Will my PSU even run a Radeon x1950 Pro?

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chiefchris23

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Jun 7, 2012
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Ok so I made a post not more than a week ago about my Radeon x1950 pro not being recognized in device manager at all. Every time I started up the computer it would only use the on-board graphics. Basically I could turn the PC and I'd get nothing plugged into the Radeon. But I could plug it right into the on-board with the PC still on and the monitor would come on and windows would be all loaded up at the desktop and be working fine. Pretty much tried every troubleshooting method to get the card to at least be recognized in device manager but got nothing.

Things I tried:
Switching from on-board to PCIe in Bios. -nothing
Disabled the on-board entirely. -nothing
Reseated several times and checked all connection several times. -nothing
Updated Chipset drivers to there highest from nvidia. -nothing (would have put the radeon drivers on but those won't install unless the card is installed...which it was...lol)

Things I haven't tried:
Testing with a different psu: I bought a brand new psu to get the 6 pin connector but is the only one I have.
Testing in a different mobo: For some reason the old mobo won't even turn on, even though it recently worked and both psu's I tried it with both work fine.
Baking the GPU?: Believe it or not I've heard this actually works on dead cards. It works so well that you can keep doing it and it works every time. But the gpu will have to be re-baked more and more frequently the more you do it. The first time you do it though the gpu will work again for like 8 months to a year until you have to do it again. Of course that time go's down more and more every time you do it.

With all that said here's what I'm thinking. Someone said in the thread that it might just be that the PSU doesn't have enough Amps to run the card. Someone else also said that shouldn't matter until the card is actually doing something and would already be showing in device manager. I'm starting to wonder if maybe it is the PSU. Even though this is a really old card, technically it's at the highest end of it's generation and from my understanding, all high end cards are utter power hogs. It's either that, or I have a PCIe slot that is no good or the card is dead.

My current PC set up:
http://bizsupport1.austin.hp.com/b [...] =c01357175 MOBO MCP61PM-HM (Nettle3)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819103212 CPU AMD Athlon 64 x2 4800+
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817339012 PSU HP585D 585 Watt
ATI RADEON X1950 Pro Graphics card - 256 MB - GDDR3 SDRAM GPU (currently not installed (obviously) )
2 GIGABYTES of MEMORY RAM
325 GIGABYTES HDD
Windows XP Professional

Old Mobo:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c00361528&locale=en_US

Thread this started in (for anyone that cares to go over that):
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/356675-33-radeon-x1950#t2677554

I'm pretty Torn between that if it is the card that I'd be buying a new one. But for me money's is very limited. I'm lucky to have 40-50 dollars to freely use. So here's what I'm looking at.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130585 I know this thing is ancient but I think it's enough to run Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 on it's lowest settings. I don't mind 800x600 res with all low settings as long as I get to play lol. If this card can even do that; that is.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835200014 Want this so I can upgrade from the stock fan from aluminium.

If it ends up being the MOBO I may just might buy an APU set up for 300 bucks. I'd only have to reuse my PSU and HDD and I think I'd be set. But will APU support windows XP, something like a A8-3870K. What would be a good MOBO to go with that.

Any and ll suggestions are welcome. Thank you for reading.
 
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This is probably obvious, but do you have a friend with a card you can try? I don't think it's your PSU; the hec you have should be beefy enough to run that card. My instinct says dead card and PCIe slots rarely go bad. Graphics cards, on the other hand, go bad all the time. If money wasn't an object I'd say get a cheap card from Newegg and use it as a tester (or 'rent' one from Best Buy if I was less ethical.)

You may also want to try updating your BIOS if you haven't already. My money is that the card is bad though.
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benji720

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May 24, 2012
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This is probably obvious, but do you have a friend with a card you can try? I don't think it's your PSU; the hec you have should be beefy enough to run that card. My instinct says dead card and PCIe slots rarely go bad. Graphics cards, on the other hand, go bad all the time. If money wasn't an object I'd say get a cheap card from Newegg and use it as a tester (or 'rent' one from Best Buy if I was less ethical.)

You may also want to try updating your BIOS if you haven't already. My money is that the card is bad though.
 
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jsrudd

jsrudd

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Not sure if this helps but I've managed to piece the following together.

From this old Toms Hardware Forum Post it seems you need 30 amps on the 12v rail to run this card.

The link you provided didn't work, but when I searched your model number I came up with this. It says that you only have about 15amps on the 12v rail.

I'm not sure how accurate this forum post is, but if its accurate and that's your PSU then it doesn't have enough amps.
 
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chiefchris23

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Sounds like that might be a good idea, only problem is that I've never flashed BIO's before. From what I've read though, it's pretty bad to do, especially since it only takes one shot at ruining the MOBO.
 
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chiefchris23

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That's what somebody else said. But wouldn't It technically still show up in the device manager? It gets power and everything so I'd assume that would be the case.
 
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chiefchris23

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Well since it really comes down to 2 options it's either the GPU is dead or the PSU just doesn't have the amps I need to even recognize the card I'm thinking I'll just RMA the PSU in favor of Diablotek 450 watt. It has the 30 amps on the 12v rail so that should give me want I need.

Any thoughts on this before I decide to do it?
 
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benji720

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I don't think that once in my life I've bricked a mobo by flashing the BIOS. It's usually a Windows-based program and not hard at all. Look at your mobo's support page on the manufacturer's site and they should have detailed instructions. It's worth a shot!
 
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benji720

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I'd go with a AMD 5450 (which are identical in price to 8400-bsed cards) wayyyyyy before I'd get an 8400. The 8400 is from 2007 whereas the 5450 is from 2010. The 5450 is manufactured on a 40nm process whereas the 8400 is an 80nm process. The 5450 uses 20W whereas the 8400 uses 40W. The 5450 has double the memory bandwidth of the 8400 and generally should be almost 2x faster.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131338

Can't go wrong for $30 and it should run Diablo 3 on low.
 
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dassix

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Allowing your CPU to hinder what GPU you buy is not always a good option. You will need to upgrade sooner due to buying an entry level card, than if you just bought a decent PSU and kept your options available.
 
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chiefchris23

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Will that 2.1 x16 card work with an x16 slot? I know 2.0 x16 slot will work with all generations of PCIe but not so sure on an x16 slot.
 
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