multiple problems with a new graphics card

[dpaulavicius]

hi,
i recently got a new video card: xfx geforce 7900 gt (256 mb, ddr3 memory) and i have no display with it. no visual. i did though, for a short time. but before i say anything else, here are the specifications of my system:
amd athlon 64 3200+ cpu, 1gb ddr sdram (cas latency 2.5), the 7900 gt graphics card, 250 gb seagate harddrive (7200 rpm / 8MB / ATA-100), some old cd drive (no problems with it really), a reliable 480 watt power supply, and the asus "a8n-sli" motherboard.
so, as soon as i got the new video card, i put it in the pci-express slot, the same one i had the previous video card (note: my mobo supports sli and thereby has two pci-express slots), and - no display. i should mention though that the 7900 gt has dual dvi output, while my monitor is vga. but - thankfully the video card came with a dvi-to-vga adapter. the only thing that i did to the computer while waiting for the gfx card to ship was was taking out the hard drive (and i put it right back in).
maybe i should have reset the cmos/rtc before booting up the pc with the new gfx card. anyway, i also got the bios beeps, 6 of them. i dont know exactly what they stand for, cant find a table anywhere, not in the motherboard manual or anywhere online. (my bios is PHEONIX AWARD if that helps).
i called asus and they decided that the problem was with my power supply. the wattage of it was 400, but they thought that the amperage was not up to par (the 7900 gt requires 350 watts and 20A at 12 volts). so i got a 480 watt psu, reset the rtc/cmos and - I HAD DISPLAY. all i had connected at that time was the video card and a keyboard. i immediately powered down the pc and connected the hd and the cd-drive. i still had display, but when the windows screen showed up, the scrolling bar at the bottom was moving HORRIBLY slowly. i powered down the pc, disconnected and reconnected all the devices - same thing. after a few rounds reconecting devices/resetting rtc/cmos, i had no more display, but 4 bios beeps.
again, after some time the bios beeps were gone, but no display.
i then got a very old pci video card and had display with it (note: my motherboard doesn't have integrated graphics controller) and just as i expected, everthing was still very slow, just crawling... i could get into windows, safe mode or normal mode, just everything was moving very slowly, loading incredibly slowly.
an odd thing i noticed is that in the bios it would occasionally say that the cpu is running at ~3850 mhz, while i know for a fact that my cpu's clock speed is only around 2.0 ghz. after a reboot or a clearing of the rtc/cmos the clock speed of the cpu would read 2000 mhz just like its supposed to, but the computer would still behave like a snail.
this is where i am right now.. i have tried different ram modules, i have tried putting them in different slots.. its not the ram, its not the power supply, also probably not the video card, because i DID have display with it, don't know about cpu though, never had problems with it, never touched it after installing it, never messed with it. maybe i need to update my bios? thats unlikely..
i dont have a means of testing out if the gfx card is the problem because i dont have another pc with a pci-express x16 slot. i will try it the gfx card on another computer... soon enough.
could the hard drive be the problem? if so then how can i find out? i know i can do all sorts of tests from a bootable cd, but could i also take another hard drive, reformat it to ntfs (and reformat it on a different computer), then reset the cmos/rtc and plug in this other hard drive, install xp on it..?
another thing i should point out is that i have tried reinstalling windows, and when just after i select either 'repair' option or 'clean' install and the 'copying files' stage is in process, i get copying errors. like.. 'could not copy xxx.sys'. i then have the option of 'retry copying', quitting the installation of the OS, or 'ignore'.
now... i have had this problem.. long time ago. everything was the same. all the described symptoms. i finally gave up and had someone fix the computer. i'm not sure how it was fixed, but i was told that all it took was just clearing the rtc/cmos... which i hadn't done then, but only a million times now.. so that solution is not applicable right now.
thanks to anyone who bothered to read this thread. i wanted to be detailed. please help if you can.
at was with a newer power supply. i really don't believe that the gfx card got 'fried' or anything. it could be a motherboard problem.

 

[o1die]

The 7900gt probably has an extra connection from the power supply. Is it plugged into the card? For the slow symptoms, I would check for trojans or excessive adware. I use spybot and spyblaster to remove junk files and protect my system.

 

[dpaulavicius]

yes it does require a seperate SIX pin power plug, which i have plugged in.
i think i should summarize my problem here so no one would have to read my first crazy-long post and maybe more ppl would help me.
i got the xfx 7900 gt video card and cannot use it because i get no display with it. i did a few times only. currently i use a pci video card while trying to diagnose the problem. also, the whole system runs VERY slowly.. as soon as the os starts loading and all the time from then on. i have cleared the cmos millions of times and have reconnected the devices many times!!

i installed windows on a different hard drive.. and it works much better. fluently, smoothly.. then i put in the 7900 and had no display. i then put back the pci video card, set the video adapter to pci-xpress, then took out the pci card and put in the 7900 gt. no display still, the fan on the card is running.. its alive..
im lost..

 

[o1die]

You may want to try the pci-e card without the hold down screw. Sometimes when you tighten the screw, you force the card slightly out of the graphics slot enough to cause a no post situation. It has happened to me once due to an alignment problem with the case. You can also check for a bios update.

 

[dpaulavicius]

yeah, i always have the screw in... but i don't think that is the issue. now, do u have an idea of how to set the 'primary' video adapter to pci? because its set to pci-e right now and the bios defaults also have pci-e as the main one.

 

[parlee]

do a reformat, or at least get a drivercleaner and delete all video drivers, then get the latest drivers from nvidia, it sounds like its a driver issue

 

[bigsby]

My sister had something like that wrong with her computer... kinda. At first the computer was going uber slow and then after dicking around for a month or so, we somehow fixed it with a mixture of swearing, kicking, resetting the cmos and finding that her hard drive was bad. Went out and bought a new one, cleared the cmos and it ran fine. Her old, dead hard drive became my new toy, then it "accidentally blew up".

 

[dpaulavicius]

well, currently i cannot use the computer... at all. i have no display with no card. because it uses the pci-e as the main video adapter. i dont know how to change that. resetting cmos changes nothing. even if i only have the pci card in, it probably still tries to read the pci-e slot, not the pci.
also, i did install windows successfully on this system, but on a different hard drive and i was surprised that at no point did it ask for the video card drivers or the chipset drivers. it did when i installed windows on the 250 gig HD. what gives?

 

[linux_0]

Sounds like your windoze install is just about trashed but I don't think that's the reason why your PCI-E card isn't working.


Try upgrading the system BIOS. Also try resettings the BIOS to defaults.

Make sure your PCI-E VGA and all your RAM modules are seated properly.

Run memtest86 for 2-5 passes or 8-12 hours ( overnight ) [ use the old PCI VGA ]

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/software/memtest86-ISO-burning-HOWTO-ftopict230767.html



Or if you need to burn it under windows follow these instructions:

Download

http://memtest86.com/memtest86-3.2.iso.zip

+

http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/download/ISORecorderV2RC1.msi

Unzip memtest86 and record the ISO to a CDR with ISORecorder ( you must have XP SP2 ).

http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/HowTo.htm



http://www.kernel.org/pub/dist/knoppix/KNOPPIX_V4.0.2CD-2005-09-23-EN.iso

+

http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/download/ISORecorderV2RC1.msi

Download the 700MB Knoppix disk + ISORecorder, burn the ISO to CDR boot up and see if the system comes up.

You might also want to try removing all other devices from the machine and try with just the PCI-E card.

Good luck :-D

 

[dpaulavicius]

gee, thanks for so much info. i happen to have knoppix lieing around somewhere, dunno if that is the version u were referring to. either way, at this point... I HAVE NO DISPLAY WITH ANY CARD! i did mention this in the last post, but not very clearly. i don't know how to set the primary video adapter to pci without actually seeing what i'm doing and unfortunately i don't have the menus memorized . but maybe someone here on the forums does?

does anyone know how to set the PRIMARY VIDEO ADAPTER to PCI without seeing the menus? any1 know how long to wait before pressing "delete" so i could enter the bios? and which exact keys to press to make all the changes, then save changes and exit the bios?
or.. is there a way to set the adapter thru some jumpers? on the motherboard that is? i don't see how this could happen.. but there has to be a workaround.
unfortunately i don't have another pci-e card..

FYI: my motherboard is ASUS A8N-SLI (and i dont have sli running) and the bios is PHEONIX AWARD. i haven't updated the bios, it's default. and i want to delay updating the bios as much as i can, because if i understand correctly, any interruption of the process of updating the bios results in broken bios, no POST, and probably i would have to either a) buy a new battery (the hard way) b) new motherboard (the expensive way). the 1st option is pricey to probably... am i the only coward when it comes to updating the bios?

 

[linux_0]

gee, thanks for so much info. i happen to have knoppix lieing around somewhere, dunno if that is the version u were referring to. either way, at this point... I HAVE NO DISPLAY WITH ANY CARD! i did mention this in the last post, but not very clearly. i don't know how to set the primary video adapter to pci without actually seeing what i'm doing and unfortunately i don't have the menus memorized . but maybe someone here on the forums does?

does anyone know how to set the PRIMARY VIDEO ADAPTER to PCI without seeing the menus? any1 know how long to wait before pressing "delete" so i could enter the bios? and which exact keys to press to make all the changes, then save changes and exit the bios?
or.. is there a way to set the adapter thru some jumpers? on the motherboard that is? i don't see how this could happen.. but there has to be a workaround.
unfortunately i don't have another pci-e card..

FYI: my motherboard is ASUS A8N-SLI (and i dont have sli running) and the bios is PHEONIX AWARD. i haven't updated the bios, it's default. and i want to delay updating the bios as much as i can, because if i understand correctly, any interruption of the process of updating the bios results in broken bios, no POST, and probably i would have to either a) buy a new battery (the hard way) b) new motherboard (the expensive way). the 1st option is pricey to probably... am i the only coward when it comes to updating the bios?

Ok let's try 2 things:

Uplug everything, PATA IDE drives, SATA IDE drives, front panel connectors including the PWR ON pins, speaker, PCI devices, FDD, mouse and even the keyboard.

Leave the ATX PWR connector ( s ) and the BIOS battery plugged in + one memory stick and use a jumper to momentarily jump the PWR ON pins to turn the system on and see if it helps.


If that doesn't work:

Take the motherboard out of the case put it on a non-conductive surface like cardboard, connect the power + 1 memory stick + the PCI-E VGA and monitor and try it.


It worked for xgeneration66, maybe it will work for you too.

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=1053488#1053488


The idea is to eliminate as many possible causes of problems as possible.

Also check your standoffs to make sure none of them are shorting anything out.


What brand is your PSU btw?

 

[dpaulavicius]

Ok let's try 2 things:

Uplug everything, PATA IDE drives, SATA IDE drives, front panel connectors including the PWR ON pins, speaker, PCI devices, FDD, mouse and even the keyboard.

Leave the ATX PWR connector ( s ) and the BIOS battery plugged in + one memory stick and use a jumper to momentarily jump the PWR ON pins to turn the system on and see if it helps.

hmm.. which jumper r u talking about? there are jumpers to the right of the cmos battery, just below the sata connections, and to the right of the audio ... connections. u meant the one to the right of the cmos battery? here's a picture of my motherboard, if it helps:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1428168&CatId=0
i dont know what the jumpers below the SATA are for...

also, how am i supposed to do this:

"and use a jumper to momentarily jump the PWR ON pins to turn the system on"

?
like... put the jumper (jumper is the plastic 'cap', not the metal pin, right?) where the "PWR ON" connector would be? like so? and that would start the pc?

now,

If that doesn't work:

Take the motherboard out of the case put it on a non-conductive surface like cardboard, connect the power + 1 memory stick + the PCI-E VGA and monitor and try it.


It worked for xgeneration66, maybe it will work for you too.

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=1053488#1053488


The idea is to eliminate as many possible causes of problems as possible.

Also check your standoffs to make sure none of them are shorting anything out.


What brand is your PSU btw?

would this eliminate my case as the cause of the problem? (just curious)

my psu is.. not all that awesome, http://www.pctoys.com/840556021650.html
no specs for it.. unfortunately. here is the previous psu i used:
http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/3343/my400wpsu0ie.jpg

do u think that it was not up to par for the 7900 gt? it did just fine for my previous 6800 gs.

anyways, i'm away from my computer right now, so i'll try all this tommorow.

thx for all the help so far people, especially mr. linux

 

[linux_0]

Your PSU might be the problem here :-(


I would strongly urge you to upgrade to a quality Antec, PC Power and Cooling, OCZ, Seasonic, or Silverstone PSU.

Fortron Source / FSP Group is supposed to be pretty good too and reasonably priced.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103931

The green thingy is the jumper.

The thingy under it is a 2 pin 0.100" IDC header.

You can usually find an usued jumper on some boards if you look closely enough.


If you are comfortable doing this you could use both your new PSU and your old PSU together and see if that helps. Let me know if you want to try this and I will send you instructions.

 

[dpaulavicius]

well, i tried the booting with the jumper and it worked! now i can use a the 32 mb pci card . the pci-e - dunno about that one. also, this time i cleared the cmos by taking out the batter first.. and it DOES NOT say to take out the battery in the manual when clearing cmos.. the memtest... too lazy to run it but i might end up having to. first i'll call asus and cry 'n bitch to them, maybe they can help. so far they haven't been too knowledgeable though and this time probably won't be much different.
also, what did u mean by this?:

If you are comfortable doing this you could use both your new PSU and your old PSU together and see if that helps.

no idea how i could use both psu's together, simultaneously.

 

[linux_0]

well, i tried the booting with the jumper and it worked! now i can use a the 32 mb pci card . the pci-e - dunno about that one. also, this time i cleared the cmos by taking out the batter first.. and it DOES NOT say to take out the battery in the manual when clearing cmos.. the memtest... too lazy to run it but i might end up having to. first i'll call asus and cry 'n bitch to them, maybe they can help. so far they haven't been too knowledgeable though and this time probably won't be much different.
also, what did u mean by this?:

If you are comfortable doing this you could use both your new PSU and your old PSU together and see if that helps.

no idea how i could use both psu's together, simultaneously.


You can use one PSU to power the motherboard and your old 400W PSU to power your drives and your PCI-E VGA card.


If you decide to do this make sure everything is properly grounded and use extreme care hooking everything up.

Ask a qualified electrician to help you if you are not familiar with electronics.

All you have to do is take a paperclip cut the curved top off and stick it into pins 13 and 14

then take the 4pin molex connectors and the 6pin PCI-E connector and route them to your drives and VGA card.

If it still doesn't work try powering the VGA card from the 400W PSU and everything else from the 500W PSU.

 

[dpaulavicius]

well.. first i'll wait 'till i can try out 7900 gt in a different computer. once i do that, if the video card works on the other computer, then i'll blame the motherboard or the psu and try using both psu's.
i like option 2 better, i'll keep the 500 watt psu where it is, only connect the 24-pin mobo connector and the 4-pin 12V, while the 'inferior' 400 watt psu will be sitting outside the case, but plugged in a power outlet and it will power the hard-drive and the 7900 gt, right? except.. i'm still not clear how i'll start the 400 watt psu. do i connect the video card and the hd first and then stick a paperclip into pins 13 and 14 of the MOTHERBOARD 20 pin connector? or do i .. take apart the the psu and look for something in there? sorry for all these questions, but i don't want to destroy any of the components, i've been lucky so far and want to keep it that way .

 

[linux_0]

well.. first i'll wait 'till i can try out 7900 gt in a different computer. once i do that, if the video card works on the other computer, then i'll blame the motherboard or the psu and try using both psu's.
i like option 2 better, i'll keep the 500 watt psu where it is, only connect the 24-pin mobo connector and the 4-pin 12V, while the 'inferior' 400 watt psu will be sitting outside the case, but plugged in a power outlet and it will power the hard-drive and the 7900 gt, right? except.. i'm still not clear how i'll start the 400 watt psu. do i connect the video card and the hd first and then stick a paperclip into pins 13 and 14 of the MOTHERBOARD 20 pin connector? or do i .. take apart the the psu and look for something in there? sorry for all these questions, but i don't want to destroy any of the components, i've been lucky so far and want to keep it that way .

If you jumper 13 + 14 or 14 + 15 that will turn the PSU on.

14 is the PS_ON pin which turns the PSU on when grounded.

On a 24pin ATX connector you need to jumper pins 15 + 16 or 16 + 17

16 is the PS_ON pin

Once you stick the paper clip in there just leave it.

If you need to power down just unplug the 400W PSU.



I would recommend an Antec TPII 550W if you can afford one tho.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103931

 

[mad_fitzy]

That slow loading bar while windows was loading was just because the drivers werent installed yet. If you had let it boot and installed the drivers it would have been fine.

 

[dpaulavicius]

the slow loading could not have been a driver issue because the only new component was the video card. come on.. its not like you have any high resolution or complex colors during the windows screen. the boot was SOOOO slow, u have no idea. it was either a mobo, ram, or hard drive issue. probably not a psu issue, cause it still booted like a snail even with 7900 out and the ancient pci card in. still, i'll try out the 'dual-psu' method. hope it doesn't cause any damage to the components; plugging the psu out of the outlet or cutting power off instantly - not pleasant, but i'll go THROUGH WITH IT!!! im just so brave :trophy: (just kidding)

 

[dpaulavicius]

well, i went to a friend's house and tried out the 7900 gt in a different motherboard. just as i expected, it worked perfectly, on a 275 watt psu. i don't know the mobo's name, but it had an ati chipset (socket 939). i also put in my exact previous card - the 6800 gs - into my mobo, and that worked perfectly. so, it's not a broken pci-e slot. maybe my mobo's bios is outdated. i don't know what version i have, but it shouldn't be very relevant because all the updates for the a8n-sli only accomodate for new processors, that's all. also maybe some overclocking options are changed. but it all somehow seems that the mobo just doesn't want the 7900 gt. so:
1)the psu is NOT the problem, the 7900 gt ran well on a 275 watt psu, THATS RIGHT!
2)the ram is not the problem. no, i didn't run the memtest, but i did have display with a different pci-e card while the ram was unchanged.
3)the hard drive, even if it has a problem, it's irrelevant, the main issue is getting display

the problem must the mobo. i think i'll just get a new mobo and try to sell my current one. asus tech support sucks and the a8n-sli probably sucks too. i have found a crazy amount of posts of no display with the a8n-sli series. i think i'm done with asus.

 

[uber_g]

:/



did u say u uninstalled your Drivers and then put the card in ....


also , FREAKIN UPDATE YOUR BIOS !!!!


OMFG , its an update for a reason


unless u did already

right ??

 

[dpaulavicius]

man, drivers can't make much of a difference before POST is completed. the bios has to check if there is at all a hard drive. if there is, then when windows is loaded, the drivers are also loaded. and i have NO DISPLAY at ANY time :x .
as far as updating the a8n-sli, please point me to some accurate information (preferably on the asus's official site) that would say that "this such and such bios version" will help/accomodate the 7900 series of video cards... something like that. i understand that updating bios could help, but nowhere does it say that it i required to update. i only adds support for new cpus.

 

[oenomel]

Do yourself a favor and buy a quality PSU. It's the most important piece that goes in the box, and the one that can cause the most problems.

NEVER buy one that doesn't list specs...how did you even find that shopping site? And what made you buy from there?

**That is regardless of buying the new MB or not

 

[dpaulavicius]

you know, you sound like some psu salesman. come on, if a 275 watt psu could handle the 7900 gt, then a 500 watt (or the inferior 400 watt) power supply should handle it just fine.

 

[linux_0]

you know, you sound like some psu salesman. come on, if a 275 watt psu could handle the 7900 gt, then a 500 watt (or the inferior 400 watt) power supply should handle it just fine.

If only it were that simple...

A 275W PSU might be enough to allow a 7900GT to boot up and operate in 2D mode but I doubt it would last very long in 3D mode.

Most manufacturers overrate their PSUs by 100W or more -- this mostly applies to generic PSUs.

Quality PSUs typically have a legit rating and can really deliver the power specified.

If you run a high end VGA card at full load for an extended period of time your generic PSU will eventually burn out and might fry the rest of your components in the process.

Generic PSUs generally burn out in 0-12 months. Quality PSUs often last for several years.

Quality PSUs also provide cleaner power which helps keep the rest of your components healthier longer.