cold boot - no gfx on 1st boot - but then re-boot and works all day

[AlexHaden]

Hi All,

last few weeks did a brand new build, which conisists of a

GByte Z87-HD3
Intel Core i5 4670K S1150
XFX 550W P1-550S-XXB9 PSU
8GB 2x4GB CML8GX3M2A1866C9R

and I already had a Radeon MSI 7950

Now, all been working perfectly for about three weeks, then all of a sudden, on boot - no display, but PC working, so I RDP' in, and I can see the desktop, so its all working.

So I shut down and reboot and boing! the display comes on. Then will work fine all day without any problems......

Im going to try and reseat the GFX Card later - but if it wasn't in properly, it wouldn't work 2nd time round?

Any thoughts on the problem?

[kalniel]

My guess would be drivers and/or low power state modes. Check BIOS is up to date, and try different GPU drivers.

[Octodog]

When you get, "no display", do you get any display at all when booting? Or is it blank from when you push the power button? If it shows the POST screen, could possibly be a driver issue..?
If it's blank all the way through, try disabling the on-board graphics in the BIOS, as it might be trying to use that before the PCI-E card.

Failing that I'd first try another video card if possible. If the replacement has the same behaviour, I'd look at the PSU.

There's always the onboard graphics to fall back to. I'd wager that if you tested that, you'd get reliable display on every boot.

[AlexHaden]

Hi All,

On first boot, no monitor display - so if there is a POST screen, I cannot see it.

Once the PC is up and running, I can RDP into the desktop from my ipad, and its all working fine, the radeon is now showing error 43.

Switch off, reboot and I can then see the post screen - weird

Perfectly stable PC when its running, been playing BF4 for hours and hours without any issues - its a strange one indeed!

[kalniel]

Ok so if it's not even showing post then it's not a windows driver issue. Is the error only when no display is showing? Can you tell if the computer thinks it is running on an intergrated chip (with no display connected) on the times it's not showing? I'm trying to see if it's that the whole AMD card isn't working on cold boot, or if there's a monitor signal issue. If the whole card isn't working on cold boot then I'd be looking at either a hardware fault or some issue with low-power states as mentioned - is your PSU haswell compatible? It can be something weird like because the CPU doesn't draw enough current on certain lines, the PSU doesn't provide enough juice on the other lines for the GPU to start up correctly.

Have you updated the BIOS?

[jim]

Why have you opened the same thread 3 times?

[AlexHaden]

Why have you opened the same thread 3 times?

1) In the SCAN Aftercare support - purely for their technical support team to look at, its linked with my Invoice number and build
2) In the Scan Care section - As that was my first place to post, but not everyone goes there, so tried in the more general forum which is no.....
3) In the Quick relief forum as that's where most people are and I have received a number of constructive replies.

Are you able to help with my query?

[AlexHaden]

So then, checked the specs of my PSU and its definitely haswell compatible, its a rebranded seasonic 550w, so should do the trick.

The weird thing for me, is that it was working fine for a good few weeks, and just developed this issue a few days ago and once its up and running, it can prime 95 to its hearts content for hours and hours and hours and everything is rock stable.

I have the onboard gfx disabled and updated the bios to the latest. If the AMD card was playing up and wouldn't work, would the PC actually get through the boot? Been that long since I ever had an issue, I cant remember?

I have a corsair 500w psu in my server, so if I cant figure it out, might swap them around and see what happens - but some troubleshooting steps I am thinking of trying are:-

1) on next failure, try the del key to see if I can fire up the bios and see if the monitor engages then
2) next time it gets into windows with the error 43, can I RDP in and re-enable the radeon and see if the monitors kick in?
3) Going to try sleep/hibernate to see if that helps, but don't want to really hibernate with my SSD
4) Cry

If all that fails might try swapping out my corsair PSU and see what happens then, should be able to narrow it down to see if its a PSU issue? Although, if it was hardware related, shouldn't it start playing up when prime 95'ing?

Ta for the help, appreciate the help and suggestions

[kalniel]

So then, checked the specs of my PSU and its definitely haswell compatible, its a rebranded seasonic 550w, so should do the trick.

The weird thing for me, is that it was working fine for a good few weeks, and just developed this issue a few days ago and once its up and running, it can prime 95 to its hearts content for hours and hours and hours and everything is rock stable.

Stability under full load isn't the same as providing the right voltages to on standby rails and so on. It's a notoriously tricky thing to test for and get right, as every system is different. It could even be that a cooler ambient temperature affects it (literally a cold boot error!).

I have the onboard gfx disabled and updated the bios to the latest. If the AMD card was playing up and wouldn't work, would the PC actually get through the boot? Been that long since I ever had an issue, I cant remember?

It shouldn't, hence my questions about the onboard, but if that's disabled then it doesn't sound like a total failure of the GPU, just something odd about the monitor driving part. Is the fan turning on the GPU?

I have a corsair 500w psu in my server, so if I cant figure it out, might swap them around and see what happens

Definitely worth trying.

- but some troubleshooting steps I am thinking of trying are:-

1) on next failure, try the del key to see if I can fire up the bios and see if the monitor engages then

Unlikely to make a difference, but worth trying incase it's going through post too fast to get the monitor to wake up perhaps.

2) next time it gets into windows with the error 43, can I RDP in and re-enable the radeon and see if the monitors kick in?

Re-enable via device manager? Never thought of trying that for a desktop

3) Going to try sleep/hibernate to see if that helps, but don't want to really hibernate with my SSD

If it comes to that then use junction to map the hibernation file to a mechanical disk, though resuming from standby gives it's own power challenges

I would add:
-disabling low power modes within BIOS. Start with all, and if it works, add them back in one at a time until you get to the problem.
-maybe bumping voltages in BIOS - I don't think the parts need more voltage, but the aim is to draw a bit more load from the PSU.
-Trying single monitor - you mention plural in point 2 above. Get rid of complexity first.

[AlexHaden]

Hi,

Thanks for the help, im going to try those over the next week and see what happens. When you say switch off low power, I'm assuming you mean c6/7? I'll report back with my results - gets even weirder, cold boot for first boot of the day, I get the issue.

So I powered down, pulled all the plugs, waited 20 mins, plugged them back in, and it worked fine. But I bet tomorrow first boot? I'll get the problems :-(

[bytejunkie]

silly suggestion time.

cmos battery dead.
thinking being that the mb isn't saving the knowledge of the off board gfx until the cold boot, when it realises its outputting gfx through the wrong connector.
when it reboots warm, the battery isn't needed as it knows the change of config and all is well.
have you tried the onboard for the first cold boot of the day?

[AlexHaden]

Hiya, there are no silly questions :-)

I don't think it's the CMOS, as after it reboots, and the gfx card is working fine, the bios has kept all my other changes, such as disabling the on board gpu and audio, and the SSD boot drive. If it was the batt, all that would have gone also.

But good idea though!

[AlexHaden]

Ok,

So before i started dismantling stuff, i thought....I'll see if there is an UEFI bios for my vid card (there was), so i updated that, and while i was at it - completely reset the bios.

Guess what? Its all started working fine :-/

I hadn't changed anything in the bios other than switching off the on-board audio and video, which i did again when i reset it, but ??

That's it, not meddling with it now - its working so im leaving it well alone!