Need Serious Help

[Pez D Spencer]

So I finally get my Q6600 today and I'm stoked. I also bought an Asus Arctic Square heatsink and installed both the CPU and heatsink. Unfortunately this heatsink required me to pull the mobo in order to install the backplate but it wasn't that bad. So I get everything put back together fire up the computer and I have no video and I can't figure out why.

The card that isn't working is a Sapphire X1950 Pro. The computer booted fine becuase I heard the startup sound that vista makes when it launches the desktop. There's just no video. The card seems to be working because the fan is spinning, however it's spinning full blast for some reason. I pulled the card reseated it and also tried it in the second PCI-E slot but still no go. I didn't have an extra video card laying around so I had to go to Wal-Mart and buy a crappy FX 5500 PCI card. They didn't have any PCI-E cards or I would have bought one of those. The problem could be in the mobo and PCI-E slot but since I don't have another PCI-E card I really couldn't say.

I just don't understand it, the video worked fine before I installed the new CPU. I'm using the computer right now to type this, but the video is coming through the FX5500. The X1950 doesn't show up in device manager or anything either. I don't know what to do at this point. My only guess is ESD damage, but I'm always really careful about ESD and have never fried anything yet.

Any advice or guesses is really appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Midnight Rambler]

Sure sounds like it's the Sapphire card. The fan is working so I doubt it's your slot.

I learned my lesson with that company, they are officially and permanently "banned" from my recommended hardware list !

 

[Pez D Spencer]

My gut feeling is that it is the card which is a real bummer because I got this q6600 in hopes of having at least a chance at running crysis ,but without a video card this new CPU is useless. I might as well have kept my p4. I've only had this card for about 8 months and I'm pretty sure I didn't register it so warranty return is probably out of the question. The warranty page on the sapphire site is down right now so I can't check to see if I did register it. I don't have any cash for another video card and won't have any cash for the forseeable future so I'm screwed. I feel like taking a hammer to the whole damn pc and just being done with it. This sucks.

 

[AzN]

Where did you buy your card? If you bought it @ newegg within last year, newegg will replace it.

Perhaps it's your power supply. I'm not sure if Apevia is a good power supply. Those quad cores eat a lot of power. Did you install the PCI-E connector?