PC Startup Problem

Bluenose

Bluenose

Bluenose

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7 Sep 2009
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Hi this morning i tried to start my comp and immediately i noticed that there was a fan running a hell of a lot faster than normal, And i was getting nothing at my monitor.

I've managed to work out that most of the components are working and i'm getting the proper beeps and lights on mobo on startup and that the fan that was running really fast was my Powercolor 5850 gfx card, The card itself seems to not be giving any signal out.

I got the comp to work by plugging the monitor into the mobo so that does indicate that the gfx card is broken, I re-seated and retried my gfx card before trying the monitor directly to mobo and this did not work.

My setup is :-

Asus M4A785TD-V Evo
AMD Phenom II X3 720 BE
Powercolor 5850
G.Skill Ripjaw 4GB (2x2GB)
650w PSU

What i'm looking for help with is that i'm not sure if i've maybe missed something out that might be causing this problem and that my "diagnosis" of my gfx card being broken is right.
 
Seraph said:
sounds like you might need to RMA your card. where did you buy it from and how much warranty is left?
Click to expand...

The card is around 15-16 months old and from overclockers.

I've heard bad things about powercolor RMA in UK, Plus i've never had to RMA any components before so don't quite know how to go about it.

unp|dissy said:
cmos reset?

pull out gpu, startup, powerdown, pull out gpu, wait 1 minute.. try another slot for gpu..
Click to expand...

I've not had any problems before where i've had to do such things, I'm not entriely knowledgeable about it.

You mean take out GPU and startup (without GPU) to desktop, Powerdown then put GPU back in and try again ?

I also never thought of trying the other slot (will that slot still work at x16 if there is nothing in the top slot ?).
 
dig out ya mobo manual and short the cmos ( think ya can remove the battery or something? )

the other slot should work fine

if that dont work, think you can contact ocuk regarding the RMA, they might deal with it, not totally sure, been quite a few threads about this recently
 
Seraph said:
dig out ya mobo manual and short the cmos ( think ya can remove the battery or something? )

the other slot should work fine

if that dont work, think you can contact ocuk regarding the RMA, they might deal with it, not totally sure, been quite a few threads about this recently
Click to expand...

The only thing i can see in the ASUS manual that mentions CMOS is something called Clear Real Time Clock RAM in CMOS.

Would this be the right thing ?
 
Bluenose said:
The only thing i can see in the ASUS manual that mentions CMOS is something called Clear Real Time Clock RAM in CMOS.

Would this be the right thing ?
Click to expand...

Take out the card.

Plug monitor cable into onboard vga

Start PC

Shut down pc

Keep off for 30 seconds.

Take out the cmos battery for 30 seconds. Replace it.

Start PC

Shutdown

Put card back in your OTHER PCI slot

Start PC

Cross fingers.



If all is okay, then put card back in original slot and try. If not, RMA.

The speed that your card would run at on in the second slot would depend on the bus speed of the slot. But im sure a drop from x16 to x8 performance is very small.
 
unp|dissy said:
Take out the card.

Plug monitor cable into onboard vga

Start PC

Shut down pc

Keep off for 30 seconds.

Take out the cmos battery for 30 seconds. Replace it.

Start PC

Shutdown

Put card back in your OTHER PCI slot

Start PC

Cross fingers.



If all is okay, then put card back in original slot and try. If not, RMA.

The speed that your card would run at on in the second slot would depend on the bus speed of the slot. But im sure a drop from x16 to x8 performance is very small.
Click to expand...

This should be good enough to find out if my card is working or not.

According to the specs on the asus site my mobo is 2 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (blue @ x16 mode,gray @ x4 mode), I'm guessing x4 isn't all that great.
 
Bluenose said:
This should be good enough to find out if my card is working or not.

According to the specs on the asus site my mobo is 2 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (blue @ x16 mode,gray @ x4 mode), I'm guessing x4 isn't all that great.
Click to expand...

Cool, so your blue ones are both x16. Thats good :)

x4 isnt recommended for a high end card, but aint the end of the world :)

- l et me know how you get on
 
Last edited:
If you are uncomfortable resetting your CMOS and don't want to mess around with settings, which is never a good idea if you aren't the most clued up.

A much easier solution would be to just try the card in another computer, perhaps a friends if you don't have a spare. This will of course eliminate everything else and point to the card being the fault.

At first glance though, it's the strong favourite. Still needs to be double checked though :)

Good Luck
 
Buchanan0204 said:
If you are uncomfortable resetting your CMOS and don't want to mess around with settings, which is never a good idea if you aren't the most clued up.

A much easier solution would be to just try the card in another computer, perhaps a friends if you don't have a spare. This will of course eliminate everything else and point to the card being the fault.

At first glance though, it's the strong favourite. Still needs to be double checked though :)

Good Luck
Click to expand...

This thought was the first thing that crossed my mind but i don't have anyone who has a proper PC to try it in (all laptops, netbooks etc.).
 
So i tried the card in the gray PCI-E 2.0 slot and the card has worked.

I checked through GPU-Z that the card is running at x4, I'm really not sure what this means and how much of a difference it will make.

What i'm unsure of now is does this mean that the x16 slot that the card was in is now broken ?
 
Oh, and here's a quote from another side from someone who has benched x16 vs x4:

So looks like there is ~10-15% difference in crysis, while only ~3% in 3DMark '06.

I was really shocked by the small difference in 3DMark, while the 10-15% in Crysis was generally around what was expected.
 
unp|dissy said:
Maybe not broken, but something doesnt like it.

WHy dont you put it in your second x16 slot? I think your board has two..?
Click to expand...

The board only has 1 x16 the asus manual and website is very misleading.

There is one blue pci-e slot thats x16 and 1 grey slot thats x4.

Someone suggested that it could be the PSU because it would be drawing more power in the primary x16 slot.

Could this be a problem because i run a 650w PSU which when i bought it was under the impression it was more than i would ever need, I only have 1 hdd, 1 optical and ofc the mobo/cpu running on the PSU.
 
Bluenose said:
The board only has 1 x16 the asus manual and website is very misleading.

There is one blue pci-e slot thats x16 and 1 grey slot thats x4.

Someone suggested that it could be the PSU because it would be drawing more power in the primary x16 slot.

Could this be a problem because i run a 650w PSU which when i bought it was under the impression it was more than i would ever need, I only have 1 hdd, 1 optical and ofc the mobo/cpu running on the PSU.
Click to expand...

The power draw between x4 and x16 will be a matter of a couple of watts.

Your 650w psu is more than enough, i power a:

i5 @3.6
6 gb ddr3
GTX580

on a 650w (high end one, mind you).

Im pointing towards your BIOS / Faulty slot / PSU brand.

Which leads me onto, what brand PSU do you have..? If it's poor, replace it regardless of this problem, although this may be causing it.

I'd also clear CMOS by removing cmos battery for 30 seconds or so and popping it back in, then trying.

And finally, if it's a faulty slot, you'll need to replace the motherboard to get your x16 back unfortunatly, but as mentioned, for the % of performance loss, you may not worry too much regarding this unless your PC in really streched as is it, in that case.. well, time for a new board/cpu/ram im afraid, but thats for you to decide, If my board was faulty and out of warrenty, and use that for an excuse to go sandy bridge.

At least we know your card is ok.
 
unp|dissy said:
The power draw between x4 and x16 will be a matter of a couple of watts.

Your 650w psu is more than enough, i power a:

i5 @3.6
6 gb ddr3
GTX580

on a 650w (high end one, mind you).

Im pointing towards your BIOS / Faulty slot / PSU brand.

Which leads me onto, what brand PSU do you have..? If it's poor, replace it regardless of this problem, although this may be causing it.

I'd also clear CMOS by removing cmos battery for 30 seconds or so and popping it back in, then trying.

And finally, if it's a faulty slot, you'll need to replace the motherboard to get your x16 back unfortunatly, but as mentioned, for the % of performance loss, you may not worry too much regarding this unless your PC in really streched as is it, in that case.. well, time for a new board/cpu/ram im afraid, but thats for you to decide, If my board was faulty and out of warrenty, and use that for an excuse to go sandy bridge.

At least we know your card is ok.
Click to expand...

The PSU is a Coolermaster Xtreme 650W.

I'm gonna attempt to update the BIOS as it's been pointed out to me there was a asus bios version at one point that was to solve a problem with 5850/5870 being unable to be detected.
 
Bluenose said:
The PSU is a Coolermaster Xtreme 650W.

I'm gonna attempt to update the BIOS as it's been pointed out to me there was a asus bios version at one point that was to solve a problem with 5850/5870 being unable to be detected.
Click to expand...

PSU is fine.

Ok dude, good luck with the flash. Do it slowly and make sure you follow the instructions correctly, and have the correct bios.

Let us know how you go.
 
unp|dissy said:
PSU is fine.

Ok dude, good luck with the flash. Do it slowly and make sure you follow the instructions correctly, and have the correct bios.

Let us know how you go.
Click to expand...

Updating your BIOS with asus mobo's is so foolproof even an idiot like me can do it in minutes.

It's updated now but have yet to try the card back in the Primary pci-e slot will do soon.
 
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