HEY ALL!
please read this whole post, as i am really looking for a good opinion from you great experts at Tom's hardware....
so... here goes...
i built my pc about 3.5 years ago. im not a computer expert, but i managed it quite easily, with some youtube videos. i hope i did a good job. ill post all the specs in the end of this post. the main thing is this - my GPU which is a SAPPHIRE HD4870 1GB VAPOR-X has been giving me some weird problems - at least i think it has:
ever since about 3-4 months after i built my system, i was sometimes getting no display whenever i powered up the system. it first began as just not coming back properly from sleep mode - having to reboot usually after the sleep mode, then it became more and more often, and finally i was getting no display at all and no boot whatsoever. i must emphasize that the card was performing quite well on full load although if i remember correctly it was reaching rather high temps at full load - about 82 or even 87 centigrade, with a fan speed of 50%, but it would go down do like 72 on full load with 90% fan power.
ANYHOW...
when i couldnt get any boot at all, i opened the case and i found out that one of the LED's on the card was lit (i think it was the 1601 if i remember correctly).
i then tried to turn it on again and again, and suddently i found a trick that worked every time, which was really weird - whenever i turned the system on - i quicky hit the restart button or flick the on/off switch on the psu, and the system was booting PERFECTLY. HUH?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!
ever since that the system was working quite well, until a week ago it would go on and make the same problem as it did before, this time no LED is lit and my trick didnt work anymore.
i took a simple gpu card from a friend (a very basic one, cant remember its chipset or manufacturer) and the system now works fine.
SO...
my question is this - to me it seems perfectly logic that the card is faulty and i should replace it, but since a new good gpu is not that cheap and the 4870 is still a solid card, i was thinking - that maybe there's somekind of problem with my system's configuration that's wrong, or somekind of mismatch between the gpu and the mobo, or the memory??
i would appreciate responses guys! thanks!
my specs:
Asus m4a78-e
phenom II 920 x4
Sapphire HD 4870 1GB VAPOR-X
kingston HyperX 2X2GB
OCZ stealthXstream 600W
windows 7 64bit
please read this whole post, as i am really looking for a good opinion from you great experts at Tom's hardware....
so... here goes...
i built my pc about 3.5 years ago. im not a computer expert, but i managed it quite easily, with some youtube videos. i hope i did a good job. ill post all the specs in the end of this post. the main thing is this - my GPU which is a SAPPHIRE HD4870 1GB VAPOR-X has been giving me some weird problems - at least i think it has:
ever since about 3-4 months after i built my system, i was sometimes getting no display whenever i powered up the system. it first began as just not coming back properly from sleep mode - having to reboot usually after the sleep mode, then it became more and more often, and finally i was getting no display at all and no boot whatsoever. i must emphasize that the card was performing quite well on full load although if i remember correctly it was reaching rather high temps at full load - about 82 or even 87 centigrade, with a fan speed of 50%, but it would go down do like 72 on full load with 90% fan power.
ANYHOW...
when i couldnt get any boot at all, i opened the case and i found out that one of the LED's on the card was lit (i think it was the 1601 if i remember correctly).
i then tried to turn it on again and again, and suddently i found a trick that worked every time, which was really weird - whenever i turned the system on - i quicky hit the restart button or flick the on/off switch on the psu, and the system was booting PERFECTLY. HUH?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!
ever since that the system was working quite well, until a week ago it would go on and make the same problem as it did before, this time no LED is lit and my trick didnt work anymore.
i took a simple gpu card from a friend (a very basic one, cant remember its chipset or manufacturer) and the system now works fine.
SO...
my question is this - to me it seems perfectly logic that the card is faulty and i should replace it, but since a new good gpu is not that cheap and the 4870 is still a solid card, i was thinking - that maybe there's somekind of problem with my system's configuration that's wrong, or somekind of mismatch between the gpu and the mobo, or the memory??
i would appreciate responses guys! thanks!
my specs:
Asus m4a78-e
phenom II 920 x4
Sapphire HD 4870 1GB VAPOR-X
kingston HyperX 2X2GB
OCZ stealthXstream 600W
windows 7 64bit