Issue with new Radeon 6870?

[cmachine]

Hi Everyone,

My new XFX Radeon 6870 dosen't seem to be outputting any video signal, and I'm not quite sure what the issue is. In my opinion, It could be a dead card, an incompatible motherboard, or bad PSU. If anyone has any suggestions or helpful info, I'd love to hear it.

The first issue I noticed was that my power supply (Thermaltake purepower 500W) only had one 6 pin PCIe power connector, and the new 6870 needs two. So, I went to a parts shop and got an adapter which let me convert two standard molex power connectors to one PCIe. With the adapter, I now have two PCIe power connecters. However, there's still no signal getting to the monitor form the video card.

At this point I discovered that my motherboard my be to blame. I have an Asus P5N-MX, which has one PCIe x16 slot. However, that connector apparently uses the PCIe 1.0 standard, and the 6870 is PCIe 2.1. I've tried updating my BIOS to the newest version, which I've read may help, and still no signal.

I've also never seen the new card work, so I guess it's possible that it was just DOA. However, the fan does spin (loudly), so I'm hoping it's OK.

I almost purchased a new motherboard today, but I'm just not convinced that it would fix the issue. Could the PCIe interface be the issue? Does my 500w PSU just not have the capacity for the system (details below), or could it be something else? Any help would be super appreciated!

Thanks!

--System Details--
Intel E8400 Core 2 Duo 3GHz
Asus P5N-MX
XFX Radeon 6870 1GB (to replace GeForce 8800GS 384MB)
2x2GB DDR2 667Mhz (PNY)
Segate Caviar Black 1TB HD
Thermaltake PuerPower 500W PSU

MOD EDIT: We have a forum just for Video Cards and Graphics. Just FYI. - Zap

 

[mfenn]

Could be the PCIe revision. I should work according to the spec, but some of the oldest PCIe boards had flaws that cause PCIe 2.0 cards to not work. It could also be the PSU, as a ThermalTake 500W probably couldn't output 500W when it was new and almost certainly can't do it now.

My advice would be to find a friend who will let you try the card in their machine so you can confirm whether or not it is DOA. Then try a more powerful PSU. If that doesn't work, it's not a bad time to upgrade the CPU/mobo/RAM anyway.

 

[Ken g6]

Also, did you make sure your BIOS is set to output to a PCIe GPU? Most are by default, but it could be set wrong.

 

[cmachine]

Also, did you make sure your BIOS is set to output to a PCIe GPU? Most are by default, but it could be set wrong.

Yeah, the BIOS is set to PCIe. I can plug in my old 8800 and it works fine. When I try the new 6870 though, the system defaults to the on-board video out, and doesn't detect any display adapters on the PCIe.