Gigabyte 7970 not posting, black screen

[Kirano]

Hey all!

So I purchased a Gigabyte 7970 GHz edition Windforce 3X card over the weekend. It arrived today and, while the card appears to power up it does not display anything to either of my two monitors!

I've tried just connected one monitor or the other. I've tried DVI and HDMI (and even tried HDMI in the DVI using a converter) but so far, no luck! Frustratingly, I don't have a dsub cable so can't try with that!

Any suggestions folks? My specs are on the little drop down box by name (or something like that iirc!)

Kindest regards,

Kirano

[Domestic_Ginger]

Are the fans starting up on the card?

Can you load up from onboard and have a look to see if everything is okay. Obviously leave the 7970 plugged in and try some diagnostics (GPUz/hardware manager even) to make sure the card is actually working.

I think from here there may be a number of options
o maybe change bios to boot from gpu
o update mobo bios; I think there have been probs with some cards in the not so distant past. can't remember what though.
o reseat card and check connectors (sure you have done this).

I have to scroll through the inputs on my monitor all the time (sure you've tried)

[kalniel]

You remembered both PCI-E cables right?

[Kirano]

Are the fans starting up on the card?

Can you load up from onboard and have a look to see if everything is okay. Obviously leave the 7970 plugged in and try some diagnostics (GPUz/hardware manager even) to make sure the card is actually working.

I think from here there may be a number of options
o maybe change bios to boot from gpu
o update mobo bios; I think there have been probs with some cards in the not so distant past. can't remember what though.
o reseat card and check connectors (sure you have done this).

I have to scroll through the inputs on my monitor all the time (sure you've tried)

What do you mean by 'change the bios to boot from GPU?'

The fans are starting up so it doesn't seem to be a power issue.

I don't have onboard graphics so, unfortunately, can't boot without a working graphics card (this is what you meant, right?)

I tried reseating the card and also tried it in the next available PCI-e slot but no success!

You remembered both PCI-E cables right?

Both? Oh, I only used the one. I had a spare motherboard one so pushed that into the holes. The last like 16 connectors stick over the end but it fits well enough.

Yarly, I remembered both PCI-e cables. I even tried a different 6+2 cable just incase it was something dodgy with that. But to no avail.

I've plugged the old card back in now (which requires two 8-pin connectors) and everything is a-ok so its definitely the card!

[Domestic_Ginger]

I thought you would have an HDMI port on your mobo so you could use the onboard from your 2500k. It seems your mobo doesn't have one :/.

Once you could get into your bios; check the settings to make sure its not trying to use onboard but obviously you don't have it.

[Kirano]

Oh I see. I think that's only the case if the motherboard has a GPU directly built into the chipset, isn't it? Though there could be boards that do have the ability to go direct from the CPU GPU. Either way, mine does not!

I rang up the customer support for where I bought it from (Overcl... Er, I mean, the place that shall not be named...) And he asked me a couple of questions (connectors, power supply, seated properly etc.) and he said to RMA it. There's a post office just down the road from me so I actually managed to box it up and send it special delivery before they shut. It seems pretty likely it's the card, right? RMA's always worry me - what if they don't reproduce the fault etc.

Apparently their turn around for RMA's is about 3-4 days at the moment and they seem to still have plenty in stock. Hopefully I'll know before the end of the week what's going to happen. And hopefully I won't be here again next Tuesday! :/

[stilkun]

I thought you would have an HDMI port on your mobo so you could use the onboard from your 2500k. It seems your mobo doesn't have one :/.

Once you could get into your bios; check the settings to make sure its not trying to use onboard but obviously you don't have it.

Kirano's i5 2500k processor does have integrated graphics processor (Intel HD 3000) but is using P67 Chipset motherboard that does not have the option of using onboard graphics from CPU.

[Donny John]

I read that have already RMA'd it, but I was going to say that I had a similar problem with my 7770 that I acquired a few weeks ago from scan (under 12 hours from order to delivery - well done guys).

It turned out to be my 350 watt power supply that was incapable of supplying enough juice to power the card properly. I put a 450 watt PSU in, and disconnected a couple of superfluous fans in the case for good measure. Works perfectly now.

I see you have a nice 750 watt PSU tho, so unless you have a lot of high drain components/accessories in your rig, it probably isn't that.

As a funny aside, I think it took me longer to install and get the card working than it took to be delivered

[Kirano]

Update:
The card was recieved by them today, tested, found to be faulty and a new dispatched all in the space of a few hours! Should hopefully be with me tomorrow...

Fingers crossed it's not a dud this time! :/

[Kirano]

So new card has arrived to day...

Exact same problem!

They agreed that it seemed more than a little odd that I was having the exact same problem, even though the previous card was found faulty. Originally they wanted me to send it straight back but I pushed to see if there was anything else I could do at my end. As much as I want it to be the cards fault, *it is* a little strange! THough maybe that's just because I'm one of those people on the edge of the bell curve whose never had to RMA a product he's only had for 5mins! X)

MSI's website lists my motherboard - the *I didn't think it was that old* P67A-GD53-B3* - under archive. I haven't updated the bios since buying it which means my bios is probably the 1.E...

The latest bios is the 4.3, which is 8 bios updates ahead of mine...

So at the least, this exercise of updating the bios shouldn't be a bad thing... right?

[Phage]

Not usually a problem. I'd do some research on the process for your board and backup any files just in case.

[Kirano]

Well, I'm rather suprised to say that...

It's fixed!

[Phage]

Was it the BIOS ?

[Kirano]

Yep, worked straight away after the bios update! Nothing else changed inbetween.

I've looked through the descriptions of the changes between bios' and couldn't see anything to point a finger at but there must have been something I guess...

[Phage]

Alls well that ends well. Glad to hear you've sorted it.