Computer having weird bootup behavior

[BigfootKevin]

I just got my X1950 pro in the mail today, woohoo! Woohoo is right, but of course something has to go wrong.


At first it wouldn't boot up at all. I would just get a black screen. I figured I'd let it sit there for a bit and see what happenes. 3-5mins later, it finally starts booting up. What would cause this? Do I need a new power supply to power this thing or something? It says 450W, and mine is 480, but that's pretty close to "recommended" specs. Usually it's always better to have more than what the box recommends from what I know(as far as games go anyway).

 

[WildHorse]

You do, of course, have the proper driver installed? Could you have, for example, accidentally installed the driver for Windows XP 64 bit version onto your 32 bit system?
Or anything else wrong about the driver? That's an obvious call, I know, but still worth triple-checking that you got the right one.

You already know there's a derating of the PSU with temperature.
What's rated at 480 drops down to something less than that with heat.

I don't know, but an obvious guess, as you already suspect, is that you might need more power for that gpu.

On the other hand, I'd expect that ATI would take the expected power derating of PSUs into account when estimating what juice you must supply to the video card. So I just don't know, but power is a likely suspect.

Do you have access to another computer or maybe a shop nearby to test the new video card, to try & make sure it's not a DOA card?

Good luck. How frustrating to not get to enjoy your new video card right away!

 

[Alopez777]

BigfootKevin,

Hey nice video card "Pie grande",

Could u enlighten papa bear on what procedures (steps) u followed prior to installing your new video card?

What I'm getting at is this: Did u UNINSTALL your existing video driver prior to installing new card?

Are the symptoms the same every time u reboot the machine? (ie. 3-5min boot up)

Suggestion:

Remove video driver
Power down
Reseat video card
Power on.

Please UPDATE your thread on RESOLUTION please.

good luck,

al

 

[sieistganzfett]

http://www.antec.com/specs/Neo480_spe.html is 480W, but two 12V rails, no idea what the combined is, each individually is at 18A though (no idea what temp this is even at either, amperage (watts as well) goes down as temperature goes up), but with the two rails combined its probably mids 20s at what ever temp it was rated at (probably 20 or so degrees C)which is too low for the x1950 right off the bat and gets worse as the power supply reaches around 40C, and this stuff can cause damage to hardware from over stressing the power supply.. this power supply is NOT the power supply for an x1950pro. the most important thing about any higher end video card such as an x1950 is the 12V rail. it needs to be 30A at a bare minimum (single rail would be perfect, such power supplies do exist from pc power and cooling, but don't seem to exist anywhere else, next best would be combined of over 30A but i'm iffy on that idea). more than likely, the power supply would be why it would not boot at all. you could not even see a post screen correct? or the windows boot screen either as a result for a few minutes, but since the card is working, your pc would not fail the post with a beep code, therefore it would be on a black screen. other possibility is that the x1950 is faulty. but first thing you need is a better, power supply. second question is where did you buy the pci-e x1950? if from zip zoom fly, you get 15 days from invoice to figure out if your going to rma it if you need to, otherwise you have to rma through the manufacturer. hopefully its not a sapphire since sapphire will charge a processing fee if you rma through them..

 

[Alopez777]

Originally posted by: sieistganzfett
[L=http://www.antec.com/specs/Neo480_spe.html]. the most important thing about any higher end video card such as an x1950 is the 12V rail. it needs to be 30A at a bare minimum (single rail would be perfect

Sieistganzfett,

Couple of questions:

1.) Where did U get your information on ("it needs to be 30A minimum")?

2.) Why would single rail be perfect?

as most PSU's come equiped with 2-3 12V rails.


thanks.

al

 

[sieistganzfett]

for #1 basically by googling "x1950 problem power"... it applies to agp and pci-e as well since they are the same card except for the interface and a bridge chip..

http://www.ricklafay.com/pc_power.htm "someone came up with the conclusion that we needed a minimum of 30a on the 12v rail" lots of other good quotes, his card is x1950 is agp.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe...22+30A+12+volt+recommended&btnG=Search

http://www.hisdigital.com/html/faq.htm -randomly for different x1950s
http://techreport.com/forums/viewtopic....5&sid=89aa3cdc380d2ba4bef570c8b9705e81

for #2 single rail is better because its more efficient, also less worry on the installer's part since they dont need to worry about evenly distributing stuff across the rails.. and the highest end GPU's basically will need it if under full load for a long time. with a single rail, there would not be any fluctuation in the 12v voltage, unless the multi rail is evenly distributed for the devices, this WILL happen, and can cause issues.

here is some propaganda.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/07/11/stress_test/ shows a couple power supplies that failed from load.

http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&articID=511 is a really good review, basically showing single rail at it's best.

http://www.ocia.net/reviews/precise850/page2.shtml talk a bit about single vs multi rail.

http://www.pcpower.com/technology/myths/ #8, its directly at the single rail vs multi.

http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1048 "Yet later down the road we learn that a single-rail power supply unit not only offers more stable and efficient power if designed and built correctly; it would also cost less."

http://forum.msi.com.tw/index.php?topic=77071.msg543206 has a few interesting posts about multi rail. such as 1 important concept. a dedicated rail to the cpu, which of course now adays is moving toward performance per watt. but looking at a GPU, they would need multiple rails connected directly to it. and with multi rail power supplies its not really doing this, especially if connected to hardware and a video card wrong by using the same line on the video card and other things, pci-e seems to get away from this issue at least.

edit- adding that i wasted 20 hrs after purchasing an sapphire x1950 agp while i waited for it to arrive from zip zoom doing more research on the card once i found out people had problems with that card. after 20 hrs of my own research, i found exactly what rick lafay found. and that was that most people with a "dead" x1950 sapphire agp had a weak power supply since it was not really 30A+ on the 12V rail..There were cases in the research that showed just bad cards that were DOA, etc. but for the most part it was power, then heat, then drivers on the x1950.. mostly power problems for people out there. some cards died instantly on boot. others died from the load over time since the power supplies basically killed the cards. if someone researches the geforce 8800 power requirements, they will find very similar requirements, but it doesn't explicitly say single rail on either ati's or nividia's. its something that doesn't really show in reviews either since a benchmarker doesn't stress it long enough for the cards to have a problem since benchmarks are quicker with breaks in between benchs. if you or i, or anyone else ran an x1950 or an 8800, etc. for 24 or even 48 hours straight or longer under the most intense game available nonstop. the weaker power supplies will die, or a random problem like a reboot or a crash will occur that boils down to power issues instead of something else like bad programming of a driver or game. a few rare reviews on the web that really stress a pc long enough will throw in some huge wattage psu in and get problems with it since its multi rail, but this really tough for me to find one to link since its really rare to find a review that is long enough to find problems with the item that is being reviewed.. essentially googling for dead x1950s is quickest and gives very similar results of people thinking any power supply, even multi rail is perfect or good enough. for some people it does work, but looking at the forums, there is more out there that have issues than those without it when using a power supply with not enough power or to an extent, multi rail with a bunch of 18A on the 12v that has a LOW combined rating that is less than 30A. the ones that don't have the issue probably have a great combined max for the 12v that is over 30A when they use a power hungry video card, or use several power supplies to get the wanted results. they could just be down right lucky or not stress the pc enough for long enough to see the power problems.

 

[onslow]

SAME PROBLEM WITH MY SAPHHIRE X1950PRO 256 PCIE ,GOES TO BLACK SCREEN IN' STALKER'. HAVE ORDERED A NEW
PSU TO REPLACE MY UNKNOWN 600W.

ATI SHOULD MAKE THE POWER REQUIREMENTS OF THIS CARD A LOT CLEARER