I am officially suicidal-- ep45 dq3 and 4870 x2 problem

[mandark1]

I am building a new system with a gigabyte ep45 dq3 and a gigabyte 4870 x2. initially, it would not boot at all... so I tried a variety of other cards (including a gtx280 and 9500gt) which both booted up fine.

So it would make sense that the x2 was down. I went to return it, but when the shop tested it, it booted up fine. I brought it back home and it booted fine on my room mates machine. I went to far as to even play 30 mins of spore on it... i think we can take it as a reasonable supposition that the vid card is ok.

so I updated the bios on the dq6, and that helped a little... now at least I got SOME picture from the boot up, but it would still freeze in the middle of the boot (right after it detected the ram)

I have no idea what to do. There are no lights on the 4870 x2, and the board itself works fine with other video cards. I am using a thermaltake 750 watt psu. I have tried swapping out the the cables supplied from the psu, and using the converter to get the 6 pin, but that yields the same result.

can anyone offer any suggestions!?

 

[nomagic]

Have you tried using another PSU? I did a little research online. It seems that 4870x2's load power consumption is 100Watt more than that of GTX280.

If I am wrong, you can have my lunch cookie!

Edit: Power Consumption Review of 2870x2 from Techgage

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Try using your friends PSU and see if that works.

Do this. Run extra cables to your vid card from his PSU - you can do this while its in his machine. Start his machine, then start yours. But a sure bet would be to use all his connectors coming from his PSU to yours. That might mean taking the entire PSU out.

Good Luck

 

[sgrinavi]

Originally posted by: BTRY B 529th FA BN

Run extra cables to your vid card from his PSU -

You can do that?

 

[Drsignguy]

Question for you, Where on this list do you see a EP45-DQ3? Gigabyte

I find a DQ6 or a DS3 but not a DQ3. Just an observation. Also, did you try putting your Vid card in another PCIE slot? Granted if there is another.


Oh and welcome to anandtech! 🙂

 

[wwswimming]

i understand being disappointed when high quality hardware doesn't work.

still, that motherboard with that video card represents a huge amount of
technology. computers 1% as fast used to be assembled very carefully
in Silicon Graphics & Sun facilities, by people with access to a huge amount
of test gear, highly capitalized facilities with EE's and programmers right
on hand to support the assembly effort.

that we get these things to work at all in our living rooms and home offices
has always struck me as a near miracle. or very impressive amount of
technology.

if tweaking the power supply doesn't fix it i would retreat to some other
baseline, like a 4870 single or an 8800GT (something for which the drivers
have been out for a while). to see if the motherboard is solid.

what processor are you using ?

nVidia has a rep. who is an Anandtech member, i wonder if Gigabyte does too.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: wwswimming
i understand being disappointed when high quality hardware doesn't work.

still, that motherboard with that video card represents a huge amount of
technology. computers 1% as fast used to be assembled very carefully
in Silicon Graphics & Sun facilities, by people with access to a huge amount
of test gear, highly capitalized facilities with EE's and programmers right
on hand to support the assembly effort.

that we get these things to work at all in our living rooms and home offices
has always struck me as a near miracle. or very impressive amount of
technology.

if tweaking the power supply doesn't fix it i would retreat to some other
baseline, like a 4870 single or an 8800GT (something for which the drivers
have been out for a while). to see if the motherboard is solid.

what processor are you using ?

nVidia has a rep. who is an Anandtech member, i wonder if Gigabyte does too.

gigabytecolin, I believe his name is.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Originally posted by: sgrinavi

Originally posted by: BTRY B 529th FA BN

Run extra cables to your vid card from his PSU -

You can do that?

Yes.

If you are testing something in another machine and suspect the psu, or something like the vid card, you just gotta go through a few proper steps first, which are actually really simple.