Lack of Power?

[buwish]

Hey all,

I recently procured a Sapphire Radeon 4850x2. Before hand I had a Radeon 4850; single GPU. After installing it into my W7 pro machine, windows didn't like it and I attempted a repair set up a few times, as well as just completely re-installing Windows a few times (fresh install). During the repairs and installs, it took hours! Eventually, I put the old card back in and boom, Windows installed within 20 minutes.

Am I looking at a driver issue here or a power issue? I am under the assumption that the 4800 series drivers are all the same and prior to installing the x2 card, I had the latest W7 drivers. The x2 card requires a PSU that pumps out 650 watts or above and that is what I have (Antec, 80% efficiency model). I was getting the yellow light on the x2 card, which I assume means it has plenty of power to operate. If it was a power issue, I am also assuming the the computer wouldn't post, much less even boot.

Any ideas?

 

[4745454b]

I'm not aware of a light on the 4850x2, but they usually should be green. How old is the PSU? Do you have all of the power plugs in?

 

[JackNaylorPE]

I always remove video drivers, reboot.....shut down machine....install new card, boot, install new drivers, reboot. I'm thinking the driver files might be the same but how it detects and sets up each card is different.

 

[dndhatcher]

Isnt the 4850x2 the model that is not an ATI spec card but some creation Sapphire cobbled together? Better load sapphires drivers and not ATIs to be safe.

 

[buwish]

Well, still no luck. I'm thinking that it could be something with the motherboard. I borrowed a buddies unused 750 PSU, reinstalled windows with the original card (ati radeon 4850), and downloaded the latest drivers from both ati and sapphire (they are the same). From there, I re-installed the card in question and still no go. It makes it to the windows is starting screen and stops.

Is there a setting I am missing in the bios or are you guys thinking it is the motherboard? I talked to intel tech support and they tell me that the board is compatible with the board. The board is an x16 revision on the single pci-e slot. I am at a loss here.

 

[4745454b]

Is there a story on the card? I'm still thinking its a bad card, hense the yellow light?

 

[buwish]

No, no story. Bought it from newegg earlier in the week. Arrived nice and packed up- quite adequate. I wouldn't call it a yellow light, more like a yellowish green. Either way, there are red lights on it as well. They come on when it doesn't have enough power. I'm assuming the yellow or green light means it has enough power to go.

I think I am just going to assume that it is a bad card and return it. I think the easiest route for my three monitor set up of sorts (one will be a touch screen) is to probably just get a 57xx or 58xx series card and an active display port adapter. I've got a few lines into ATI and Sapphire, but if I don't hear back from them today I'm sending it back for a refund.

 

[dndhatcher]

Sapphire's tech support is who you need to contact to find out what the light means.

 

[buwish]

Yeah, Sapphire wasn't any help, as usual. ATI said it was probably defective and I agree. Something was amiss with it, so it is on its way back to newegg. Hopefully they don't charge a $36 restocking fee for busted items.