PC won't recognize GPU... Help

[Xevo]

Hello, this is my first post on here so I hope too find some advice here.

So basicly a few days ago this problem started to occur. But firstly if needed here are some of my PC's specs;

CPU: AMD Athlon II X 2 250
GPU: ATI Radeon 4850 HD
Oboard GPU: nVidia GeForce 7050 PV / nVidia nForce 630a
Motherboard: Asrock Alivenf7G-GLAN DDR2
RAM: 4GIGs (Kingston I believe..)
PSU: LC Power 385W

So it all started last week when I boot up my PC and I got a black screen with the monitor LED blinking.
The Computer was up and running but wouldn't give any screen, it seemed hooking up the monitor to the
motherboard would give display.

Now sometimes over the past week everything worked normally and it would properly show something on screen
with use of my GPU. Mostly after I took the PC apart and reconnected things like GPU, PSU or RAM.

But now it happened again and reconnecting everything doesn't seem to work.

When I start up my PC the GPU's start spinning at full speed, goes down and then full up again, multiple times sometimes.
Like an engine trying to fire itself up. This is one thing I noticed. I've also tried putting the graphics card into a different computer and there it worked flawlessly, just not in mine. So it can't be a faulty GPU.

Secondly I thought it was maybe the PSU, thinking 385W combined power wasn't enough for the GPU. But then again I used it on the card for like 2 years now without any issues whatsoever.

Third, I thought maybe the motherboard is broken or so, but what's strange is that everything works normally except for my GPU to give any display.

The GPU is also no listed under the device manager.

I heard maybe taking out the CMOS battery and putting it back in a few mins later might fix it but I'm not sure, and then again it all might work again in a few hours or tomorrow, like in the past couple of days where it would sometimes work for 3 days in a row and the skip a few hours or like now a day, heh.


I'm wondering if any of you guys have any advice to this specific problem or maybe are familiar with it.
Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance

 

[tlmck]

Likely either it is you PSU or motherboard. Just because they have worked in the past does not mean they cannot eventually fail. Your PSU powers the motherboard which in turn powers your other components. The quickest test would be to try another PSU. As PSUs age, they lose their power, so while it may appear to be working, it may not be working to full strength.

The issue with the motherboard could only involve the circuitry that powers the video slot, thus leaving everything else running. That circuitry involves too many components to explain here.

 

[ricardois]

almost sure this is a psu problem, maybe your psu cannot handle anymore your pc specs with capacitor aging, bad psus start to show problems just like the one you mentioned.

Bad psus can easily burn your gpu when there is no power enough or when some voltage problem is ocurring, so maybe the psu could have toasted it...

Best thing to do is change the psu for a better one and test again if the graphics still not working you will need to change graphics card too.

 

[maxinexus]

Try using the PSU from your other PC see what happens. If it works you are in marker for new PSU.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371031

 

[Xevo]

Thanks for the tip, I will try a different PSU today and come back here with the results. Oh and btw I doubt the GPU is toast seeing as it did work in a different PC when I tested it yesterday.

 

[Xevo]

Well sadly the PC I had available for testing today didn't have a PSU with 6pin PCI-E output cables.. Oh well, I ordered a new PSU earlier with 600 watts of power so hope that will solve it.

But to share some more light on the issue, sometimes when I have my monitors connected to the onboard gfx the PC kind of crashes, well sometimes only my screen goes black (so without even using the stand alone GPU).

Maybe that helps to determine if it's the mobo or psu?

 

[geekapproved]

The only way to find out is to try a new psu.

You don't need a 6pin pci-e cable, your video card should have come with a molex adaptor.