Suddenly no signal from my video card

P

PHeeNIxx

n00b
Joined
Oct 19, 2004
Messages
52
Hi,

So today when I got home and powered on my PC, my monitor didn't detect any signal from my video card (HD6950). Since I was pretty much handcuffed until I could see anything on the display, I pulled the video card, reset my motherboard (asrock z87m extreme 4) CMOS, plugged my monitor into the onboard video, and rebooted. A signal was detected, windows booted up fine and the PC seems to be running fine with onboard graphics.

So if you had to guess, is this likely a video card problem, or a power supply problem (maybe the rail feeding the card has died)? Anybody ever have a similar problem? I had no symptoms of impending video card failure ... this just kind of came out of nowhere.

:confused:
 
I tried both outputs on the card, and both pcie slots on my motherboard, same result. The fan spins up on the card.

I'll probably try and borrow a multimeter from work to test the power supply lines going to the card. If they are fine that will rule out the power supply at least.
 
Does the machine actually POST successfully?

Edit with it plugged in of course
 
It appears to boot up with familiar lights and sounds with the video card plugged in ... although without being able to see anything on the monitor I'm not 100% sure what state it is in.

At this point it is either the card, the motherboard, or the PS.

I should be able to rule out the PS with a multimeter test tonight.
I brought my card to work today and I'm going to try to stick it into my crappy DELL box (I found an extra 'proper' PS lying around that I can use to power it) and see if it will produce a signal.
 
Check which gfx output is defaulted in the BIOS.
 
BIOS is set to PCIE, so if a card is in the slot it will take precedence over integrated graphics. I took a small PCIE express graphics card from my office and tried it at home and it was fine (I guess that rules out the motherboard).
 
Sure, it wouldnt have occurred to him that powering it up more than once would be worth trying :rolleyes:
 
Oh, it's been on and off plenty of times.

I tested both the 6-pin connectors feeding the card with a multimeter and they display healthy a 12V for all the power pins (I know that if the problem is ripple I won't be able to detect it easily without an oscilloscope but I don't have access to one). At the moment I'm assuming the PSU is OK.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to test the video card in another system. All the PCs at my office won't accommodate the length of this monstrosity so I haven't been able to prove 100% that it is the card, but at this point it looks that way.

While I had planned on upgrading the video card this year, I wanted to wait until AMD's 300 series hit the shelves to see how they look, and I'm in Canada so the GTX 970 prices right now are stupid (cheapest is $450 after tax at the moment).

<sigh> Anybody think I should try the oven trick? :)
 
Confirm the card is at fault first.
You might wreck a healthy card.
 
I'll probably take it to a local PC store tomorrow and see if they can try it one of their machines. If it fails there I will know for sure.
 
Try setting your PC to boot in safe mode, then shut down and put your card back in. If your PC now boots up, clean out your drivers entirely, Guru3D has a utility that you can try if a regular uninstall doesn't work. I used the utility, fwiw.
I suggest this because I was "messing" with my GTX 970 and ended up where I could never make it into the Windows desktop when booting up. My messing around was merely underclocking, and reducing Power Tune, to the maximum, along with reducing clock speeds by 1000MHz. That big a reduction might only be an option with EVGA's precision tool, MSI's Afterburner only allows half as much. So, having done that I started using folding at home and playing a video using the VLC Player. It doesn't use hardware acceleration (possibly by my adjusting it so, ages ago) so my prior experience with an AMD HD 7950 indicated it was safe to use while folding.
Incidenantally I'd noticed a hestitation with the VLC Player when clicking within it to go frrom normal sized to full screen and then back again. Anyway, it seemed more pronounced when I was folding and right after that my desktop barfed and I ended up rebooting.

I then, instead of seeing my Windows desktop, kept getting my Sony XBR6 displaying a notice of "unsupported signal", and nothing else. And fwiw I have enabled DSR resolutions, and I think it possible there's a connection to that. I suspect, that when going from full screen to windowed, the VLC Player might have been confused as to my desktop resolution. And FAH was running using hardware acceleration, and EVGA Precision tool was running ... and so maybe my desktop just had a seizure. I think that maybe this forced my card to somehow remember that state.

Yes, I have the dual bios but I was afraid that I might corrupt that if what I had done was "contagious". Lol, I'm no tech guru, so I think in those terms. ;)
That's when it got really fun as I'm on Windows 8.1 and due to how fast Windows boots, and the lack of a recovery option for booting into safe mode, I was stuck.
Thankfully I have another PC, and so I could google, and I found the following. http://pcsupport.about.com/od/repair-recovery/a/force-or-stop-safe-mode-windows.htm
The option to use Command Prompt was available from my recovery disk, so I followed the advice to use bcdedit /set {default} safeboot minimal

I followed those instructions and I booted into safe mode. I uninstalled my drivers, yadda, yadda, yadda, after reinstalling them I've been ok, now two days running.

TMW, DR: Boot into safe mode, uninstall drivers, reboot, reinstall. ;)
 
Thanks Babel,

Unfortunately, drivers are not my problem. Since I AM able to boot into windows using the integrated graphics (with the video card removed), I was able to remove all AMD driver software from my system. That didn't improve my situation. Under no circumstances have I been able to get a signal from the card since it decided to start misbehaving.

I'm still trying to track down another machine I can test the card in ...
 
Ah, I see. Though it would be a real longshot, maybe just booting into Windows in safe mode might work. Even after uninstalling your drivers, Windows will load its default ones for your card. In safe mode Windows only loads basic, one size fits all, level drivers.
The default drivers are enough to run a videocard in games, afaik, and can cause issues that safemode drivers won't.

I can understand you're not wanting to waste more time. But knowing that the card can't even boot into safe mode would be more data towards figuring out if it was dead. If Windows loads, the card could still be broken, but then again, maybe not.

Best of luck, I'm sure that one way or the other you'll soon be gaming again.
 
I played around a bit with safe mode, but the results all point to a dead card. If the card is even present in the machine, whether it is the primary adapter or not, it will prevent windows from booting properly.

Booting into safe mode with the card in the machine, but with the monitor connected to integrated graphics, and the BIOS set to use integrated graphics, is the ONLY way I can currently even get into windows with the card present in the machine. If I try to boot windows normally with the aforementioned configuration, the machine seems to POST, but will not boot into windows properly, even though the card is not technically being used for display purposes.

I also tried booting into safe mode with the card in place, with the BIOS set to PCIE video, and the monitor connected to the card, but no signal was detected.
 
Is likely PSU or gfx card.
I would expect it to not power up/boot if PSU, but being borderline not having enough power can produce different results.
 
Yeah cos thats the way to troubleshoot :p
Cheap and accurate.
 
Nenu said:
Yeah cos thats the way to troubleshoot :p
Cheap and accurate.
Click to expand...

I've had a card do exactly as described as I had to RMA it, unless in the REALLY small chance its his PCI-E on his motherboard it really can't be anything else. I really doubt the PSU wouldn't cause it to boot, since it works on integrated.
 
Integrated uses a lot less power.
PSU issues could be masked if the gfx card isnt in use.
 
I had a 7970 do this. After working for a long time, one day it just didn't post in the PCI x16 slot anymore..(it gave the 3 beep VGA error thing)
It posted perfectly in the PCI x8 slot.
It just happened randomly out of the blue.

A new 7970 ran fine in the x16 slot.
*very rarely, occasionally it would post again in the x16 slot, and would work until the computer was restarted. Then it would stop posting.

I kept using that 7970 in the x8 slot for a few months...one day suddenly the screen just turned red.
Card not only refused to post at all, there was no beep now, nothing. Dead card.
Went to the backup new card I had bought which was fine.

RMA it.
 
I don't get any beeping or useful BIOS errors, just no signal. RMA isn't an option for me; it's a 4 year old HD6950 (flashed to 6970) so it's past the 3 year warranty (longest I've gone without upgrading my video card!).

Too bad really, since it was still holding up surprisingly well for 1080p gaming considering its age. I was hoping to wait until fall to see how the whole gsync/freesync thing and radeon 300 series plays out, then upgrade both my video card and monitor at the same time (monitor is an 8 year old 24" IPS BENQ that's still working fine).
 
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