Monitor Won't Work with GPU

Sakubo · 5 Jun 2019 at 14:12

I'm fairly new to computer building and to my surprise, when I attempted to run my new build, the monitor came up with a "No Signal" sign followed by a complete black screen, and my monitor's light turning from blue to orange to indicate it is not working. I thought the issue might have been the graphics card, but I also wanted to check if it was a motherboard issue so just to be sure I decided to run the PC without the card in and to my surprise, everything worked as normal. I've already tried taking the graphics card out and reseating it more than once and each time I've got the same result.

I can hear the fan of the GPU running, and I can also see the lights on the GPU flashing as well, so I really am stumped a this point.

For context sake, here are my parts:
CPU: Intel - Core i7-9700K 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor
MB: Gigabyte - Z390 UD ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
PSU: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
GPU: Gigabyte - GeForce RTX 2080 8 GB WINDFORCE Video Card

I thought maybe this was just a case of my graphics card not being compatible with my motherboard, but I'm not exactly sure.

IntMD · 5 Jun 2019 at 14:48

Ok, as you have said you're fairly new, the following might be obvious or not, but there are a couple of things I would try before anything more drastic.

I assume you did move the monitor (HDMI/Displayport/Whatever) you are connecting to your monitor from the built in motherboard connector, to one of the display connectors on the 2080 GPU? If not, then try that.

If you have done that and it still won't work, try plugging the monitor cable in to the motherboard connector, go in to your BIOS, go to the peripherals tab and under 'Initial Display Output' select PCIe 1 slot (assuming you have your GPU in slot 1 - which should be the only full X16 slot, I think on that board), then save and exit. Then move over the connector to one of the GPU connectors and reboot.

Servo · 5 Jun 2019 at 14:50

Hi and welcome
I really think it's your GPU not seating in the slot. Make sure there ain't any cables sitting under the end of the gpu

Sakubo · 5 Jun 2019 at 15:05

IntMD said:
Ok, as you have said you're fairly new, the following might be obvious or not, but there are a couple of things I would try before anything more drastic.

I assume you did move the monitor (HDMI/Displayport/Whatever) you are connecting to your monitor from the built in motherboard connector, to one of the display connectors on the 2080 GPU? If not, then try that.

If you have done that and it still won't work, try plugging the monitor cable in to the motherboard connector, go in to your BIOS, go to the peripherals tab and under 'Initial Display Output' select PCIe 1 slot (assuming you have your GPU in slot 1 - which should be the only full X16 slot, I think on that board), then save and exit. Then move over the connector to one of the GPU connectors and reboot.

Thank you for the reply, I'm not currently at home but in regards to your first solution, I've already tried both ports (while the graphics card was in) and gotten the same result. Although, as for your second solution, I have a couple of questions. Can i access my motherboard's integrated graphics while the GPU is inside of it? If not, then would it make more sense to take the GPU out, select that option, and then try running it with the GPU in again?

IntMD · 5 Jun 2019 at 15:13

Sakubo said:
Thank you for the reply, I'm not currently at home but in regards to your first solution, I've already tried both ports (while the graphics card was in) and gotten the same result. Although, as for your second solution, I have a couple of questions. Can i access my motherboard's integrated graphics while the GPU is inside of it? If not, then would it make more sense to take the GPU out, select that option, and then try running it with the GPU in again?

To be honest, it's a long time since I've used a CPU that has an iGPU, but you should be still able to use the internal igpu, while the 2080 is still plugged in just fine, as long as there is a cable going from the monitor to the GPU connector on the back of the motherboard. If you have 2 cables hanging around plug one in to the igpu connector & one in to the dgpu and both in to the monitor (assuming it has 2 suitable inputs) and just unplug the igpu one later if you aren't going to use it (and change the input source to the dgpu, of course once rebooted after you have changed the option in the BIOS).

NikTheSHNIK · 5 Jun 2019 at 16:59

Can you send a picture of the rear of your PC as you have everything plugged in?

My first thought is this:

IntMD said:
Ok, as you have said you're fairly new, the following might be obvious or not, but there are a couple of things I would try before anything more drastic.

I assume you did move the monitor (HDMI/Displayport/Whatever) you are connecting to your monitor from the built in motherboard connector, to one of the display connectors on the 2080 GPU? If not, then try that.

That you have the monitor plugged into your motherboard and not your GPU.

The PC will try and display out of the gfx card if it is in there and not the motherboard DVI/HDMI.

EsaT · 5 Jun 2019 at 18:28

Sakubo said:
I've already tried both ports (while the graphics card was in) and gotten the same result.

That card has more than two connectors, so sounds like you're still connecting monitor to motherboard.

Sakubo · 5 Jun 2019 at 22:25

So, I actually managed to fix the issue by just switching my GPU over to the next pci-e slot over. I'm not sure if I had a faulty pci-e slot or something of that sort, but for the time being I'm really appreciative of all the help I received.

pastymuncher · 6 Jun 2019 at 09:46

The problem now is that your graphics card is running in a electrically wired 4x slot which will cripple performance. Your motherboard only has a single 16x slot and that is the top one with the metal armour on it. The top slot is where we need to get it working. Are you using a single or seperate pci-e cables to power the card? If using a single cable try it with two seperate cables. Your psu has enough of them so take the 8 pin from one cable and the 6 pin from another and retry the gpu in the top slot. It has been found recently that this has fixed many problems with gpu instability.

Another thing to check is if the pc is set to boot from pci-e in the bios. You can find it under the Peripherals tab with the heading "Initial Display Output". Set it to "PCI-e 1 Slot" which is the top 16x slot.

If that doesn't make any difference what cooler are you using? Some coolers, particularly the ones with screw down mountings, can have strange results such as not recognising pci-e slots or memory slots if the cooler is tightened down to much. This can be often fixed by slackening off the mounting screws a bit.

If that makes no difference the next thing I would do is update to the latest bios version which is F7 for your board. There have been several releases since the original, some of which have been for stability improvements. ***Please note, flashing the bios will reset all settings so you should enter the bios and write down or back up any changes that you have made.*** In your case I would take the gpu out and run from the cpu's onboard graphics to flash the bios. You can find the latest bios here and download it and if necessary extract it before putting it on a usb stick. Reboot the pc and enter the bios. Go to the tools section and fire up the Q-Flash utility. Point it to the location of the usb stick and select the new bios. Confirm that you want to proceed and let it do it's thing. Do not interrupt the process in any way!! When complete it will reboot the pc. Go back to the bios and re-enter any settings you need to. Shutdown the pc and turn off at the mains. Reinstall the gpu to the top slot and make sure that both the 8 pin and 6 pin pci-e power cables are propely inserted, preferably on seperate cables and not both from a single cable. Boot up and see if it works. It would be a good idea to update the bios anyway as there have been many improvements since Z390 launched.

If that still doesn't work we are running out of things to try. Remove your cpu cooler and then the cpu very carefully and check the motherboard socket for bent pins. If they are all fine then I suppose the only problem could be that the pci-e 16x slot is dead as the gpu has been found to work in the next slot down. In that case you would need to RMA the board to either OCUK or Gigabyte directly. Maybe our very helpful Gigabyte rep @GIGA-Man would be kind enough to give us some insight with regards to the problem or the best course of RMA to take.