Hi,
I have been reading the Sapphire forum and others and making occasional posts for some time now (since early Jan) I really hope someone out there can suggest something that I haven't read (and tried) on any of the many forums I have combed through looking for an answers. I've piled hours and hours into this card and I'm at the end of my teather. I have been waiting for the DFI street forum to re open, as I think I may have an incompatability, or as least there may be some advice here that I cant get elsewhere re motherboard compatability. So please be patient and read this carefully I know its alot of info but I dont want to have to repeat myself too much. Here's the story so far.
The problem. No POST except twice ever.
When I have had the card running, it works like a dream, and temperatures are well below anything that would cause concern.
I've used-
HIPER Type R 580wPSU - no post no fans, didnt even work with my geforce 6800gt. RMAd, and refunded.
Corsaire HX620W - Runs system with my old card fine, No post beep but all fans 100%, just a black screen.
Cleared Bios -nothing
Tried with no CD, DVD, Sound card, just one stick of ram and graphics - NO Post.
changed ram bank and module around, NO Post
changed leads to PSU around in every combo on every connector- nope
Played with Bios settings- Init Display First - tried every option - nothing
RMAd and refunded
Finally Liberty Enermax 620W and POST and played for 3-4 hours with 1950pro -no artifacts and delighted.
restarted several times no problem BUT powered off, powered on and ,,, no POST
Tried with no CD, DVD, Sound card, just one stick of ram and graphics - NO Post.
changed ram bank and module around, NO Post
changed leads to PSU around in every combo on every connector- nope
Played with Bios settings- Init Display First - tried every option - nothing
re-installed latest mobo bios and chipset drivers- nothing
Checked the heatsink is contacting the memory properly and it is.
RMA'd the card back to Overclockers. Who tested it (probably once) got it to post and run 3dmark and sent it back.
Installed the card as before (uninstalling my Nvidia card, using driver cleaner pro in safe mode as appropriate) nothing.
Powered off then on and CARD POSTS FINE! with all my ram and devices plugged in. I installed the drivers off the CD and had a fantastic 4 hours play loving it! Updated to the 7.1 catalyst and restarted and everything.
Powered off, powered on and - NO POST..
Tried about 50 times. no joy..
Submitted a support ticket to Sapphire asking whether the card requires you to manually set AGP drive strength. see below quote re what that is, but this is clutching at straws and I dont expect that to get an answer.-
"This BIOS feature will only be activated if you set the AGP Drive Strength BIOS feature to Manual. It determines the N transistor drive strength of the AGP bus.
The drive strength is represented by Hex values from 0 to F (0 to 15 in decimal). The higher the drive strength, the greater the compensation for the motherboard's impedance on the AGP bus.
In conjunction with AGP Drive Strength and AGP Drive Strength P Ctrl, this function is used to bypass AGP dynamic compensation in cases where the auto-compensation circuitry cannot provide adequate compensation. Please check with your graphics card manufacturer if your card requires the N transistor drive strength to be manually set."
I am so sick and tired of all this f-ing around but i cant get a refund and I would rather not loose the £140 on top of the phone bills and delivery costs for all the returns I've had to do.
Please help because this is a fantastic card and all I read are people having minor issues but then solving them or getting new and perfectly functional cards and LOVIng it.. I BEG you to help me as this is the last chance before I take a hammer to the card and despair.