Quick question on 7870

[Banyans]

Good afternoon everyone,

Im having some issues with my Mobo for my new build and while waiting to see what the RMA process yields I decided to try my new HD 7870 with my old Dell XPS 420 to see if I could get a bit of a performance boost while I wait.

On plugging the 7870 in I get fans spinning but no display (my HD 4850 works fine so it doesn't appear to be a hardware failure on any other parts)

Question is: is my 7870 damaged or is it just not compatible with my old system (dell xps 420 is around 4 years old).

System Specs:

Intel core 2 Duo CPU E8300 2.83GHz
DELL TP406 Motherboard
Intel X38 Express Chipset/ICH9R
3GB Ram
650 Watt PSU
500GB HDD
Windows 8

I wasnt expecting much from plugging the card in to this system but wanted to test it and see if it worked. It doesnt so is it just a case of old hardware not being able to keep up or an RMA job with the GPU as well?

Many Thanks

 

[J.D]

Hi there Banyans, welcome to OCUK.

I know your motherboard is a little bit older but have you updated the BIOS recently?. I'm thinking it's either a BIOS update for your motherboard that you need or that maybe your PSU isn't up to the job for the 7870.

 

[Bacon?]

Make and model of PSU?

Have you got the PCI-E PSU connector plugged in?

Have you updated your motherboard?

Have you checked if your motherboard supports new GPU's?

 

[Banyans]

Thanks all for your help. Card was faulty so RMA was in order.

 

[mranderson]

Hate when this happens. That's why I prefer to have mobos/CPU's with integrated GPU's for these situations.

 

[Banyans]

I know it sucks. I've had a nightmare too as the mobo, CPU and gpu I got for my new build appear to need RMAing!

 

[spirits247]

I know you said the card was faulty, but this exact thing used to happen in some older PCI-E 1.0/1.1 boards with AMD/ATI cards newer than the 4 series eg - 5 series and beyond.

A bios update from the manufacterer was required. For example happened to me with a Gigabyte board, and others just had a blank screen as you described:

http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php?topic=6608.0

Gigabyte sent me a bios fix thankfully.