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Old 08-22-2019, 09:51 PM   #1
gallione11
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Default Troubleshooting a video card

Was playing a game earlier tonight and the computer lost all power (the power cord gets loose occasionally). It's happened before, so reseated the cord and turned the computer back on and was met with nothing but a black screen / no input signal on my monitor.

After a trying a bunch of stuff, including reseating the video card, trying the other PCI slot, I ended up grabbing my older video card out of my last PC and stuck it in the first PCI slot.

Sure enough, stuff is showing up on my monitor now. The other video card is still slotted in the second PCI slot, but looking up devices in the control panel, the computer does not show it; only the older one is listed.

Does this mean that the card is dead? There were zero symptoms of the card going bad, it's not that old (~3 years) and I wasn't overclocking it or even really pushing it super hard. It's a Radeon 480 8GB so I don't think a game like FF14 would really stretch it's capabilities.

My other thought was the power supply, since that was one of the possibilities online for my initial symptoms. The older card I put it doesn't require enough power to go through the power supply while the newer one does and I'd rather replace the cheaper part first.

Thanks
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Old 08-23-2019, 06:59 AM   #2
PsYcNeT
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From a practicality perspective, replacing a video card is less of a pain in the ass than replacing a PSU. That said, a GPU that won't even show a boot/Windows while another will is a big flag for the card, not the PSU.

The GPU power draw on boot is very minimal, and even if it has a 280watt draw on load, if it was a PSU problem you're more likely to see crashes when running a game than when booting up.
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Old 08-23-2019, 07:41 AM   #3
DownInFlames
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Originally Posted by gallione11 View Post
My other thought was the power supply, since that was one of the possibilities online for my initial symptoms. The older card I put it doesn't require enough power to go through the power supply while the newer one does and I'd rather replace the cheaper part first.
Is it a modular PSU? The cable might be fried. If you can replace that it might help. Make sure it’s the right cable for your PSU. Some people mix them from other PSUs with disastrous results.

If that doesn’t help it’s tough to say what’s dead. You’ll need to put the GPU in another computer to see if that’s the issue or the PSU.

Don’t screw around with power issues. If you have a loose cable that causes the system to shut down unexpectedly get it fixed. You could fry the whole computer one day.
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Old 08-23-2019, 08:34 AM   #4
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On second thought, if the +12v Rail(s) is blown on your PSU it would cause the system to not boot; did your test card have any PCI-E 6/8-pin connectors at all? If not, it could be what DIF mentions above, it could be the +12v rail(s), or i could just be the card itself is faulty.

Did you not get any error beeps? Often if the GPU isn't sufficiently powered it will beep when POST fails (this typically happens when the PCI-E connectors aren't plugged in at all).

No beeps doesn't mean it's not the card, but it might be.

Honestly, this type of situation is where you can kind of take advantage of MemEx's return policy. It's a ####ty thing to do, but you can buy and wire up a new PSU and see if that resolves the issue. If it doesn't, you can bring it back and return it for credit, and put that towards a GPU purchase.

EDIT: Just saw you are in Portland, this may not be an option :/
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Old 08-24-2019, 05:25 PM   #5
gallione11
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Thanks for the suggestions. I will put them to use when i get home as I left for vacation Friday. I heard no beeps anytime I was Booting up. I have taken the casing off the PSU yet but that’s something I will do on return to see if anything looks bjorked.

And yeah can’t exactly use the memex method here in Portland unfortunately. Thanks again
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