Can't figure out problem with new GPU

Unfortunately, no. This PC is mostly used for web browsing and e-mail, so it only has the most basic of components in it. AMD Athlon II X2 240 CPU, Asus M4A78L-M mobo, on-board graphics, and the PSU is only something like 400w, etc. It wasn't built for any kind of gaming hardware at all.

Things have gotten even weirder, though. I didn't have anywhere else to store my GTX 460, so just to get it out of the way, I popped it back into my gaming PC. Just for the heck of it, I plugged in the power cable and started the PC... to my surprise, the fan on the GTX started working again. I have no idea how this is even possible, I was certain it was dead.

Amazed, I figured I'd install some nVidia drivers again and just go back to my old setup. But here's the [new] problem: When I boot into Windows (it posts just fine), now the old card is doing the black screen thing. So before when the PC had no drivers installed at all, I could at least get into Windows with the old card. But now that the drivers are installed, I can't get into Windows.

But that's not all, even stranger still, I can get into Windows with Safe Mode. It was the opposite with no drivers / the new GPU installed.

I am at a complete loss at this point, no clue what's going on.
 
Your problem (like many people with these problems) is that you have nothing you can use to diagnose. You have one rig, one power supply, one motherboard, etc. You can't do piece-by-piece diagnosis when you only have one rig. If you have a friend I would recommend asking him if he would let you see if the problem is consistent in his/her rig. I would also try getting a new PSU real quick (return it if it doesn't solve anything) that has sufficient rails. At this point it could simply be anything. Could be your MB, could be your GPU is faulty. Could be Windows acting up... you can't drill down to the problem like this.
 
ok, well if its doing the same black screen with the old card now, i think its safe to say that its prolly your windows install that's messed up. i am thinking its extending the display to a monitor that doesn't exist.

in any case, check the disk for errors or sfc /scannow or just reinstall windows broseph, while you're at it, run memtest
 
Was really hoping a reformat wouldn't be necessary...

Quick question: Could a damaged PCIe slot lead to symptoms like I'm having?
 
you could try using sysprep first, it will wipe all the drivers and seal it up like a factory reset but doesnt touch your data or installed programs.

its pretty quick.
 
why not? beats a full reinstall.

i use it all the time when i update my cpu/mobo.

I haven't done a re install in 3 years, and ive been through 2 mobos upgrades in that time.

ignore what that link says.

The only thing you care about it the generalize option. that strips out all the drivers.
 
Personally, I wouldn't bother with sysprep (not to discount it, I just don't think stripping out drivers will fix your problem. If it were drivers something like drivercleaner or whatever it's called now would take care of that), either use a spare HDD (do you have one?) or simply make an image of your computer, assuming you have somewhere to store it. I don't think it's your install, but it's generally an easy thing to rule out if you have resources.

Can you fit the 460 into the second pci-express slot to test it? Take out anything you need to, but a dual slot card should easily be able to fit on that motherboard in the second pci slot if there's nothing blocking the ports below it.

What spare parts do you have if any? I feel like we're in that scene in apollo 13
 
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Pylor said:
Can you fit the 460 into the second pci-express slot to test it? Take out anything you need to, but a dual slot card should easily be able to fit on that motherboard in the second pci slot if there's nothing blocking the ports below it.

What spare parts do you have if any? I feel like we're in that scene in apollo 13
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I should be able to fit the 460 in there, so I'll give that a try today. At least that will help rule out 1 card and 1 PCIe slot. I actually do have a spare P5N-e mobo that I've never used.

Long story short, ages ago I was going to do my own custom build from scratch. Bought all the parts needed, etc... and then it all arrived, I started putting it together and saw how complicated the PSU and mobo install seemed to be. So many wires that went to a thousand different places. Honestly, I got intimidated by that and gave up.

I've replaced GPUs several times, replaced RAM, sound cards, fans, and recently a CPU and HSF. But for some reason I'm still too nervous about trying to put in a new PSU or a new mobo.

I ended up going to a site called CyberPowerPC where you create a custom build by picking out the parts you want, then they put it together for you and mail it. So now I've got a few parts leftover (most of which I've sold on eBay). The mobo is one part I still have.
 
Alright. I moved the sound card down a slot and tried to put the 460 into the other PCIe slot. Unfortunately, it won't fit there because of these two red cables that get in the way. One goes to my HDD, the other to my CD-Rom. However, while moving things around, I noticed there's quite a bit of dirt at the far left and far right ends of the original PCIe slot I was using, as well as down inside the little "notches". I'm going to clean it out as much as I can with some compressed air, but I was wondering: Could this be causing the problem?

Here's a picture showing the red cables and the dirt near the blue PCIe slot:
262xe9u.jpg
 
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Romale23 said:
disconnect your hard drive and reset your bios settings if it doesn't post still you know its not windows
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I have never unhooked my hard drive... but I have always reset my cmos on switching video cards as it gives the DMI data pool a fresh start.. It will tell you after reboot that it was updated .. which means it see's the new hardware added (your video card).

I have owned over 30 video cards since 2003 and I have never had a bad card that needed an RMA because I always reset the cmos.. if that doesn't work then yes you have a bad card.

So power all the way down to zero dead.. hit power switch to discharge stored power.. pull current video card out.. find cmos jumper on mother board which is 2 or 3 pins.. find battery ..install clear cmos to the correct jumper pins with jumper.. pull battery.. wait 10 mins .. reinstall battery.. pull jumper off cmos pins ..reinstall your 6970 ..power back up.. DMI data pool will be update and see the new card.. you may need to go into bios to reset your date and time and what other settings you was running like ram voltage and such if it was overclocked.
 
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fanboy said:
I have never unhooked my hard drive... but I have always reset my cmos on switching video cards as it gives the DMI data pool a fresh start.. It will tell you after reboot that it was updated .. which means it see's the new hardware added (your video card).

I have owned over 30 video cards since 2003 and I have never had a bad card that needed an RMA because I always reset the cmos.. if that doesn't work then yes you have a bad card.
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Hmm. Even my old GTX 460 is giving me the black screen though now, not just the new 6970. Seems unlikely both cards are bad. I'll try resetting the cmos... it's one of the few things I haven't done so far, and at this point I'm willing to try just about anything.
 
A bit of luck finally: I found an old 9600GT video card laying around that I can use to test my PCIe slots with. I'll post again later with any results.
 
Good news!

I decided to do a System Restore and went back a few days to before I used "DDU" (Display Driver Uninstaller) and this guide to clean out all traces of nVidia. Once I did that, I ran a Windows Update and let it install the latest drivers for my GTX 460. To my amazement, this worked! I can now get back into Windows normally and use my old video card.

So what was the problem? That guide I linked to above is WAY too thorough and has you remove far, far too many things that really needn't be. Thankfully, I was able to undo the damage done by that with the restore and everything seems to be running smoothly again.

I now have one last question: Do you guys think I should remove the drivers for my nVidia GPU the normal way now and try to install the 6970 again... or just be happy that my old GPU is working and leave things alone?
 
Animositisomina said:
Good news!

I decided to do a System Restore and went back a few days to before I used "DDU" (Display Driver Uninstaller) and this guide to clean out all traces of nVidia. Once I did that, I ran a Windows Update and let it install the latest drivers for my GTX 460. To my amazement, this worked! I can now get back into Windows normally and use my old video card.

So what was the problem? That guide I linked to above is WAY too thorough and has you remove far, far too many things that really needn't be. Thankfully, I was able to undo the damage done by that with the restore and everything seems to be running smoothly again.

I now have one last question: Do you guys think I should remove the drivers for my nVidia GPU the normal way now and try to install the 6970 again... or just be happy that my old GPU is working and leave things alone?
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Technically you can run both at the same time, so its not necessary to do that. A lot of us old timers run ddu and driver cleaner apps cause well....we always have...is it really needed all the time? nope but there are people like me that will do a complete reinstall at times just for the sake of it....not everyone like yourself has time for that (or the experience)

You paid for a new card, an old one in my opinion, but thats a different subject. Put the card in or send it back to newegg.....you have to do one or the other;) ddu, and other various driver cleaners are not 100% compatible with every system...i had it hose a couple of pc's in my time of using it...thats why the author says to have good "backups" before use.....it does work good on my desktop, but i have had it hose a couple of laptops, one a system restore seemed to fix, the other i did a complete re install...these programs do have here benefits but also some risks.
So for the time being i would try to install it, the traditional way without using driver cleaners and see how it goes
 
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primetime said:
Technically you can run both at the same time, so its not necessary to do that. A lot of us old timers run ddu and driver cleaner apps cause well....we always have...is it really needed all the time? nope but there are people like me that will do a complete reinstall at times just for the sake of it....not everyone like yourself has time for that (or the experience)

You paid for a new card, an old one in my opinion, but thats a different subject. Put the card in or send it back to newegg.....you have to do one or the other;) ddu, and other various driver cleaners are not 100% compatible with every system...i had it hose a couple of pc's in my time of using it...thats why the author says to have good "backups" before use.....it does work good on my desktop, but i have had it hose a couple of laptops, one a system restore seemed to fix, the other i did a complete re install...these programs do have here benefits but also some risks.
So for the time being i would try to install it, the traditional way without using driver cleaners and see how it goes
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Hey now, I might not have as much experience as some of you, but I'm no rookie, either. :p Been working with PCs for about 12 years now. This just happened to be a bit of a puzzler. And I have plenty of experience with driver cleaners. I've been using DriverCleaner.net for many years, never had any problems with it.

The only reason I used DDU and that guide instead this time around was because I was switching to a different brand of GPU, instead of just a new nVidia GPU, and I had read that you needed to be more thorough when removing drivers between brands.

As I've now discovered, that is apparently not the case. I most likely could have stuck to my normal routine using DriverCleaner.net and avoided this whole mess... it was the first time I'd switch brands though, so I didn't know. But hey, lesson learned.

Anyway, thank you for all the helpful advice and tips. I do appreciate it. :)
 
I never meant to imply you were a rookie lol.....mainly some of us have more time to do certain things than others.....im some ways thats a compliment to you than the other.....people who put real life issue above pc nerd stuff....well speaks for itself doesn't it:D Were here to help bud...let us know how it goes
 
Hey just wanted to let you know that your card is done for. I RMA'd a 7970 because I wasn't getting any signal and no spin up, and the one that came back did what your card is doing, I managed to get it to work by switching pci e ports for a minute or so then restarted and got the same fan spin up and no monitor. RMA'd that card and they sent me one that has a humming fan and glitches out and blue screens. Still trying to RMA this card. ASUS has terrible quality control when it comes to RMA.
 
ClutchAutomatic said:
ASUS has terrible quality control when it comes to RMA.
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Not sure if you mean card or retailer here, but either way mine is from NewEgg and it's a PowerColor. Didn't get it from Asus and it isn't an Asus re-brand. I've RMA'd stuff through NewEgg a few times over the years, never had a problem with 'em.
 
That is one hell of an old board with that Sli key as I owned one once .. is the PCI express x4 / x8 or something as I remember issues with these old boards when the 8800GT was brand new and not want to work with those old PCI express slots.
 
Animositisomina said:
It was recommended as the best choice for my CPU/Mobo by the fine folks at hardforum.com, so... yeah. That's why I got this card in particular. I was even told my PSU was enough to handle it.
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Yeah I saw your thread. Looks like the prices were really good. Pretty surprised they would let a high end, but still older card, go for such a good price.
 
Animositisomina said:
Not sure if you mean card or retailer here, but either way mine is from NewEgg and it's a PowerColor. Didn't get it from Asus and it isn't an Asus re-brand. I've RMA'd stuff through NewEgg a few times over the years, never had a problem with 'em.
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Just bitching about my own strugges with Asus and their factory warranty. Hope you get your issues figured out.
 
fanboy said:
That is one hell of an old board with that Sli key as I owned one once .. is the PCI express x4 / x8 or something as I remember issues with these old boards when the 8800GT was brand new and not want to work with those old PCI express slots.
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I don't use the SLI feature, I just run a single gpu. The mobo has x8 for SLI.
 
Alright, I think I'm going to try installing the 6970 one last time. Since I've been finding so many conflicting answers elsewhere, what process do you guys recommend when switching from nVidia to AMD?

Some people say remove any and all traces of old drivers, some say just uninstall via Control Panel using nVidia's uninstallers. Some people say to boot into safe mode and run Driver Sweeper, others say you don't need to. And others say both cards and both sets of drivers can co-exist.

So... step-by-step, what's your preferred method? If you were switching from Vendor A to Vendor B, what would you do?
 
IMO, uninstall via the control panel and have it remove everything you can yourself. Note that your board has an Nvidia chipset so it's possible if you uninstall that way it could prompt to uninstall the chipset too.

That mobo is only pci-express 1.1, you're going to need to upgrade your system if you intend on getting a better card ever. You're already pushing your pci-express slot to the limit if not being limited by it imo.
 
Personally I've used DDU on both this and my secondary rig and had no issues, but then again you seem to have had problems so some other method I guess...
 
Pylor said:
IMO, uninstall via the control panel and have it remove everything you can yourself. Note that your board has an Nvidia chipset so it's possible if you uninstall that way it could prompt to uninstall the chipset too.

That mobo is only pci-express 1.1, you're going to need to upgrade your system if you intend on getting a better card ever. You're already pushing your pci-express slot to the limit if not being limited by it imo.
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Yeah, I've had this system since around 2010, maybe late 2009. It's definitely starting to show its age. I'd like to keep it for another year or so, but I have a feeling after that it'll be time to put it out to pasture. It's served me well all this time but any new upgrades from here on out are going to be somewhat pointless. Time for a whole new rig instead of just new parts.
 
ClutchAutomatic said:
The fan spin up to 100% is a dead give away for faulty GPU.
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From what others have said, this particular card will run the fans at 100% until you install the drivers for it. Not sure how accurate that is, but I suppose we'll know for sure once I try installing it again. If it really is dead though I'll just ship it back to NewEgg for a replacement.
 
I've had my GPU fans spin up to 100% spin up during BIOS and other things like that, and spin down after driver installations and other things. And these 780 GTX's (and it's happened on more than these) are still working quite fine now, so I highly doubt that 100% spinning fans is a "dead give away for a faulty GPU".
 
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