Well this sucks. I totally forgot about the fact that this machine does not like external video cards. That 7870 was after many attempts at trying different video cards until I found one it took. I now remember all the trouble this machine gave me back when I was trying to do a triple monitor setup. Was only HD though so didn't have to worry about using HDMI. For some reason this time it only works in the 8x slot but pretty sure it was originally in the 16x. Needless to say my new 580 came in and well it won't work at all in either slot. What this computer does is it just dicks around on a black screen, cuts off video, reboots, glitches, and does weird things at POST but never fully POSTs. Sometimes it will, but it will be VERY slow, like draw one pixel line at a time. This computer has always done this and it's frustrating as hell. Even with the current card it dicks around at POST but after a couple forced reboots it eventually starts right and once you're in the OS it's ok. No luck with new GPU. At one point I managed to get to the screen to decrypt my disk, but my keyboard was not working, possibly just USB glitching from all the forced reboots, and when I rebooted I never made it to that screen again.
At this point I'm done spending money. I need to decide if I just return one of the 4k monitors and the GPU and just go back to single monitor. Or I suppose I can put the 2nd monitor on a RPI (the 4 supports 4k) to display stuff that I don't need to actively interact with like alarms and stuff. Eventually CCTV. Youtube video playback is still acceptable with this card, the biggest thing was the screen tearing and I got that fixed.
Next step would be to write off this machine and build a new machine that will hopefully not dick around at POST when I have an external GPU, but I really don't want to do that. Best to just write this off, I already spent too much money on this whole thing. Original plan was just the 2 4k monitors but that just started to turn into other expenses. It's too bad those DP adapters don't work.
I do have my mining rig I don't use though... that might also be an option. I'm due for an OS upgrade anyway so I could just do all that at same time. Don't really feel like going through that process right now though. I don't know, I still need to think this over. Just frustrated that this machine gives me so much trouble with add on GPUs.
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