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ThinkCentre won't post with PCI-e card

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peadub

Junior Member
M-51 8143 has onboard video with a PCI-e slot. I bought a brand-new Radeon 5450 to convert this comp to a htpc. Now it will not post with any PCI-e card inserted.

Here's what I have done:
Put in a different card, it won't post with any PCI-e card
Tried a new PSU, a good one
Replaced motherboard with exact same model
Cleared CMOS
Updated BIOS

The Radeon does not have an external power connector.

Fans spin up but there are no beeps at all. No video signal is output from either the PCI-e card or the onboard when the PCI-e slot is populated.

Computer works perfectly without a card in the slot.

I made myself believe the slot was bad- I cannot believe a new mobo did not fix the problem!

Tomorrow I will put the Radeon in another desktop just to rule out a DoA card, but I highly doubt that's the problem since another PCI-e card that came with the desktop also causes this problem.

What have I not thought of?
 
do you have the external four-six (if any its probably 4) pin molex connected next to the processor? and have you tried a bigger psu? what wattage psu's did you use?
 
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Just tried my good CoolerMaster 500-watter in it again (taking it from my main rig), making sure that the CPU plug was in. Still no post. I had hoped that I had simply forgotten to do that last time. The one that's in there now is the stock IBM one, looks like a 300-watt.

So it's not the PSU.

Also tried the Radeon in my main rig. It posted fine, so it's not the card.

Swapped out the mobo, so it's not that.

It posts and runs perfectly with no card in the slot.

I'm beginning to think it's a design flaw with the mobo. That's the only thing it could be. Then again, other people have been able to add a PCI-e card to these ThinkCentres.
 
Nah, I can't get to the point where that is possible when the card is in. No video signal is output from either the onboard or card connections when the card is there.
 
no, reset it on the board. by shorting the bios reset pins with jumper. refer to your manual if you are unsure how to reset the BIOS
 
Excellent suggestion- I didn't even know that could be done. I learn something new every day. Unfortunately, it didn't work. The instructions say that while it's programming there will be beeps for 2-3 mins then the box will shutdown on its own. It did the beeps but never shut down. I let it beep for a couple of hours. I manually unplugged it, and it still wouldn't boot. The BIOS was reset, however, I could of course tell from the system time when I pulled the card and let it boot.
 
Needs a BIOS update. It seems ATI reinvents its PCI Express implementation every time it launches a GPU. Saw it with HD 3000, HD 4000, and seeing plenty of them with HD 5000 (motherboards requiring BIOS updates to make them work).
 
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Well that sucks. It's doubtful a new BIOS would be released- the latest one is 2 years old. So Nvidia doesn't have this issue? Think if I put in an Nvidia card this wouldn't happen? I'll try my main card, a 250.
 
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