Radeon 6870 Not Posting

[hikarikami]

Hi guys, I was hoping if maybe someone could help me out with a problem I'm having with a PowerColor Radeon 6870 I purchased last week.

I installed the card last week without any hitches after reading that people had it running on 400w PSU's despite the recommended 500w minimum. It booted up and benchmarked fine, running both cool and stable under load without any problems. Anyway, come Sunday after a weekend of gaming (the machine was setup as a second gaming machine for some co-op Dungeon Defenders with a friend) we were in the middle of a game when the machine crashed to a black screen. After resetting, the system refused to even POST and issued out a a succession of beeps which according to the mobo manual were for, suprise suprise, "VGA error".

I had some time to have a quick look today, tried running it on a single stick of RAM and without any hard drives to no avail. Tried swapping back the old graphics card and the system boots without any problem.

I guess I'm thinking it's either that the PSU (or maybe something else) killed the card, or that the PSU is basically no longer putting out enough power to even boot it. Would I be able to just replace the PSU for a new low-end one, something like the Antec Neo Eco 520C, or is it possible it's something unrelated?

System is an old Q6600 (not overclocked) running on a Gigabyte GA 965P DS3 with the latest firmware. The PSU is a Cooler Master RS-460-PCAR-A3

 

[hpdeskjet]

In general, I wouldn't recommend using a PSU that is below the recommended to avoid situations like this. Sounds like you should just get a new PSU and that should fix the problem.

 

[jsc]

Depends on the PSU. I'd use a Corsair 400CX or even an Antec 380 watt Earthwatts. I would not use a CoolerMaster.

A 6870 needs about 12 - 14 amps. CPU - about 10. That is maybe 240 - 280 watts. Figure another 80 watts for a basic system. I would estimate total system power consumption at load at around 300 - 320 watts.

A CM460 should work if it was able to produce its rated power. But they cannot.

The other thing to do is to test the card in another computer to make sure it actually works. The card could be DOA.

 

[hikarikami]

Thanks for the replies. In hindsight is was silly putting it in, we were just after a quick solution I guess. I've ordered a new PSU so hopefully that will fix the problem. I will definetly avoid a low end cooler master as well.

 

[diec4st]

You should have tried the card in another PC first just to be sure it's still working. Anyways it's not a wasted investment since the PSU would have blown up sooner or later