Intermittent problems with Radeon 4850

[Sysmic Wave]

Hey guys, hope you can help.

I've got a Radeon 4850 and lately when I switch my machine on I get two solid red lights on top of the card. The machine powers up but the monitor receives no signal.

I had a search and everything I read indicated that the Card was knackered but my problem seems to be different. The problem only happens intermittently.

I opened my case and removed my tv card which was directly below the 4850's fan thinking that maybe it was overheating. When I switched on the pc it worked fine. I watched the 4850 as I switched it on and the lights came on but immediately extinguished, I believe this is what is meant to happen. However, after switching it off and trying to switch it on some time later, I get the lights again.

I've used GPU-Z to check it's temp and it's sitting at 44c.

Does anyone have any ideas?

My system:

Q6600 (not overclocked)
Asus P5Q-E
Radeon 4850
4 GB OCZ Reaper
Be Quiet 550w PSU

Cheers for your time

 

[killersheep34]

Can you try it in another system? See if the fault is consistant in another setup.

Is that a decent PSU? Personally not heard of it, perhaps someone else can confirm.

 

[Sysmic Wave]

Unfortunately I don't have another system to test it on.

PSU is pretty decent, well according to CPC. I also checked that it would be enough to power a 4850.

I'm on my laptop just now as it's decided to go again.

Everything is completely fine once I get the machine going, no BSOD, no errors, nothing. But when i turn it off and try to turn it back on, on come the lights.

I've reseated the card, changed the PCIe power cable.

Anything else I could try?

 

[lukext]

be Quiet PSU are among the best brand you can buy so i doubt its that!

 

[killersheep34]

If it's a decent enough PSU, I would look into RMA-ing that card.

 

[C64]

Power supplies can go at any time, my corsair hx520 went and would no longer power a 4850.

I'd try it on another power supply or see if it happens with a bare minimum connected to the power supply.

I'd also try updating motherboard bios and or investigating whether other people had any problems with that board and bios and certain cards.

 

[Sysmic Wave]

Thanks for the help guys.

The thing is it's not as if the PSU won't power up the graphics card at all. I am currently typing this on my desktop machine, having finally managed to get it to work.

I think i'm going to try and update the mobo bios.

Can anyone give any reasons as to why it would be fine until now?

 

[Sysmic Wave]

A quick update.

So it appeared that the Graphics card had completely gone. Everytime i tried to boot the machine i got the lights.

However, overnight I left took the power out of the psu. I tried it again today and it booted straight up?

Any ideas if that means the psu is knackered, is the chipset on the motherboard gubbed or is it the card?

Cheers