Old motherboard wont output through PCIe

[benikens]

I've been trying to fix one of our office computers, the graphics card that was in it was an Nvidia 8500 gt but the fan had seized and it didn't work anymore. I discovered a covered onboard vga output on the back I/O port which works enough to boot to windows though I could not get working drivers for it and the screen resolution is locked low. I ordered a replacement card a sapphire 5450 as it was the cheapest PCIe based card I could locate at the time and it's an office PC so it doesn't need to do anything more then match the monitors resolution in windows. When ever I stick the 5450 in the system doesn't output anything, the fans are running full pelt to. Here's what I've done so far:
Cleared cmos via header, inserted card, plugged monitor in, no output.
Reverted to onboard, booted to windows, downloaded the latest bios I could find (it was from 2006 and I thought maybe the bios is just to old to understand the card?) Inserted 5450, cleared cmos, no output.
Reverted to onboard, booted to windows, download and installed latest ATI driver for the 5450 (winxp 32bit) inserted 5450, cleared cmos, no output.
Reverted to onboard, no output, repeated beeping sound (same noise it made when the first GPU died)

System specs:
Campaq presario SR1799AN
MSI ms-7184 motherboard
AMD 3800+ dual core
2gb ddr400
HD 5450
Seagate sata hdd ~3-400gb

Would really appreciate your insights if I can get this thing working again or not.

 

[benikens]

Should also mention before inserting the card the second time I went into bios and set the video output to PCIe as it defaults to PCI

 

[jasont78]

i had a similar issue with an old asus board, nvidia nforce chipset of similar era 3600+x2 cpu on it, never had a discrete vid card till i need bluray decode for the htpc it served as, tried everything ended up selling that board for 35 bucks on ebay and purchased a cheap asrock for like 45 bucks which solved my issue. i doesnt solve your issue i know, but thought i would let u know ur not the only out there having had the same issue

 

[randomkid]

Would really appreciate your insights if I can get this thing working again or not.

It might be the motherboard PCIe slot. Have you tried the 5450 into another PC that you have in the office?

 

[randomkid]

Reverted to onboard, no output, repeated beeping sound (same noise it made when the first GPU died)
Would really appreciate your insights if I can get this thing working again or not.

Should also mention before inserting the card the second time I went into bios and set the video output to PCIe as it defaults to PCI

CLear the CMOS again so that at least you can get back to the onboard. Have you tried automatically search for driver from the internet. Go to control panel, device manager, display adapter, update driver softeare then search automatically for updated driver software". This at least may allow you to set the onboard to the proper resolution.

 

[smorizio]

you need a nvidia card that why there was one there. back then nvidia and ati were not as close as they were today. the nvidia chipset does not like ati cards. if you drop in a nvidia card it work fine.

 

[benikens]

you need a nvidia card that why there was one there. back then nvidia and ati were not as close as they were today. the nvidia chipset does not like ati cards. if you drop in a nvidia card it work fine.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe this board has an ati chipset, I can see ati branding on an IC on the board and I think it said ati north bridge/south bridge in bios.

Things I know that I haven't done are a complete breadboard, in case its a short in the case and testing the GPU in another PC, I Have the same card running in a similar but not quite as old system at home running an amd 6000+ with an asus m2n sli deluxe.

I cleared cmos multiple times and could never get the onboard back, starting to think either a short or its bricked.

 

[smorizio]

yes it does have an older chipset and that the issue. if you put in a newer nvidia card it may do the same thing. at best the older 8800 and 9x cards may work and the 210 cards may work as there clones/shrinks of the 8xxx chipset.