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HD3870 - Only VGA output? What's wrong?

Forum Graphic & Displays : Graphics Cards - HD3870 - Only VGA output? What's wrong?

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altazi   02-29-2008 at 12:37:48 AM

Hi All,

Frustration levels dangerously high.

Just assembled system w/ Athlon X2 5000 BE + MSI K9A2 Platinum 790FX mobo + GeCube HD3870 graphics. Got Windows XP Pro installed successfully. Everything seemed OK until I installed the ATI software & drivers from the CD that came with the card.

After re-booting the system, I saw the initial splash screens, but then I got a blank screen. There was HDD activity for a while, like the system was continuing to load XP, but nothing on the screen. The LED on my monitor was blinking, indicating that no video signal was present.

I pressed the RESET button, saw the normal BIOS start-up screens, and hit F8 to select VGA mode. Windows then continued to boot normally, albeit in the low-res VGA mode. I went to ATI's website and downloaded the very latest drivers. Everything appeared to install OK. Same result - no video when I tried booting normally.

Has anyone had problems like this? My brain is fried at the moment, so I would appreciate any suggestions. Thanks!

------------------------------ Perfect is almost good enough.
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Sailer   02-29-2008 at 01:40:10 AM
- 0 +

I've actually had this happen three times to me. Once, I simply had to go into the control panel, click on display, and set everything there. That was the easy fix.

A second time, I spent two frustrating days trying everything I knew and finally figured out that I had a dead card after called the company and going through things with their help line.

The third time, different computer, everything went to gether fine, and no picture. Call the video card company, RMA the card, and they send it back saying nothing is wrong with the card. Further experimentation showed that I had a malfunctioning slot on the motherboard, so it got RMA'd to ASUS and replaced. Things worked fine then.

So my suggestion at this point is to first try a different slot on the motherboard and see if that fixes things. After that, call the video card company and talk to their help (or lack thereof) line and hope they have a good suggestion. Last, think about a defective motherboard.

------------------------------ Evil lurks in the databanks as it lurked in the streets of yesteryear. But it was never the streets that were evil.

Over 50. Seen it, done it, can't remember it, but I miss it.
 Reply to Sailer
mtyermom   02-29-2008 at 01:44:47 AM
- 0 +

What type of monitor is it? How are you connecting your video card to your monitor?

You might want to try using third party software to completely remove all ati drivers and software from your computer, then clean installing the latest drivers. Driver Cleaner Pro is very popular on these forums.

Reply to mtyermom
roadrunner197069   02-29-2008 at 02:42:33 AM
- 0 +

Happened to me yesterday. I installed the video drivers rebooted seen post and as soon as it switched to windows welcome it went black.

Turned out the old monitor I had it on didnt support the defaul settings that the new driver installed. My monitor didnt like the default resolution or refresh rate. Good thing I have 7 other monitors. I plugged a different monitor in and boom I had video. I could then rest the resolution and refresh rate to make it work with the other one, but I didnt because I just was fixing someone elses computer and I was pretty much finished.

Reply to roadrunner197069
altazi   02-29-2008 at 08:22:42 AM
- 0 +

Hmmm. . . I was using an old CRT monitor in my lab area, connected via the DVI-to-VGA adapter. It will be a pain in the butt, but I can drag one of the LCD monitors over and try it. This would be the first time this monitor has been unable to display a video signal. . . It worked with my Radeon X1900XT, doesn't seem that the HD3870 would start out with something it couldn't handle.

I can also mess around trying another PCIe slot. . . but I am not sure if the card would work in any slot besides #1.

If all of that fails, I'll call the company and see what they have to say. Thanks to all for the ideas.

------------------------------ Perfect is almost good enough.
 Reply to altazi
hcforde   02-29-2008 at 09:33:32 AM
- 0 +

Try these things- they are in no way connected just somethings to try
1. start OS in safe mode go to ATI control panel and see what is set
2. connect to diff monitor output and start
3. Is this a clean install, could other drivers be getting in the way

Reply to hcforde
roadrunner197069   02-29-2008 at 04:21:54 PM
- 0 +

Well the monitor I was using was a old CRT as well. And I had trouble with onboard Intel graphics on a Dell, so you definately need to try a different monitor.

Reply to roadrunner197069
altazi   02-29-2008 at 05:35:12 PM
- 0 +

I am away from home at the moment, to attend a funeral :(

This was a totally clean install.

I can't wait to get back home and try these helpful suggestions. I want my new system up!!! After running memtest86 overnight (successfully), I decided to see if I could overclock the CPU to 3.2GHz. I popped into BIOS, made the change, and everything worked fine. I want to test the limits of the X2 5000 BE and see what kind of performance I can squeeze out of the Crucial Ballistix DDR2-1066 RAM.

Of course, once I get the video problem resolved, it will be time for torture testing to burn the system in and verify thermal performance.

Thanks, Guys!

------------------------------ Perfect is almost good enough.
 Reply to altazi
roadrunner197069   02-29-2008 at 06:32:20 PM
- 0 +

Im pretty sure the monitor is the problem.

Reply to roadrunner197069
altazi   03-03-2008 at 09:24:39 PM
- 0 +

Looks like roadrunner nailed it. I dragged the LCD monitor over and sure enough, everything worked fine. What a relief!

It's torture test time. . . :)

Thanks to all who helped.

------------------------------ Perfect is almost good enough.
 Reply to altazi
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