Everything works except the video.

Egon

Active Member
Alright, so I spent the night trying to talk a friend through her first computer upgrade?

The PSU went in flawlessly.

The CPU went in without any trouble... Except for when I told her to unscrew the four screws around it that I though that the time were holding the fan down but were in fact holding the heatsink retention bracket. That was a fun hour getting that back on.

Now we are at the video card. The drivers are installed. After some struggle to get the back pci slot plate off we set the [VIDEO CARD] in place. Now, the card is HDMI and DVI but her monitor is VGA. So I have her get some of these [ADAPTERS]. On power up the card's fan spins (very loudly might I add) but there is a black screen.

There are three questions I have...

*The card came with a very tiny cord that plugs into the card right next to the SLI part. We can't find the place for it on the motherboard. Could this be the problem of the black screen?
*Could adapter might be the wrong kind of DVI to VGA?
*Could the video card be DOA?

Her monitor is a new little acer flatscreen too.
 
The loud fan and no video is a pretty obvious sign something's not fully initializing. I'd guess either the card's bad or simply not getting enough power. It was very clear in the picture, but it doesn't have a PCI-E connection, right? Confirm it's plugged in if it does.

1. The tiny cord is likely for SPDIF (audio over HDMI). It's not required.
2. There's really only one kind of DVI to VGA connection. I have seen some that didn't have all the analog pins (no clue how it worked with VGA :P) but that one appears to be fine. Also given the fan screaming, I'd suspect other issues.
3. Read above.

If possible, test the card in another computer as well as testing another card in that computer.
 
We've looked that card all over for any extra power needed. Couldn't find anything except that SPDIF connection. As for testing it in another computer, I asked. She only has a seven year old desktop with PCI slots. Hrm... That fan was loud enough that I could hear it over the phone really clearly.
 
I didn't see anything in the pics posted on newegg, but just making sure...

I'm still leaning towards a power issue, though. Either the power-supply in general isn't sufficient enough or something's missing from the board. Since that one's apparently bus powered, it needs a fair bit of juice from PCI-e.
 
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