X1900xtx Doa?

Dev 17

I recently won a Sapphire X1900XTX Toxic in a competition, it was shipped from America to Ireland. I bought a Antec Sonata II case ( Antec 450 W Smart Power 2 PSU incl) and a Asus A8N SE motherboard and a AMD 3700 from overclockers.co.uk to go with the new graphics card. I used the RAM (2x512 PC3200 DDR) and IDE hard drive from my old computer to save on money. I managed to get it all assembled with no problems. I then booted and got 1 long beep and 2 short. I checked up what it meant (Asus A8N SE has Award BIOS) and it means that the graphics card either isn't seated properly or is dead. I really hoped i wasn't dead as I just want to get it up and running but after reseating it a couple of times I'm starting to think that it is dead. Is there any other explanation for this ie my PSU isn't good enough? I have 15A and 17A on the 12v rails. I assumed this was the bare minimum but enough to boot at least. Please help. Sending it back will be expensive as it will be at least $40 to ship and I will probably have to pay for other charges too (like that import duty 60 Euro I had to pay the first time even though it was marked as a gift) and it may work out cheaper to buy another graphics card.
-Dev

So yeah the rig in my sig is the broken one.:rolleyes:

vishal

stupid question but u have plugged in the power cable to the graphics card?
only other thing i can suggest is to try another card and see if that works. that psu is fine.

Liber8or

When you boot up, is the monitor displaying anything, e.g a black screen. Or is "No Signal" just appearing on it?

If its a blank black screen the monitor is receiving a signal from your card. If its saying "No Signal" then your Card is definately at fault.

One possible cause could be the molex connector not plugged into it. Also make sure you have the card in the slot correctly.

Also check your RAM, make sure they are also in correctly.

Hope this helps...

KdjaCL

Get a crappy PCI express card and try get it to boot.

Other than that ensure every PSU molex is plugged in, silly but it happens.

Go tru everything inc ensuring CPU ram everything is fully seated.



kdjac

Dev 17

Thanks for the replies. I will suck up my pride and check for the 5th time that the molex connector and GPU are inserted correctly. I have made many mistakes before and to be honest I hope I made a mistake this time as sending it back will be just hassle. It's late now just after watching CSI . I will go over it again first thing tommorow.
I posted the same thing on Sapphires support forums and this is a reply I got from a super moderator.

"Heya,..

An underpowered PSU will eventually get stressed and cause overheating leading to artifacts, freezes, BSODs, crashes, reboots and may kill the card, the PSU itself and/or other components.

That PSU is no way near good enough to run that system with the VGA you have, honestly. The X19series need a MINIMUM CONTINUOUS/SUSTAINED AMP rating on the 12v rail of 30a+, this is NOT the Max Peak Power rating but the SUSTAINED rating.

Best PSU for that card/system :- Enermax Liberty Series 620W or similar speccD unit from :-

TAGAN
PC Cooling
Zippy
Xion
Aerocool
OCZ

You also have an ASUS mobo and there's NO guarantee that ANY ATI based card will run on it - check the HUGE ASUS vs X16series thread for an idea as to why..

GG"

They may be harsh words but I'm afraid they might be the truth. The number of people who have had the same problem and solved it by switching to a powerful PSU ie.Enermax Liberty 620 Watt is scary on those forums. I checked the back of the box of the graphics card and it does say 450 Watt minimum with 75 Watt dissipation but I don't know what that means.

This is sapphires recommendation.
450-Watt power supply or greater, 30 Amps on 12 volt rail recommended (assumes fully loaded system)
I don't even have half that Amp on my 12 rail.

the_syco

Had a similair problem with a 7800. BF2 kept crashing. Got a Tagen PSU, and all's good. Even if the PSU you have gives enough power, if its crap, it won't preform well, and it'll end up ****ing your rig. So get a new PSU (I got one off Komplett.ie for €110), or you'll regret it.

L31mr0d

yeah. I had a 400w QTec PSU (live and learn) for my last build, thinking it was going to be grand. When I tried running the 6800 Ultra I got for it, after about 5 minutes I started to get artifacts in the BIOS, then it just wouldn't boot at all, the same noises as you. I got a 400w Enermax (learnt alot about PSUs because of that, wattage doesn't always mean everything) and managed to RMA the 6800 Ultra with the seller in China. With the enermax, the card has been running perfect for nearly 6 months now, no stability problems.

Do you have any friends with a PCI-E computer? Maybe try it in theres? Can you RMA it with this competition. BTW, what competition did you enter

Dev 17

It might be possible for me to try another PSU at some stage tommorow or today so I will let you guys know whether its the card or PSU.
Also is it possible my PSU damaged the card. If anyone in the Portarlington/Portlaoise area has a powerful PSU or another PCI-E card I could use please let me know.