New video card appears to hate me

Caswell · Jan 5, 2009

Just got a Powercolor HD 4870, installing it onto a 790GX motherboard.

Vista was already installed and running off IGP. Installed the video card, and Vista won't boot (BSOD that flashes). Wouldn't even boot the Vista install disc. Uninstall card and Vista boots like normal.

CPU is a 5400+ BE, and the PSU is 500w...so power shouldn't be a problem. I have both of the PCIe power cables hooked up.

Is the videocard bad, or am I doing something wrong?

Yaason · Jan 5, 2009

sounds bad.

Caswell · Jan 5, 2009

It is worse than good...

Goblin69 · Jan 5, 2009

You DID connect the power to the video card right?

Caswell · Jan 5, 2009

Goblin69 said:
You DID connect the power to the video card right?

Caswell said:
I have both of the PCIe power cables hooked up.

SuicideSnowman · Jan 5, 2009

You might wanna check your MB manufacturer website and make sure there's not an updated BIOS that fixes something like this.

clocks · Jan 5, 2009

DiLLuSioN · Jan 5, 2009

Thanks, I'm going to have nightmares now..

Caswell · Jan 5, 2009

BIOS updates are only for CPU compatability. Disabling IGP doesn't help.

mrkshammerhand · Jan 5, 2009

check your bios settings carefully.
I had a similiar problem with a new MB.

PaYbAcK · Jan 5, 2009

mrkshammerhand said:
check your bios settings carefully.
I had a similiar problem with a new MB.

I know on my mobo bios (My system is fucking old) there is an option to "Init First" a display device with options like PCI or AGP. I wonder if you could switch that one.

Caswell · Jan 5, 2009

PaYbAcK said:
I know on my mobo bios (My system is fucking old) there is an option to "Init First" a display device with options like PCI or AGP. I wonder if you could switch that one.

I don't have AGP

I did check that setting though, it was set to PCI...now it's set to PEG. Problem persists. Checked all the settings...look fine.

Caswell · Jan 5, 2009

Tried the card in a second machine and it works fine. That basically leaves me with a motherboard or PSU problem. I'll swap the PSU from the second system in tomorrow and see if that fixes things.

Fuck, I don't want to have to deal with an RMA.

bam · Jan 5, 2009

Did you remember to uninstall the old video drivers first? Also, if you hit f8 before boot up and then go to advanced options you can stop Windows from instantly rebooting after the BSOD. This will tell you the BSOD error and you can go from there...

Lazlo · Jan 5, 2009

Don't count a motherboard update out. I bought a 280GTX and it did the EXACT same thing (but with windowx XP). Popped old card back in, flashed bios, no problems after that.

Give the bios update a go.

PaYbAcK · Jan 5, 2009

Caswell said:
I don't have AGP

I did check that setting though, it was set to PCI...now it's set to PEG. Problem persists. Checked all the settings...look fine.

Yeah I know you probably dont have AGP, thats why I said my system is old,

I'm leaning towards some sort of BIOS incompatibility with the card.

Caswell · Jan 6, 2009

Well...a BIOS update kind of helped. I'm now getting a "Stop: c000021a" error on bootup. Trying to use the Vista boot disc doesn't work, loads the files and then just tries to load Vista normally...and crashes.

Fuck this shit...

Caswell · Jan 6, 2009

Now (sometimes) it runs check disk, then has an unexpected error and reboots.

Ratbert · Jan 6, 2009

You fail at choosing motherboards.

bam · Jan 6, 2009

Either your mobo is fucked or your drivers are causing issues... Did you have an nVidia based card prior to this ATI based card?