One Beep, Three Beeps; Is my video card FUBAR?

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Triblendlightning

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Dec 28, 2015
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So, I just purchased this new graphics card from Newegg and when I plugged it into my PC and turned my PC on all I get is the HP start screen for 5 seconds before the whole monitor freezes. About 30 seconds in I get one long beep and three short beeps.

Now I know this means that there is a graphics card error, and usually leads to one of three possibilities:

Not enough power from the PSU: The graphics card I just bought suggests a 400W power supply, so I upgraded my PSU from a 300w to a 650w about a month ago. So, this should work.

Bad PCIe x16 Slot: After getting these beeps, I took the new GPU out and placed the old one in again and the system worked nearly perfectly, so I feel like this isn't probably the case.

Graphics card FUBAR: Well, I don't have a friends PC that I can test this out on because most of my PC comrades live far away or have store-bought PCs that they won't modify. So... could it be messed up?

Old Graphics Card: Radeon 7450 (1GB Ram) With PCIe x16 Slot

New Graphics Card: Gigabyte Geforce GTX 970 Mini

The power supply is an EVGA 650w, and the motherboard, although old, shouldn't have a messed up slot or anything. I'm running an HP PC, but It has a v7.16 BIOS which means that I don't believe it has that whole HP hardware protection BS.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!
 
Solution
J
If HP has 'limited' the upgradibility of the system, short of a new system there is not much you can do.
A search of HP's Support forums, or possibly other PC forums with the model number of your PC may provide more info,
not all their PC's are manufactured this way, but it is something to be aware of if your graphic card doesn't seem to work
when there seems to be no logical reason why.
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maxalge

maxalge

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May 31, 2012
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go into the bios, under the security tab or boot tab you should find something called secure boot or UEFI

disable that and set to legacy mode
 
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Shaun o

Shaun o

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Ok you have gone from a 7450 Ati card to a GTX 970 card.

So well go through the checks.
First of all, the 7450 card probably did not require any sort of extra power feed direct from the power supply unit to the card.
But the GTX 970 likely does require the 12v Pci-e extra power to the card.

So i take it you have connected those.

The next point is what we call the 12v E-atx power block from the PSU to the motherboard.
This can be four or a eight pin block found on your psu, you must make sure this is also connected to your motherboard.
The connection on your board will be found near or around your cpu socket on the motherboard, or sitting just behind the main I/O ports of the motherboard towards the back.

Or the block can be found at the top edge of the motherboard.
If you fail to connect this it can often lead to the bios beep error code of the graphics card not being detected in the Pci-e slot of the motherboard. One long, and three short beeps.
So you must check if it is connected from the Psu to your motherboard.
As well as the required 12v Pci-e six or eight pin power blocks direct from the Psu to the Gtx 970 card.

If both are connected. Then you should get the single bios beep to say everything tested and passed ok.
please do check for that extra four or eight pin power block required.

It is often the cause as to the one long beep and three short bios error message.
Insufficient power.

 
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jimpz

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Do what Shaun o says, if that doesn't work, there is one other possibility, HP & some other OEM's in some of their PC's have limited what graphic cards can be installed - in their reasoning to 'protect' the PC, they don't, their reasoning is people won't 'properly ' upgrade PC's - in reality they are out to sell PC's not have them upgraded. If you search on your HP model#, you may get more info on this PC's upgradibility.
 
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Triblendlightning

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Dec 28, 2015
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Since my other Video card works fine, I believe this luckily shouldn't be the problem.. But I'll open her up and inspect just to see.
 
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Triblendlightning

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Dec 28, 2015
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And what should I be doing if my PC doesn't 'compat' with my new GPU?
 
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jimpz

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If HP has 'limited' the upgradibility of the system, short of a new system there is not much you can do.
A search of HP's Support forums, or possibly other PC forums with the model number of your PC may provide more info,
not all their PC's are manufactured this way, but it is something to be aware of if your graphic card doesn't seem to work
when there seems to be no logical reason why.
 
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