Graphic card not working

Yo, have been trying to finish of a small build for my parents. It's XFX HD 5450 DDR2.

Using a G41 motherboard, the integrated graphics works fine. I can boot into Windows with no problems.

However when I plug in the HD5450, nothing is displayed and I don't think it can even get past loading BIOS.

I thought it might have been the motherboard not switching to the card correctly. However when I tried using an old ATI X1300Pro and it end up working.

So I'm thinking it must be the HD5450.

Just checking with you guys on here in case there was something I missed before I send it off for RMA. Could the motherboard be incompatible or something?

Any remedies much appreciated :)

Probably obvious, but if it has a power connector have you plugged that in?

I don't believe the 5450's are power hungry enough to require a six-pin connector.

Make sure you have disabled the onboard VGA if you haven't already. Does the system attempt to boot up, or is there no sign of life?

his old ATI card worked so prob not the VGA setting in bios. But checking the power requirements is a good place to start. Can the mobo supply enough power without a separate cable? Can the PSU supply enough current on that output via the MOBO or does it exceed the rail limit? If so you may need a separate cable. One of the reasons I try and go for single rail PSUs where possible.

Does windows have the right drivers? The ATI card is a lot older so might have sufficient drivers prepackaged with windows to run it. That said I've never had a new graphics card not do anything at all. Does it display BIOS and the windows start logo on start-up? If so, the likelihood is it's a software/driver problem with windows somewhere.

(I had this with a PCI card once. Windows couldn't handle the fact it didn't need to use onboard gpu anymore and kept wanting to revert back from the discreet card to the onboard gpu. Only solution I found was to wipe it and reinstall windows with the card in place. Et voila, it's worked fine ever since.)

However if it displays nothing at all then there may be something up with the card.

Presume it posts ok with the 5450 installed?

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Originally Posted by ik9000

Presume it posts ok with the 5450 installed?

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This - try booting the machine with the 5450 in but the monitor attached to the onboard. That'll tell you whether it's a display problem, a set-up problem or an out-and-out card problem. If you can, try the 5450 in another motherboard as well. It doesn't happen often, but sometimes you hit a graphics card and motherboard that just plain won't play nice together (I had it years back with a Radeon 7000 and a SIS-chipset mobo: card worked beatifully in every other motherboard I put it in, but not in that one :rolleyes:).

The only other thing I can think of is to check the 5450 was seating properly in the PCIe slot - again something I've been caught out by before (easily resolved by just pushing a bit harder in my case ;)). It could just be that it needs pushing harder or it could be the heatsink or a component fouling on something...

It may be incompatable. I know older nforce chipsets from the 939 days do not support ATI 5 series.

Another guy on OC.AU; he couldn't fix it.