The case of the incompatible video cards

[Vicenarian]

Ok, decided to upgrade the (outdated) nvidia 6200 TC PCI-E video card I had in my main HP PC the other day (THIS PC HAS NO ON-BOARD VIDEO).

Pentium D 920
4 GB DDR2
500 GB HDD
ASUS MB
etc.

Prepped the PC by removing all old nvidia drivers first of course.

Anyway, after doing some research, I decided upon a Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5670 with 512 MB GDDR5. The box states this card only requires a 400 W PSU and it does NOT require a PCI-E power connector since it is considered a relatively low-power consumption card. (and I upgraded my PSU to a 400W SPI prior to the video card upgrade. I had all my hardware running on the stock 300W PSU fine before). Anyway, installed the 5670 and the computer wouldn't POST/display anything! Nada. I unplugged power to everything unnecessary in my PC and tried again, but nada. Nothing. No display. No POST. No beeps, nothing. All fans in the PC would spin up to full speed and just stay like that. Normally, all the PC's fans will spin at full for a couple of seconds, and then normalize, but with this they would just stay at full.

I put my old card back in, and the computer booted perfectly fine. At this time, I checked the settings in my BIOS, and made sure the video settings were correct. Next, I tried an old PCI (not PCI-E) ATI video card I had lying around, and the computer booted just fine with that.

So, I took the 5670 card back and got it exchanged for an EVGA Nvidia 9800 GT which was around the same price. Stuck it in, booted up just fine! This card says it only requires a 350W PSU, but it requires using a 6 Pin PCI-E power connector (which my PSU has).



Now what I'm wondering is this...is it possible that video cards can just be incompatible with some motherboards/hardware configs.? And, does it make any difference using cards with the same chipset (5670 for instance) but from different companies? Like, is a 5670 from Sapphire any different than a 5670 from say, MSI or something? Or, are some motherboards just picky between ATI/Nvidia cards? I thought this wasn't the case, but now I'm not sure. Or, is it possible that my PC just couldn't supply the necessary power solely through the PCI-E bus? I mean, theoretically the 5670 should have worked, from the specs anyway.


Edit: And yes, I am very much enjoying the 9800 GT

 

[14049752]

Now what I'm wondering is this...is it possible that video cards can just be incompatible with some motherboards/hardware configs.?

It has been known to happen before. I used to work for a company that sold systems with a crappy motherboard that had an "AGR" slot instead of an "AGP" slot. (an MSI motherboard). Basically, it was an AGP slot that was not 100% compatible with all AGP cards, so some would not work. I forget exactly why. (I looked it up. It's because the data is sent across the PCI-Express bus, and some cards at the time had problems with that)

As far as your situation, without knowing 100%, I'd guess that there was something else going on. Probably not an incompatibility as PCI-Express is supposed to be all backwards compatible at this point...and the only real compatibility problems between ATI and nVidia I know of are for SLI. Maybe just a bad card?

 

[PcTek9]

Have you gentlemen ever heard of the HAL ?

I don't mean the hardware abstraction layer, I mean the (H)ardware (C)ompatability (L)ist. Why Microsoft has so many acronyms for the same thing? LOL. Anyway.

Stuff on the HAL is supposed to work with windows with no problems. Is your motherboard AND video card on them listees?

I honestly could not tell you what all in the world is going with your computer. I do believe if it needs a power conn you need to supply that, if not, it simply won't work on some systems. However, I also think that it is important for you to realize that there are HUGE differences between different versions of video cards from different manufacturers - even using the same chip set.

Sure, some of it is just gold-plating, and a levi-strauss tag, but there is such a thing as quality and tested and different support chips for the chipset.

 

[14049752]

Your post makes almost no sense to me. Windows has nothing to do with it because it was getting no video at post. Windows doesn't load until after post...you know that....

More confusing to me....how do you get "HAL" from Hardware Compatibility List?... You even did (T)his with the letters... Man, that confuses me.

And really...most cards aren't that different. Most of them are just slightly modified reference cards...that's why they're all laid out almost identically, use same amounts of memory, have the same connector lay-out, etc. Occasionally, you'll get a fancy heatsink or an "EXTREME!!!!" card that's been overclocked at factory....but they're not that different either.

Have you gentlemen ever heard of the HAL ?

I don't mean the hardware abstraction layer, I mean the (H)ardware (C)ompatability (L)ist. Why Microsoft has so many acronyms for the same thing? LOL. Anyway.

Stuff on the HAL is supposed to work with windows with no problems. Is your motherboard AND video card on them listees?

I honestly could not tell you what all in the world is going with your computer. I do believe if it needs a power conn you need to supply that, if not, it simply won't work on some systems. However, I also think that it is important for you to realize that there are HUGE differences between different versions of video cards from different manufacturers - even using the same chip set.

Sure, some of it is just gold-plating, and a levi-strauss tag, but there is such a thing as quality and tested and different support chips for the chipset.

 

[Vicenarian]

As far as your situation, without knowing 100%, I'd guess that there was something else going on. Probably not an incompatibility as PCI-Express is supposed to be all backwards compatible at this point...and the only real compatibility problems between ATI and nVidia I know of are for SLI. Maybe just a bad card?

Yeah I guess it could have been a bad card too.

 

[lgtechcomputers]

Yeah I guess it could have been a bad card too.

Yeah I want to point this out too. It might be possible it was a bad video card...it happens that a card could be DOA.

Since you did not get the exact card as a replacement then it is possible.

Anyway good that it worked out with another card.