No signal from GPU- Motherboard at fault?

[almoststew1990]

My PC has a Nvidia 450 in it, which works fine. But when I put my 7970 in, it doesn't reach the post screen, I just a blank screen (Monitor doesn't detect any input) and no beep from the motherboard. The GPU fans spin up.

The Motherboard is a Foxconn H61MXV (it was free!) running the latest bios. Power supply is an OCZ 500Watt (not great, but the recommended Wattage PSU for a 7970) which has the required 8 + 6 pin connectors.

The only problem seems to be that the PCIE slot is 2nd Gen, when the GPU is 3rd Gen, but they should still be compatible...

It does the same thing with a 390x, which i know for sure works.
An 8800GT works fine in the PC
A 4850 works fine in the PC.

http://www.foxconnchannel.com/ProductDetail.aspx?T=motherboard&U=en-us0000522

 

[almoststew1990]

I am using a Sandybridge CPU i5 2400. The motherboard uses the old style bios (blue-y screen, arrow keys only).

On the list of bios versions, I was on AC3F1P03 (Dec 2011), but a botched competitor shop branded version. I tried to upgrade to C12F1P05 (Aug 2014, the latest on the FC website) but it said the bios sizes don't match. I then tried the latest 'AC3' version, AC3F1P04 (March 2012), which worked fine and got rid of the shop branding.

The H61MXV and H67MXV share the same page on the FC website (and the motherboard even has "H61MXV / H67MXV" written on the board itself) so I'm thinking the "C12" bios versions are the for H67 chipset (even though it says its for the H61..). Which would mean I am on the most up-to-date version of the bios?

How would I check if my 7970 had dual bios? I can't see any little swirches anywhere and it wasn't known for it like the 6950 was.

Edit- I just tried C12F1P01 (March 2012) which adds support for ivy bridge CPUS but it came up with the same error:

edit edit- it does have a bios switch actually.. hmm...... nope, still not working!

 

[almoststew1990]

My 7970 does have a UEFI BIOS. Is this why it isn't compatible with my motherboards older BIOS?

I tried the bios version you linked but it didn't boot to DOS from a USB stick- it just said "remove media and devices... press any button to restart" or something.

 

[almoststew1990]

In the screenshot above, it says C12F1P05, but I was actually trying to flash C12F1P01 (I triple checked when I saw the screenshot!). But yes I've also tried C12F1P05 (the latest version) a couple of times before I started the thread back when I thought it was going to be straight forward!

To be honest I've given up for now and cobbled together an older AM3 Phenom II x3 build, which worked fine with the 7970 and 390x. Thanks for the help guys!