So I switched my PC on this morning, and all I met with was a blank screen and a "beeeeeep, beep beep beep". Apparently that means that "no VGA is detected" so I took out my 8800 GTS 320 (I know, a little behind the times), gave it a rigorous dusting (it wasn't too bad) and put it back in. All to no avail. So now what? I can't afford to spend more than about £80, which is enough to get a replacement which would be something of an upgrade. As I see it, my two best bets are a 5770 or 5830, depending on what prices I can find. But that brings me to my next problem - my PSU. Now a disclaimer - when I ordered my PC four years ago, I knew next to nothing about computer hardware. So that explains why I have an "EZCool ATX 550 JSP". However, despite all the naysayers, it has run fine for almost four years. But what should I do now? If I just throw in a 5770, what are the chances of anything going wrong? For reference, here's the rest of my system: Core 2 Duo E6850@stock Asus P5Ne-sli 2GB DDR2 667mhz 2 SATA 7200rpm HDDs IDE DVD RW drive HELP!
Get a computer mate to try your GFX in their pc with the onboard VGA turned off (incase they have it on) and see what happens it could be the PSU not providing enough power to the gfx? assuming they are powered off more than just the board. 5870 for £123 if its not the psu
After four years wouldn't it be odd for the PSU to just wake up one morning and randomly decide not to feed enough juice to the card? But I'll see if I can find someone to test the card for me - unfortunately I'm at Uni, and most of my friends have headed home for the summer. As for the 5870, yeah that's a good price, but I think I'd be worried about the PSU - I'm not even sure if it has two spare 6-pins, which presumably I'd need. I'm graduating in a week's time, and as soon as I find a job I'm getting a completely new system. However, finding a job is easier said than done, and I need something to tide me over till then!
PSUs can fail in a million billion ways and for all I know that could be caused by the PSU. Maybe a CX430 and a second hand card? ...unless ofcourse it indeed is the PSU and not the GPU.
Remember, Ez cool do focus on very cheap PSU's, and they aren't the best, I can tell you that after having cheap ones exploding. In that case, this should cover you at a very good price: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-...u-850mhz-800-cores-2x-dvi-mini-dp-single-slot http://www.scan.co.uk/products/530w...-sli-crossfire-120mm-fan-dual-rail-atx12v-v23 Fantastic, well priced PSU.
Yup, I'm aware of EZCool's reputation, but I guess that I had been lulled into a false sense of security by its performance up until now. I'd be happy to buy either a PSU or a graphics card, but I'm not sure the budget will stretch to both. I had assumed it was the card, but I guess I'll have to confirm that.
Don't go buying a PSU before you have determined the cause of the problem... it may have nothing whatsoever to do with the PSU. Any PSU that goes strong for 4 years is not a bad PSU. Confirming a fault can be a painful exerience because there can be so many culprits, and as such you're going to have to be patient - wait until you can give somebody the 8800 to test, then you will know for certain whether or not it is to blame.
Sound advice Lenny - thanks. And speaking of finding someone to test the card...I'm in St. Andrews...
Try checking each individual part. And then check if there are any error indicator lights on the GPU.
I got kinda distracted by graduating from uni yesterday, so sorry about that! Anyway, as a follow up to this, I got sent (by a friend) an old GeForce 6200 to try out, but when it arrived and I tried to install it, it didn't fit. When the DVI/VGA end is tight against the backplate, the PCI-E port is about 5mm too close for the card to fit in. I was kinda surprised - I assumed things like that would be written into the PCI-E specs...unless they've changed over time? For future reference, how do I tell whether a card will fit or not? Thanks...
They should all pretty much fit. Something is non standard with either your case or the card he sent you. I would keep trying with getting a cheap/rubbish GPU to test in the rig before you splash out. I bought a GTX 460 thinking it would solve my problem a while back last year, and it turned out to be PSU problem.
Hah. So either this card is non standard, or my old card was, or my case is, and I can't yet tell which?!? Right. My old card is this one, my "new" card is this one, and my case has no name or manufacturer that I've ever been able to find! Could someone with more knowledge than me take a look at the two cards and tell me which one is weird? I've put them next to each other, and there's a visible difference in the length between the backplate and the start of the PCI-E connection, so I'm figuring it's one of them rather than the case?
Just a heads up - I didn't have time to read most of the replies. But I got this issue when I added my U2311H one display port. But I found that it was the display port causing it to fail at boot, powers up fine with out it, so try unplugging everything from your GPU first
Not at home right now, but I'll give that a try. Thanks, Pete! Does the fact that I've tried it in both DVI's available on the 8800 make it less likely? Or could it be a problem in the monitor? I'll try plugging the monitor into my netbook as well, just to see if it works...
Judging from the amount of times the word explosion or something wrong turned up when i googled EZcool, I'd say you are one of the lucky ones. PSU's do get less and less efficient over time as their components wear down, it may be worth testing with another PSU if you have access to one. The problem here is that you are trying to put an AGP card into a PCIe slot. AGP was the standard before PCIe was made mainstream. Some of the more powerful 6 series Geforce cards were PCIe, but not this one. Also worth noting that if it is the PSU that is having difficulty, putting in a low power card that puts less of a strain on the PSU wouldn't necessarily rule the graphics card out as the problem, even though it would be most likely.
Yeah, I gather I've been lucky with my PSU. But then, I guess it's only the horror stories that people tend to bother complaining about. And yes, hehe, I feel a little foolish for the AGP, PCIe mixup! Guess I'll go hunting for a cheap cheap PCIe something or other on flea bay...
You can get 2nd hand 4870's for £50! Pair that, or a less powerful card, with a budget PSU like this and you'll be fine.
