I am really miffed!

T

The Cobra

2[H]4U
Joined
Jun 19, 2003
Messages
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Earlier today, I go and plunk down $500 for a brand new BFG 8800GTS @ CompUSA. I get back home and the first thing I do is swap out my old 7800's for this new monster that I am waiting with baited breath to use. I swap the SLI card out and put it back into single video use mode. Plug in the 8800GTS and fire up the machine. Guess what...The machine starts to boot, but no video. I call BFG techsupprt, they tell me that the mother board on my machine is fried. I proceed to put my machine back to the way it was and the machine boots up fine.

Now its is either drive back up to Rockville (Which is 55 miles from where I live in the DC metro area or RMA the son of a bitch. I really do not want to worry about RMAing a brand new card for a fear of getting a refurbed one.....

Any suggestions on why the card may be DOA and anything else that can be done?

Thanks
 
lol, I wanted to ask the same as we have to ask the question :)

What PSU are you using?
Did you plug enough power rails onto the card?

Can you try booting your machine with as little plugged in as possible.
ie remove floppy drives, DVD drives, USB devices, Physx cards etc etc.
 
i am almost 100% sure that it's either:

1) you did not plug the pci express power connector in.

2) you have a lemon for a power supply.

3) the video card was open box?
 
did your machine make the "can't find a video card" beeps? did you try both DVI ports? did you try both pci-e slots? was the fan on the card's cooler spinning? did you try and re-seat the SLI selector card really well? just a few things to try. :) good luck man.
 
1.) The PCI Power cable was plugged in. I am not a moron :rolleyes:

2.) 650 Watt Power Supply, more then enough according to the specs.....

3.) The Video Card was Brand New Sealed in a box.

Thanks
 
The Cobra said:
1.) The PCI Power cable was plugged in. I am not a moron :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

You asked us for help and didnt tell us you covered the basics so we have to ask.
Imagine if we went through all the other checks only to find you hadnt supplied power to the card.
If you dont want those sort of questions, its your duty to let us know beforehand.
 
revenant said:
did your machine make the "can't find a video card" beeps? did you try both DVI ports? did you try both pci-e slots? was the fan on the card's cooler spinning? did you try and re-seat the SLI selector card really well? just a few things to try. :) good luck man.
Click to expand...

Did all those things. The fan was spinning, the machine did a post up. I tried both DVI ports. No beeps cept for the normal boot up beep. re-seated the SLI selector card.

I put in my old cards, the machine is back to normal...I think the card is a hunk of junk and I have to take it back.....
 
Can I ask what exact power connectors have been plugged into the card.
We also need to know what PSU you have (ie how many rails anjd how much power each rail can supply)
There is more than one way to hook these up.

Try my last suggestion
"Can you try booting your machine with as little plugged in as possible.
ie remove floppy drives, DVD drives, USB devices, Physx cards etc etc."

If you get some life, it looks like the PSU is not giving enough power or possibly something plugged in is faulty.
The graphics card should beep loudly if not receiving enough power but I'm assuming for now that the card is ok and the beep circuit is faulty.

It might be a good idea to try your card in another PC with a good enough PSU also.
This way we can know for sure thats its worth troubleshooting further and not just a faulty card.
 
Just suck it up and take the card back to the store and bitch and moan and get a free gift card or something. It wouldn't leave me with a good feeling if I RMA'd a brand new card and had it "fixed" or got a used card back from the RMA. Same thing happened to me a while back when 6600gts had just come out, got a lemon from compusa, took it back for another and all was well. Seems you troubleshooted using all of your available resources also.
 
also what brand power supply is it. i assume by looking at the specs in your sig that you have a name brand one and not one made by SuperDuluxUlTrA MEgA AWSomE Inc.
 
I am looking online now at the specs for this card. On the PCI-X Power adapter that comes with the card. Do BOTH 4-Ended plugs have to be plugged in? Or Just one?

Thanks
 
lozaning said:
also what brand power supply is it. i assume by looking at the specs in your sig that you have a name brand one and not one made by SuperDuluxUlTrA MEgA AWSomE Inc.
Click to expand...

The power supply is ANtec...
 
The Cobra said:
I am looking online now at the specs for this card. On the PCI-X Power adapter that comes with the card. Do BOTH 4-Ended plugs have to be plugged in? Or Just one?

Thanks
Click to expand...
It needs both...those cards use a lot of power!
 
The Cobra said:
I am looking online now at the specs for this card. On the PCI-X Power adapter that comes with the card. Do BOTH 4-Ended plugs have to be plugged in? Or Just one?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Both have to be plugged in.
 
The Cobra said:
1.) The PCI Power cable was plugged in. I am not a moron :rolleyes:

2.) 650 Watt Power Supply, more then enough according to the specs.....

3.) The Video Card was Brand New Sealed in a box.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Even the best of us make stupid mistakes..
 
Even with both plugged in...still does not work. I am just going to bring it back at this point. This is like going on a wild goose chase.

Damn...I wanted to play with this tonight. :mad:
 
The Cobra said:
Even with both plugged in...still does not work. I am just going to bring it back at this point. This is like going on a wild goose chase.

Damn...I wanted to play with this tonight. :mad:
Click to expand...

You still got time homey :D
 
Update your bios and the problem will probably be fixed. Just like the 7950gX2 cards needed a updated bios I expect the 8800's need updated bios as well. Update to the latest bios available and let me know how it goes.
 
Not sure about your ASUS mobo, but does it have the special jumpers on the mobo to enable SLI. I am assuming you're going from an SLI to single slot solution. Just a thought....
 
The Cobra said:
let me try to plug in both....will be back.....Thanks for all the help
Click to expand...
LOL!

I was about to ask you what brand PSU you had, and if you said "Ultra" I was going to laugh my ass off. But since it's Antec, you're good. ;)
 
ChuckyD said:
Not sure about your ASUS mobo, but does it have the special jumpers on the mobo to enable SLI. I am assuming you're going from an SLI to single slot solution. Just a thought....
Click to expand...

I was thinking the same, but I'm no experienced with SLI enough to say something about it.
 
Did you uninstall all the video drivers before swapping out the cards? Are you using the latest nvidia drivers?
 
NV-man said:
Did you uninstall all the video drivers before swapping out the cards? Are you using the latest nvidia drivers?
Click to expand...

Ooo.. if the machine was expecting SLI'd cards you would get a blank screen.. you HAVE to do a full driver wipe before putting this new card in.. did you do that??
 
I thought the GTS's only had one plug in ..guess I was wrong

and for poops and giggles , try changing your jumpers settings for SLi/Single card .. maybe it needs to be jumpered in SLi mode to work ..who knows

maybe call your mobo manufacturer and make sure your mobo is compatable with the 8800 series vidcards so you dont grab another one and find out it doesnt work either.

 
There are no seperate jumpers for SLI...just a flip card for single/sli mode.

My motherboard has the latest bios on it. (1016)

The card is dead at this point. Nothing more I can do with it. I am not going to drive in this weather for 2 hours back up to rockville just for a video card. There is another CompUSA that is a lot closer to me that just got in 3 new 8800GTS cards. I will just go back Friday.

Thanks for the help.
 
I tried in both modes (Single and SLI), no go.

The GTS does have one plug in it. I am looking at it now. Unless it is hidden? But I don't see on in the nvidia website.

I did a full uninstall of the drivers, I had the 97.02 ready to install.

The card should work even if the old drivers are installed....I am not even seeing the bios post-up. Just a dead screen.
 
yes , you should at least see a bios screen and a fugly windows if nothing else

dual dvi? ..you try both ports? ..you going thru a dvi adapter or is your monitor native dvi? if adapter , are you using the one that came with the card just to try and exhaust all possible angles so you dont grab another 8800 and have the same issues
:(

 
It's dead, Jim. take it back and get a replacement. The drive sucks, but I had to do that recently, driving to Fry's in Sunnyvale, 65 miles from my house, at 7pm after I got a bad mobo.. it was worth it when I got the machine up that night. whew. :)
 
Is the computer posting, as in a beep? Do you see the hard drive led light up?
 
You did reset the BIOS NVRAM config, right? Switching out cards will do that. I ran into that on more than a few systems.
 
techie81 said:
Is the computer posting, as in a beep? Do you see the hard drive led light up?
Click to expand...

The computer is doing a full post...that is the thing. it will go and boot right up, but just no video. I see the harddrives spinning and activity.

On my powe supply, I have the bare minium of leads plugged in. Just to the MB, the CD drive, the HD and the video card.
 
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