Used DDU, now no display at all

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Falling Anvil

[H]ard|Gawd
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Nov 3, 2007
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So I decided to switch out my GTX 660 for an R9 290 I recently bought. I decided to try out Display Driver Uninstaller since it seemed like the new best way to clean out drivers, but after seeing the cleaning and shutdown go quite smoothly I have not been able to get any sort of video out from my div only x-star DP2710 Korean monitor at all. Not on my new 290, not from my onboard, and not from my old 660. Best I can get is some sort of color test from the monitor from onboard, that's it.

Anyone know how to recover from not having a display at all? Sorry if this seems a bit incoherent, typing all of this from a tablet atm.

Edit: Oh yeah, forgot to mention that I did indeed try a new div cable... no luck there. Should I consider dragging out an old monitor and trying VGA?
 
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Nope, can't see post, when connected to either card the monitor activity LED flashes like the monitor is in sleep mode, or in a state of not receiving a video signal at all, which is backed up by the lack of anything showing up on screen. On onboard it just flashes various colors on the screen like some screen test.
 
For on board video, it may not be dual link DVI (and you can't use any converters iirc); so if you're seeing something from on board on your x-Star at all, I'd try plugging something else into it. So yeah I would just whip out an older monitor and try plugging it into every slot you got available. Oh and make sure you didn't loosen RAM or something while changing GPU's. Afterwards (after getting post), check the bios settings. I've seen some options that determine which port things display on occasionally. I've pretty much never seen driver uninstalls somehow stop a post, so I would really check all of your connections. RAM, PSU connections, etc.

Oh and are you sure your PSU has enough juice for an R9 290? They're ridiculously power hungry. Do you hear any power on sounds? Fans spin up? I've always had new GPU's work right away after plugin, regardless of driver conditions. GPU might be bad. I'd do some testing first though.


Oh and make sure you're using the dual DVI port on your R9 290 if it has multiple DVI ports.
 
My PSU is a Seasonic x650, should be plenty of power. :)

Fans on old card ATM do work, actually put my finger In too close trying to feel for fan airflow. Will try looking at RAM slots, though the thing isn't beeping at me ATM so not too sure about that...
 
its deff something hardware related, or you would see post.

that fact that you just finished using DDU is a coincidence

pull the card and reseat it.

also try a different slot.
 
The Mac said:
its deff something hardware related, or you would see post.

that fact that you just finished using DDU is a coincidence

pull the card and reseat it.

also try a different slot.
Click to expand...

I would most definitely agree....ddu cant in any way effect the post or anything outside of windows...its just not possible
 
The Mac said:
its deff something hardware related, or you would see post.

that fact that you just finished using DDU is a coincidence

pull the card and reseat it.

also try a different slot.
Click to expand...

Just tried putting the old card on my other PCI-e slot, made sure my power connectors were secure, then tried restating my RAM. Still no luck.

Starting to think that I might have killed something, somehow. My Corsair m65 mouse not lighting up and my onboard now exhibiting that same behavior is reinforcing that theory as well.
 
pull the ATX power connector, blow out the plug and reseat it.

it sounds like power problem

does your mobo have a debug readout? whats the make/model?
 
Actually I take back what I said, just realized that I had disconnected my div cable just before restating my RAM and using the other PCI-e slot :eek: . Now getting boot up and Windows, although the system doesn't seem to be reading a stick.

Will try the other paired slots to make sure a stick isn't actually gone, then will try the first slot card again.
 
Hmmm..I tested both sticks individually on every single slot and neither of them allow me to boot in any slot. Might one or more of the slots and/or sticks be dead? This is getting a whole lot more complicated than I expected.
 
its unusual for ram to go bad, but i suppose anything is possible.

blow out the slots with some compressed air, and run a pencil eraser over both sides of the contacts on the sticks and try again.

what is the make/model of the mobo?
 
I had a similar issue and fixed it by updating my mobo BIOS to the latest version
 
It's an MSI z67a g43 g3, the one with the PCI-e 3.0 slot that may or may not be useful (do like the slot locking mechanism tho). I think I'm on BIos 4.0 while the latest is 4.3, which was fine up until now.
 
im still thinking its a power issue.

pull the ATX connector and reseat it.
 
Falling Anvil said:
Hmmm..I tested both sticks individually on every single slot and neither of them allow me to boot in any slot. Might one or more of the slots and/or sticks be dead? This is getting a whole lot more complicated than I expected.
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I don't quite understand how its posting without any ram installed, but it wont post with any ram installed....i have had ram go bad and give major instability and or errors while testing...i have heard of dead slots that wouldn't read any ram...i guess sometimes ram would go completely bad and keep the board from posting..but that would be extremely rare for both sticks at the same time...

I'm wondering if i'm understanding you correctly...because usually a motherboard will give an error beep with no ram installed instead of posting ...is it posting with some different ram you just happened to have?
 
primetime said:
I don't quite understand how its posting without any ram installed, but it wont post with any ram installed....i have had ram go bad and give major instability and or errors while testing...i have heard of dead slots that wouldn't read any ram...i guess sometimes ram would go completely bad and keep the board from posting..but that would be extremely rare for both sticks at the same time...

I'm wondering if i'm understanding you correctly...because usually a motherboard will give an error beep with no ram installed instead of posting ...is it posting with some different ram you just happened to have?
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I'm on a work computer right now but I have been wondering about this, I've had situations where I've improperly installed ram and the computer would beep at me loudly when I try to boot up from there. There is none of that going on here, which combined with the lack of anything being displayed is throwing me off big time.

I actually made sure that both my EPS 4-pin and ATX 24-pin connectors were securely connected to the motherboard before going on my ram slot testing, but I'm starting to think that I should revisit the 24-pin issue. The 290 Windforce is a very long card, and I'm thinking that while the 24 pin seemed secure to me, I might have knocked it out of alignment when trying to slot the thing in the first time as the sheer length of the card is long enough to start getting in the way of the cable leading to the 24-pin. Will report back on what happens.

As for memory, I haven't tried different pairs of ram yet. Thankfully I do have a pair of old sticks of 1.5v ram that I could probably downvolt and test with if this latest hunch doesn't work out.
 
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rather than checking if its secure, i would recomend fully removing it and reseating it.
 
These are the kind of issues where it would really help if you had another computer you could move things to. Then you could try testing your RAM in it, changing out PSU's, etc. You eliminate a fair amount of uncertainty while doing diagnosis. Your problem could be as obscure as the cable from the PSU wearing down due to bending or something (not sure if it's actually possible... it probably is though; just an example anyway).
 
Ok well since you have on board video...i would remove all cards from the system....video,sound, anything else as well.....re-seat all power connectors, ram, go from there....if its still not posting....i would reset the cmos (disconnect power, pull the battery and usually a jumper needs moving for a minute)

You need to figure out why its not posting...once you get it posting, you can start adding all the cards back one at a time making sure it still posts...it could be as simple as a bad power supply, defective add in card, or even the video card...maybe once you get it all back together it just magically works...it happens to all of us..sometimes just from moving the pc around something gets a loose connection

If you still couldn't get it to post with everything but the ram removed and after resetting the cmos...i would suspect the power supply usually.....if not that... then its somehow the motherboard itself...its usually not that complicated to troubleshoot
 
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Okay, update on this issue:

Played around with the RAM in slots, the 24 pin power, and then moving the old card back into the PCI-E slot I was using before, and managed to fix the issue completely? :confused: However, the new card on installation is now exhibiting boot loops that make it unable to even go to POST, so I just submitted an RMA on it to Gigabyte.

I guess we'll see how it goes in a couple of weeks.
 
will it post into safe mode? there's a slim possibility of faulty drivers.....even though you used ddu i agree.....was just wondering if it would post into safe mode...if not then i think you got it sorted out...bad card...you could always try a clean install from a demo win 8.1 update 1 iso out in the wild...only takes about 10 min to double check to be absolutely sure..though chances are you got it figured out

im sure it was stated..what is you current power supply? those 290s do draw a fair amount of power as to why i was asking..i usually make a usb win 8.1 update one install on a flash drive...takes about 10 min to install on a ssd drive just to make 100% sure
 
Honestly I'm not sure if you needed to RMA yet. Like I said you would really benefit from having a friend's computer you could put this thing into or something. You know how AMD RMA's are (where you don't have EVGA): an utter mixed bag with chaotic results. Personally, I'd only RMA something that I knew for sure was messed up because I'd be scared of what I get back. Your problem's symptoms are really vague and you need more testing to get to the root of it. For all you know you're gonna get a card back that's also perfectly fine and you'll have the same problem. Tons of time wasted.
 
primetime said:
will it post into safe mode? there's a slim possibility of faulty drivers.....even though you used ddu i agree.....was just wondering if it would post into safe mode...if not then i think you got it sorted out...bad card...you could always try a clean install from a demo win 8.1 update 1 iso out in the wild...only takes about 10 min to double check to be absolutely sure..though chances are you got it figured out

im sure it was stated..what is you current power supply? those 290s do draw a fair amount of power as to why i was asking..i usually make a usb win 8.1 update one install on a flash drive...takes about 10 min to install on a ssd drive just to make 100% sure
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It's a Seasonic X650, it should be readily able to handle even a 290.

As for safe booting for testing, it doesn't actually get to the stage where I can pre-select boot state. I suppose what I could do is to clean drivers and then tell Windows to boot in safe mode again with the new card installed, but now that I think about it the boot loop pattern also doesn't seem to have any video output past the normal flash of colors my monitor tends to do when it gets turned on. As with everything about this issue, it's weird, and I haven't seen anything like it before. This is made worse by the fact that I don't really have another system around that I can try testing for it. Well, I think there's an inactive one that I could try, but it's in such a state that I'm almost afraid that it'll do more harm than good slotting that thing in.
 
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Falling Anvil said:
It's a Seasonic X650, it should be readily able to handle even a 290.

As for safe booting for testing, it doesn't actually get to the stage where I can pre-select boot state. I suppose what I could do is to clean drivers and then tell Windows to boot in safe mode again with the new card installed, but now that I think about it the boot loop pattern also doesn't seem to have any video output past the normal flash of colors my monitor tends to do when it gets turned on. As with everything about this issue, it's weird, and I haven't seen anything like it before. This is made worse by the fact that I don't really have another system around that I can try testing for it. Well, I think there's an inactive one that I could try, but it's in such a state that I'm almost afraid that it'll do more harm than good slotting that thing in.
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So no matter what you try..with the 290 card installed you can't even get a proper post to chose safe mode or even go into the bios...im guessing your not even seeing any of the bios prompts or normal info displayed during a normal start up

What happens if you hook to onboard output...i guess you're getting nothing there as well as long as the 290 card is installed in the motherboard...you can pull the card back out and boot up with the onboard and double check there haven't been any bios updates for your motherboard... i would have thought there be a way to hook to onboard even while the add in card is installed...there could be a bios update for the card as well...i would do both these things before rma'ing anything
 
So I finally found a way to update my BIOS since Live Update and M-Flash weren't working (but apparently just clicking on the file will), to the latest version, and while initially trying out the new card in the top slot on my board yielded the same results as last time, putting it in the secondary slot did for some reason. I would have let it sit like that for a while, but doing that apparently broke something with my PCI wireless card and thanks to cable clutter in that area it was not an ideal situation anyway, so after loading up Catalyst 14.4 I ended up putting it back in the original slot to do more testing...which worked fine this time. :confused:

So uh, thanks for encouraging me to stick at troubleshooting this thing instead of sending it back for RMA I suppose. The wireless reception is better now, but not what it was so I'm thinking of buying one of those USB adapters as a back-up. Oh well, beats a faulty GPU anyway. :)

Of course now I gotta figure out how to cancel that RMA request...
 
Falling Anvil said:
So I finally found a way to update my BIOS since Live Update and M-Flash weren't working (but apparently just clicking on the file will), to the latest version, and while initially trying out the new card in the top slot on my board yielded the same results as last time, putting it in the secondary slot did for some reason. I would have let it sit like that for a while, but doing that apparently broke something with my PCI wireless card and thanks to cable clutter in that area it was not an ideal situation anyway, so after loading up Catalyst 14.4 I ended up putting it back in the original slot to do more testing...which worked fine this time. :confused:

So uh, thanks for encouraging me to stick at troubleshooting this thing instead of sending it back for RMA I suppose. The wireless reception is better now, but not what it was so I'm thinking of buying one of those USB adapters as a back-up. Oh well, beats a faulty GPU anyway. :)

Of course now I gotta figure out how to cancel that RMA request...
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Make sure you do benchmarks and several restarts of various types to makes sure it's working properly. Sounds like something else may be messed up though. PSU, MOBO, or maybe even CPU (I've read that some guy messed up his CPU while delidding and disabled some PCIE lanes).

You don't need to cancel RMA right away. Again it'd really help if you had a friend with a computer you could shove this into to make darn sure.
 
Of course now I gotta figure out how to cancel that RMA request
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rmas will automatically cancel after enough times goes by...funny the system works that way...but its good to hear your making progress on fixing your setup

was so I'm thinking of buying one of those USB adapters as a back-up
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You be surprised just how good some of the usb wireless adapters work....I get the full 60mb wireless speed through my Amped Wireless adapter from my isp..or about 8MB's transferring videos form my pc to another
Its not gigabit by any means but not to bad either:)

Are you kinda thinking updating the bios fixed the issue or just a mixture of things you did?
 
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StoleMyOwnCar said:
Make sure you do benchmarks and several restarts of various types to makes sure it's working properly. Sounds like something else may be messed up though. PSU, MOBO, or maybe even CPU (I've read that some guy messed up his CPU while delidding and disabled some PCIE lanes).

You don't need to cancel RMA right away. Again it'd really help if you had a friend with a computer you could shove this into to make darn sure.
Click to expand...

Well I didn't think about that until I saw your post, I played a bit of Planetside 2 and Warthunder: Ground Forces and it seemed to be working fine. Places where I was definitely not getting decent frames on like medium on my GTX 660 I can now get good frames maxed out on my new 290, so I was satisfied with the performance.

I did manage to run a Heaven benchmark just now, and I managed to get these results for it, which seems to be comparable enough to a run on similar settings from Kitguru. I'm running at 1440p rather than 2560x1600, and theirs is the overclocked version while mine is stock so I assume it's a wash, adjusting for other system conditions and such. I think it's alright. It certainly should be enough to hold off on continuing the RMA, I know those lapse after a while but I still would rather cancel after a week or two if something doesn't degrade.

As for what I think I did that fixed it, I would hazard that it was updating the BIOS followed by moving the card to another slot and then loading drivers that fixed it. As I recall, after flashing putting the card on the top PCI-E slot didn't work at first, it was only after moving the card down, and then later loading drivers was I able to get video for it. Very strange really, just as strange as this wireless card going on the Fritz. Hopefully the USB adapter I just ordered will at least provide some redundancy, I initially was going to buy the really small Edimax adapter on sale for about 8 bucks, but I decided to move up to the Wireless AC model for twice the cost even though I only have a Wireless N router a floor below, because since it's a bit larger so it should also have a stronger antenna as well with better range, right?

Guess I'll find out.
 
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