Radeon 5830 Preventing PC from Booting

[chronomac]

I bought a PC from a someone online, since I wasn't looking for anything expensive (probably a mistake). When I got it and plugged it in, it wouldn't boot. Some of the fans came on but nothing came on the screen. I had my TV plugged in the HDMI port of the video card (Radeon 5830). So I plugged it into the VGA port of the motherboard and still nothing. My next step was to unplug the two 6-pin connectors from the video card and it worked: PC booted and everything. Without the connectors, though, the video card did not show up in the Device Manager, despite the fan on the card spinning.

So I thought the PSU was the issue. I went and got a 600w Thermaltake, plugged everything in (including the two 6-pin connectors to the video card) and nothing. Same exact problem (TV plugged into the VGA port on the mobo). I have to unplug the video card to get it to boot. I also tried plugging the TV back into the video card (with the new PSU) and it didn't work (HDMI).

Is the video card bad? I've also tried using an HDMI-to-DVI converter with the TV and it didn't work either. It's clear that it's not even trying to boot with the video card. It's quieter and not everything powers on.

Specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo processor
HP mobo from 2006
4 GB DDR2 RAM
500 GB hard drive (7200 RPM)
Radeon 5830
600w Thermaltake PSU

If this is better suited to Computer Help, just let me know. Thanks in advance.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Yeah, sounds like a bad video card.

Seller will probably claim it was damaged in shipping.

 

[KingFatty]

Ideally you can borrow a spare computer (visit a friend's house?) and ask to insert your 5830 video card into that spare computer, and see if it similarly fails to boot.

Out of curiosity, how much did you spend on the system (in US dollars)?

 

[chronomac]

Out of curiosity, how much did you spend on the system (in US dollars)?

$200 shipped. Kinda wish I hadn't bought it now. I'm going to use the case, HDD and the PSU and build my own, which I should have done in the first place. I think I'm going with an AMD FX-6300 and an MSI 970A-G43. That with 8GBs of RAM should be good, right? Then I would just need a video card if this one doesn't work.

 

[railven]

I don't see anything in your description that tells me the PC is booting. How can you tell? Are you using another GPU for video or does it have an IGP?

If it does have an IGP, are you setting it to to AGP/PCIE for primary?

When a PC boots during BIOS none some of the monitors aren't on yet, so it will be louder than when it boots into the OS (or when temp monitors click in.) What I mean is, for example my PC when it's first turned on my fans blow at 100%. So my PC is actually louder during those few seconds until the OS kicks in and the fans switch to idle/low mode.

 

[Ventanni]

Just out of curiosity, are the power connectors on the same rail?

Edit - Nevermind, I wasn't reading carefully.

 

[chronomac]

I don't see anything in your description that tells me the PC is booting. How can you tell? Are you using another GPU for video or does it have an IGP?

If it does have an IGP, are you setting it to to AGP/PCIE for primary?

When a PC boots during BIOS none some of the monitors aren't on yet, so it will be louder than when it boots into the OS (or when temp monitors click in.) What I mean is, for example my PC when it's first turned on my fans blow at 100%. So my PC is actually louder during those few seconds until the OS kicks in and the fans switch to idle/low mode.

I went through the BIOS and couldn't find an option to change the video to use the PCI-E 16x port instead of onboard. So when I unplug the video card, it boots and makes a lot more noise, and I assume it's because the fan is running full speed. When I plug it in, it never gets back to full speed.

Would it help if I kept it unplugged and installed some drivers before I plugged it back in? Would AMD Catalyst install drivers for something that does not appear in the Device Manager?

 

[chronomac]

I should mention that I did try to install the Catalyst driver program but the installer kept failing. I made sure to run Windows Update and that Direct X was up to date.

 

[Warsam71]

I would put the system back together, the way it was originally shipped to you. Then use a friend's monitor to test the video card. If it doesn't work, I'd remove the 5830 and try the integrated video card on the motherboard and see how that goes. If it does come on, I'd reseat the 5830, disable the IGP in the BIOS, un-install any AMD drivers (using the AMD un-install utility: http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloads/Pages/catalyst-uninstall-utility.aspx), and install the driver using the driver autodetect: http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Pages/auto_detect.aspx