Maximum PC

Okay, so.. I have a pretty big problem.

I'm using this mobo:
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD...M3A79T_Deluxe/

TRYING to get this card to work:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102948

Monitor Type : Dell Computer W3201CHD TV - 31 inches


700W+ PSU
Had a friend of mine, who is a member of the Geek Squad, come by and help me try to figure it out.. We both couldn't fix it.

Right now I'm using a 4870, my old card.

Symptoms: Computer boots up, no beeps, no display.
Screen says "No signal."
It's booting all the way into Windows.
I've tried all sorts of combonations of HDMIs and VGA between my monitor, and my brothers monitor.

I installed the 6870 into my brothers PC, so I know it works.

I installed his GTX 560 into my pc, and it worked.
I then installed nvidia drivers for the card and all of that. It asked to reboot, I did. Then his card would boot all the way up with video display UP UNTIL right after the windows loading screen was done, then it went to no display, when it should of been showing my desktop.
(But I didn't uninstall the ATI driver all the way I don't think, was in too much of a hurry, but I included this info for completeness)

Anyways... I really hope I can get some help here. I've been hassling with it for 2 days now, and have even had somebody come look at it. Anything I can do? Maybe it's incompatible with the board? I checked online but couldn't find anything about that....

Just almost at my wits end with it.

SOS, please help, lol.
Any help greatllyyyy appreciated.


When I boot, theres 2 beeps + 3 beep sounds.
Maybe that means 5, maybe not. I don't know.
Don't think there was a beep when I use my old card.
Maybe just one, if that.

- - - - - - - -


General Beep Codes:
If the BIOS manufacturer is unknown the following will be the general Beep codes:
• 1 Long and 1 Short Beep ?Bad Motherboard
• 1 Short Beep and nothing else happens ?Disk Drive/Video Related Problems
• 1 Long and 2 Short Beeps ?Bad Video Card
• 1 Continuous Beep or Non-stop short Beeps ?Bad Power Supply
• 3 Short Beeps - Bad Memory


American Megatrends Inc. (AMI) BEEP Codes:

• 1 Beep - Memory refresh timer error.
Reseat the memory, or replace with known good modules.
• 2 Beeps - Parity Error
Reseat the memory, or replace with known good modules.
• 3 Beeps - Main memory read / write test error.
Reseat the memory, or replace with known good modules.
• 4 Beeps - Motherboard timer not operational
• 5 Beeps - Processor Errors
• 6 Beeps - Keyboard controller BAT test error.
• 7 Beeps - General exception error.
• 8 Beeps - Display memory error.
If the system video adapter is an add-in card, replace or reseat the video adapter. If the video adapter is an integrated part of the system board, the board may be faulty.
• 9 Beeps - ROM checksum error
• 10 Beeps - CMOS shutdown register read/write error
• 11 Beeps - Cache Memory Bad

Tried swapping out with another power supply?

What brand and model is the "700 Watt" one you are using?

I would rule that out first, its not likely an incompatibility issue.

Raidmax Technology 730W

"RX-730SS"

My brother has a 600W PSU and it worked on his PC.

Wattage is not necessarily the issue here. What's the amperage on your 12V rail(s)?

Yeah I was just reading about that before class tonight >_<

Well, my PSU says 24a on the 12v rail.

Somebody somewhere on the internet said the 6870 needs 28amps?
=/... I really hope this isn't the case..
I was able to run my brothers 560 though.

The only thing that I can think of is that the PSU has 2 +12V rails and maybe the one rail has too much load to handle it all. If the 600W can handle it, it is possible that it had one rail and can handle the load. A 500W PSU could technically handle it if it has the right current rating a a single strong +12V rail.

Yeah, I just found out that Raidmax don't make particularly good PSU's.
It DID run the GTX560, but only until windows tried to boot up, then it went "no signal."
I'm going to try my brother's PSU, to see if it makes a difference.

Yeah Raidmax is a "El Cheapo" brand
I personally never go for a PSU unless it has a single rail design for the +12V look for a OCZ, Corsair, Antec, or Seasonic PSU they all should work well.

Well, crap... Had I known years ago, I would of not skimped. But I mean I guess I've got my moneys worth out of it.

Would you want to recommend me a nice, stable PSU for my build/future builds? I'd appreciate it a lot. I have some money to buy a decent one at $100 or more if need be. I'm looking for upgrades that I can cannibalize and use in future upgrades. Thats why I got my AM3 socket processor and the 6870 just recently. So now I guess I'm in the run for a new PSU.


Mainboard : Asus M3A79-T DELUXE
Chipset : AMD 790FX
Processor : AMD Phenom II X4 965e @ 3400MHz
Physical Memory : 8192MB (4 x 2048 DDR2-SDRAM )
Video Card : ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series <----- would be 6870 if it worked for me.
Hard Disk : Seagate ST3250310AS ATA Device (250GB)
Hard Disk : Western Digital WD1001FALS-00J7B1 ATA Device (1000GB)
DVD-Rom Drive : HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH20NS15
DVD-Rom Drive : ELBY CLONEDRIVE
Monitor Type : Dell Computer W3201CHD TV - 41 inches
Network Card : Marvell Semiconductor (Was: Galileo Technology Yukon 88E8056 PCIe Gigabit Ethernet Controller
Operating System : Windows 7 Professional Professional Media Center 6.01.7601 Service Pack 1 (64-bit)
DirectX : Version 11.00
Windows Performance Index : 5.9 on 7.9

Im running 2 internal HDDs, and with my apparently bad PSU, and the new card... I can see how my PSU would be failing.

If you won't do SLI or X-fire then a 600W-650W should be plenty other wise go for a 750W-850W.
A few of my recommendations:
1)CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 750W ATX12V v2.31/ EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC High Performance Power Supply @$104.99
2)CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX650 V2 650W ATX12V v2.31/ EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC High Performance Power Supply@$94.99
3)OCZ ZT Series OCZ-ZT650W 650W ATX12V v2.2 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply@$99.99
4)PC Power and Cooling Silencer Mk II 750W High Performance 80PLUS Silver SLI CrossFire ready Power Supply@$109.99

You PSU is not necessarily failing it just cant handle the load on one 24 amp rail (your model has 2 24 amp rails). Try moving all your optical and hard drives to one strand or the other. This may take some process of elimination on your part to figure out which cables are on which rail. Some PSUs have a diagram on them to show you how the load is separated. You want to isolate the video card on one rail.

Another test would be to disconnect everything you dont need from the PSU (IE just the boot drive and the video card) to see if that will get the card working.

Thanks for that you guys.
Really appreciate it!

Tried using my brothers PSU and my brothers screen.
Nothing changed.
2 beeps + 3 longer peeps on startup (when using the 6870 only). No idea what that means.

How much should it cost to get this fixed, or at least find out the problem?
Im at my wits end, literally. It's now officially worth to money to me to fix this stupid problem.
I just am too distraught over it, and it's personal now.

Which PCI Express slot are you using? What other expansion cards do you have?

I'm using the PCIe slot closest to the CPU, my top slot.
I have 2 black PCIe and 2 blue ones. The One it is in is blue.

also:
went in to my mobo and wrote down some settings.

APM CONFIG > Power on by PCIE devices (Disabled)
POWER > ACPI Support (enabled), ACPI support 2.0 (enabled), repost video on S3 resume (No).
ADVANCED > Plug and play OS (yes), palette snooping (disabled), IRQ are all set to (PCI Device)

I just wrote whatever down that might be affecting the situation (with my limited knowledge).
Some maybe this might be an issue. But right now Im running my 4870 on all these settings,
and in the same PCIe slot.

I am wondering if you might try taking out all non essential components I wonder if this is a RAM problem try taking out all but one stick of RAM.
try this:
1) take out all but one stick of RAM then start up with the new 6870 if that works
2) add another stick of RAM until you have a issue or if not let us know at least it would rule that out.

Just trying to think of ideas.

Wow, would RAM really be a factor like that? I mean not even displaying bios?

Once again, I'm going to come back to amperage. It doesn't matter what peripherals are running on what rails if the PSU doesn't have enough amps on either rail to run the video card. How many amps does your brother's PSU push? Ideally for a high end 6000 series Radeon GPU you'll want about 30A. If neither PSU is capable of fielding this load, then get yourself a new PSU. If power is not the problem then RMA the card while you still can.

Have you run the system with onboard video without the 6870 installed? If it runs without issue under those circumstances then your problem is effectively narrowed down to either the PSU or the video card.

with out any add in PCI cards this system with the 6870 card only calls for 603 watts

now having said that, I have to agree that not every power supply is created equal.
I have seen 650 watt psu run like 1000 watt ones, completely over built,
and I have seen 850 watt psu run like 450 watt ones where they skimped and used
cheap parts and had only one 12 volt rail with minimal amps

the fact your brothers power supply wouldnt run it is curious but not definitive. The "screen" is irrelevant to the issue at hand until you get it running and actually start pushing video to it at high frame rates.

Does the system boot with the on board video? IF so, we know the board at least works.
4x2gb sticks is gonna pull some amps but not really enough in my opinion to cause a PSU to choke. being as they are probably pulling 1.5 volts each for a total of 6. They could however cause it to fail to POST if they are bad, but since your brothers card works in it, I assume they are not the issue.

this card works in your brothers PC, but does he have identical innards to yours? ie hard drives, ram,optical drives and mobo? if not, its only good to find out that the video card works.
again
back to power supply

I hit this issue a few years ago when I went from my 1 gtx 260 to 2 of them and it promptly failed to boot
pull one card, fine, two cards, midnight safari(black screen)

not knowing where you live or what kind of PC repair places you have handy or access to
if I had a local vendor that could try a bigger one and then if it works let me purchase one, or failing that you would have to suck up your pride an go to a "big box" geek squad type deal and pray. personally I would just buy a new psu before I did that. Your mileage may vary, not all stores are rip offs just most of them.

He doesn't have 2nd HDD like me. He is running DDR3 ram, like 8-12GB.
He's running his GTX560 that we just got.

if it's really my power supply, I would hate to go have the guys in town check it out for 35 dollars and tell me it's the PSU, and then that's 35 dollars off of my PSU when I have to upgrade.

When my computer starts up, it gives those beeps I explained earlier, but when I boot up with my 4870 it does no beeps, or 1 beep.
What could that mean? My ram and new processor all work fine right now (i'm guessing). My friend installed the processor for me when he was here trying to figure out my video card woes, just for the hairy of it, and then after he left I watched a quick video and put in the RAM. I have PC Wizard 2010 and checked it, and it's all showing up.

I tried taking my PCIe power cord (the one with 2 PCIe 6pins on it) and hooked it up to my card. And then later after I figured out all of this PSU business, I tried using 2 PCIe power connectors from different cords, and it still didn't work. (the 2nd one had 2 fans running off of it)

Should I take out some RAM sticks, and unhook my 2nd HDD and see if i get video signal?