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New Build old GPU no video on Boot (new GPU now on the way)

jwhirry

New Member
Joined
Jun 9, 2009
Messages
3 (0.00/day)
Processor AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition
Motherboard GIGABYTE GA-MA770T-UD3P
Memory OCZ Special Ops Urban Elite 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
Video Card(s) HIS Hightech H485QT512P Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16
Storage Seagate 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB SATA 3.0Gb/s, 2 - WD SE16 WD2500KS 250GB
Display(s) SAMSUNG 226BW Black 22" 2 ms (GTG)
Case Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower
Power Supply CORSAIR CMPSU-520HX 520W ATX12V v2.2 and EPS12V 2.91
I am in the process of a new build which ran into an issue that I hope to have fixed tonight but want to check with the community. As a warning the story may get long. But any comments to help will be appreciated.

My old build which I originally assembled in February of 2005
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3500+ upgrade to AMD Opteron 165 Denmark in 10-2007
MOBO: MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum nForce4 Ultra socket 939
PSU: Antec NeoPower 480W
HDD: WD 200GB (failed 10-2008) upgrades and additions to 3 – 250GB HDD
RAM: 2 - CORSAIR 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Upgraded to 2 - CORSAIR 1GB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) in 2-2007
GPU: MSI NX6600GT-TD128E GeForce 6600GT 128MB 128-bit GDDR3 cooling fan failed and cooked itself in 2-2007 – upgraded to XFX PVT71PUDD3 GeForce 7900GS 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16
Optical Drive: LITE-ON Model SOHW-1633S DVD+R DVD Burner E-IDE upgraded to SAMSUNG Model SH-S203B 20X DVD±R DVD Burner SATA in 10-2007
No name case with decent cooling and modified for improved cooling

History:
About 2 months ago my computer started to not come back from sleep mode. The power button and reset button did not work either. There was a fan working harder than normal and there was an intermittent beep coming from the case speaker. After shutting it off via the PSU and letting it sit a minute I turned it back on and it booted right back up with no issues.

After a week of this recurring near every time I walked away from the computer for more than a minute, I dismantled and cleaned everything I could looking everything over, changing up my power configuration, and rerouting the wiring. I noticed in this process that my Northbridge heatsink fan had failed at some time but could not get any of the screws out to remove it. I popped the fan out of the heatsink carefully but left the heatsink in place. I put everything back together and it booted right up. I went into bios and reduced my overclock which was fairly minimal to begin with. Everything worked fine again for about a month and then the issue started again. I figured it was either my PSU or the motherboard since the Northbridge was fairly certain to have experienced some heat issues over time. Finally the day came when I had no video when I turned the computer on I could hear it POST and then it gave a long beep. I was frustrated from work and other things going on so I let it sit for a while and when I came back later it turned on and fired right up. I shut it down after I was done doing what I wanted to do. The next day I was not so lucky, same issue but now seemed to be permanent, no video on the monitor to show me an error. I tried diagnosing the beep code and even installed the bracket with the lights to help diagnose POST code errors but it did not make any sense. I figured the MOBO was just done.

I have had the itch to upgrade for a while (quite a while) and with the 955 out I was ready to bite. But I first had to look to see if I could find a cheap 939 board that would fit my needs (fiancée who does not understand hobby). But none are to be found for any decent price.

Present Issue:
So I started pricing components and figuring out what I needed, wanted, and make it somewhat future resistant. Came down to the details in my spec, with an exception, I thought my GPU was good the 7900GS and figured I would wait till DX 11 to upgrade. I kept my hard drives and optical drive as I am sure they are fine.

I put together my new build Sunday night everything was going great checking things over changed up a few things for wire routing and such, it looked good. Went to boot for the first time, fans spun up could hear the hard drives quietly working but what is that loud fan? And why do I have no video?... I shut it off and tried the other DVI port same thing, shut it off tried a different cable, same thing, shut it off tried a different monitor, same thing. The Antec 300 does not have a speaker so I did not get any POST code beeps at the time.

I figure my problem may not have been what I thought… It may have been a strange death of my video card. I ordered a new card (HD 4850 in my specs) yesterday and last night I hooked up a case speaker to the mobo cleaned up the contacts on the card unhooked the hard drives and tried again same thing but the POST code beep was long with some warbling near the end so I don’t know if the long and short are so close as to be indistinguishable or what? I tried a few other things but never got any video on the monitor or a different POST code beep, even when I booted without the card in. On a cool note I found out that my new pc will be near silent without that GPU fan spinning up.

I will be trying the new vid card this afternoon. I am getting quite anxious and am to the point where I need my home pc working again ASAP. I am dreading that I may have received a faulty part which I know happens.

Any comments or suggestions? Is there something I am missing or that I should try first? You have my thanks for any help offered.
 

jwhirry

New Member
Joined
Jun 9, 2009
Messages
3 (0.00/day)
Processor AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition
Motherboard GIGABYTE GA-MA770T-UD3P
Memory OCZ Special Ops Urban Elite 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
Video Card(s) HIS Hightech H485QT512P Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16
Storage Seagate 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB SATA 3.0Gb/s, 2 - WD SE16 WD2500KS 250GB
Display(s) SAMSUNG 226BW Black 22" 2 ms (GTG)
Case Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower
Power Supply CORSAIR CMPSU-520HX 520W ATX12V v2.2 and EPS12V 2.91
New video card did the trick to get it to boot. Installing Vista 64 was flaky, quite a few BSODs, finally got it up and running stable installed my drivers and went to do some of the updates and vista immediately said my activation time was up and that my key was already in use and put itself into a reduced functionality mode :wtf: I know it will be a simple phone call to fix, but still frustrating. I was hoping to do some benchmarks to ooh and ahh myself but the reduced functionality shut them down.

I am thinking about trying out the Windows 7 RC. I would also like to run a raid 0 solution but I would like to do a more through job error checking my drives first. Any recommendations for a bootable hard drive utility program that will work on sata drives and boot without a floppy?
 
Last edited:

jwhirry

New Member
Joined
Jun 9, 2009
Messages
3 (0.00/day)
Processor AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition
Motherboard GIGABYTE GA-MA770T-UD3P
Memory OCZ Special Ops Urban Elite 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
Video Card(s) HIS Hightech H485QT512P Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16
Storage Seagate 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB SATA 3.0Gb/s, 2 - WD SE16 WD2500KS 250GB
Display(s) SAMSUNG 226BW Black 22" 2 ms (GTG)
Case Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower
Power Supply CORSAIR CMPSU-520HX 520W ATX12V v2.2 and EPS12V 2.91
Thought I would follow up on this.

So I changed over to Windows 7 RC and have it running stable. Stable but Slow. In processing large amounts of Data it would kick my old pc's butt. But program installs take much longer, boot time is around 2 minutes, I am thinking of reinstalling and trying raid again. I wish I had the extra dough to fork out for a Vertex, Torqx, Falcon, or UltraDrive. I can't believe how long it takes this thing to do simple tasks. My old PC (939 Opty 165 with 2 gigs RAM) would boot in about 30 seconds, and initiate processes when I started them. I can see video editing time has been seriously reduced but the lag in general use is seriously annoying.

I haven't had time to do a lot of research into this. But is this a general issue that has an easy fix? I tried a few things a few weeks ago and boot time improved by a slight margin. But I am still disappointed.
 
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