Dell Studio 540, Unable to detect GTX 750Ti, not much options left..

[weezyfbby]

Hey guys,

Not sure for what reason, but I have had incredible difficulty trying to upgrade to a GTX 750Ti.

540 Dell Studio
Q8200
Dell 0m017G motherboard
350W PSU
6gb ram


I used to have a MSI Radeon HD 6670 and it worked fine. I upgraded summer 2015 from windows 7 to windows 10, card still worked perfectly fine.

This week, I tried installing a 750 Ti, which everything pointed towards no incompatible issues. I’ve went though all normal uninstalls of older drivers, tried installing new drivers without luck (cannot detect card). Tried uninstalling Integrated graphics and disabling in device manager, nothing. The new card does not appear in device manager, not even if I checked 'show hidden devices' and went through all of that list.

Went though Bios and tried to give priority to PCI-e, no options possible. Updated to BIOS to version 1.1.3 from Dell website. Going though the BIOS and searching on the web made me realize how much crap this motherboard is.. Called Dell, they have no clue what they are talking about. They told me this card was incompatible and it was normal since this card is 8x faster than my old card, and also that the only other supported card is the integrated graphics, when I just told them I had a 6670 installed and worked perfect wtf?

Tried to install User runtimes June 2010 as suggested on other forums for DX9-10 for older PC’s for linking DX12 windows 10 and DX11 graphic card. Once I try to install, it gets to the end and then gives me error messages.

I don't know if it's a motherboard problem, windows 10 problem, or ...?

If someone has any other clue of something I might try, please help, Thanks!

 

[junkeymonkey]

may try to rma it and trade for a plain 750 [non ti] ti's have issues with prebuilts a lot of times but I will give you my disclaimer on all this


some models of store bought computers [dell.hp,acer,ect..] may come with a ''locked or fixed'' bios and may not allow you to change certain hardware as a video card.. this is done to protect them from undue warranty claims and refunds .this is not done to hurt you but to protect them. you really need to see if that upgrade has been proven to work in your model first before you invest money in it .. there are a lot of these threads here at toms to look at some models will allow upgrades and some dont.. and a lot of guys here say ya ya ya when is really no no no...it would be sad you spent $200 on a card that wount post after you installed it as most find out. then get told its your psu and you spend more and end up right back where you are now, but its up to you good luck..


you got to know the boards in these computers are not like the ones we use to do custom builds witch are open to upgrading with in the boards compatibly . the bios is custom made for there design and just for the parts they authorize to be used on there computers there only guaranteed to work as is out of the box as you bought it ,..


also these boards do not have to meet atx standards and there pci-e slot power may not do the required 75w needed for most higher end cards and can be limited to say 45 or 60w that is all thats needed with the low end factory oem cards that it may of shipped with

 

[weezyfbby]

Thanks for the quick reply,

I did not know that the 750 Ti's had problems with stock PC's. I mostly searched up my CPU paired with this card to see performance gains, and seemed very interesting, but haven't actually looked up to make sure it was compatible with the motherboard. I had already used an aftermarket GPU in this PC and know that other people have used a bunch of cards in the STUDIO 540's so I didn't think it could be a problem. I thought as long as you have a correct PCI-e slot, you're good to go if you meet power requirements.

As far as power goes, I have a 350W PSU. I have tested with a Watt-meter and Prime95, the whole system draws 130W at full load (100% cpu, 0% GPU), and 80W no load. Adding the extra 60W TDP of the 750Ti should theoretically not exceed 200W. Also, my other card (6670) used with this same motherboard was fully functional and had a slightly higher tdp or 66W, so the board should run the 750 Ti as it did with the 6670.

As for the BIOS, indeed there are basically no options related to the video card or PCI-e, just not much options at all.

In the extent that the 750 Ti just doesn't work with this PC, I will not invest in changing PSU or motherboards, I will probably change the whole system for something newer, considering all parts in this PC are about 8 years old and are probably close to failing. I was hoping to be able to push the date back 1-2 years before changing PC by addind the 750 Ti.

 

[weezyfbby]

I'm wondering if going back to Windows 7 would help because of all the DX9-10-11-12 thing. I know that the 6670 was a DX11, the 750Ti is a DX12, and apparently windows 10 is made for DX12. Could it be something with my motherboard that has problems with DX12 and I'm just lucky that Windows 10 works on my PC? I'm not familiar with this and going back to 7 would be such a pain, especially if it still doesn't work 😛.

 

[junkeymonkey]

thing is if the board bios don't support these cards but may support those cards -- like the dell xps 8700 at one time did not support NVidia 900 cards until dell released a new [a-10] bios that will - your at dells mercy its a dell board and a dell bios I seen some that came with a amd card and guys could not get NVidia to work at all or if the replacement card was more powerful then the oem that came in it it would not work no matter what ..

like I said anything you do over what came out of the box as you bought it with is all at your own risk dell only stands behind whats listed on there spec sheet for any model ..

now seeing you got 10 that's even more toward all bets are off.... sorry

 

[junkeymonkey]

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3515/p/19667447/20862843#20862843


now this guy here says the 750ti worked in his ??

''Anyone out there still using a Studio 540 Desktop?? Hell, I've been looking through forums all morning for recent posts, nothing.. Anyways, I've had this 540 since 2009, always loved it never any problems.. People whine about the beeping sounds, little do they know its just the processors waking up ( 4 beeps for 4 processors). To answer your question I recently purchased the GTX 750 TI SC and installed it in my 540.. Runs perfect while running D3 or WoW optimal settings, 160 FPS,''


then below a guy stated

''The GTX 750 Ti does not require a 6 pin connector and relies on the motherboards power consumption. Cool! as you can see here:''

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/p/19563131/20627824#20627824


I wonder if the difference is between the cards with a psu power and the ones that don't [lower powered ] ?? [see how things can get funny ]

 

[weezyfbby]

The more I read, the more I think I'm out of luck. Should have done more research.

Found a post from another user who had pretty much the same problem and I tried almost the same things. He was trying a 7750 and never worked, but the GTX 750 (non-Ti) was plug and play. That's weird, but if he a got a 750 to work, that could confirm what you were saying at the beginning that the Ti version has more compatibility problems..

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2357793/dell-studio-540-show-display-xfx-radeon-7750-gpu-installed.html

Thanks a lot for the help, very much appreciated!

 

[junkeymonkey]

well found this with a guy and he got a 750ti ??

http://forums.evga.com/GTX-750-TI-SC-GPU-performance-is-capped-m2163274.aspx

see does yours have the 6 pin for the psu or is it one that don't and just runs off the slot ?? that's where I thinking maybe ??

see one more thing goes back to what I said in the disclaimer

this 750ti needs just 60w
http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=02G-P4-3751-KR

this one needs 85w
http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=02G-P4-3755-KR

so if your dell speced board cant supply say the 75w at the slot issues can occur I bet if you look things up on the oem cards that dell put in there about only a 45w card to start with

is your old 6670 a low pro card ? like this one ?

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_6670/images/card1.jpg

them cards mostly just need something like 45w at the slot ?? that one shows to be 58 at its max.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_6670/20.html

its crazy to figure it all out and the why's and why not's

 

[weezyfbby]

Ha! The guy that says his works is actually the exact model I have, the EVGA 750 Ti SC, so 60W tdp and no extra pci-e. Being a studio 540 and 350W PSU, I suppose he also has the same motherboard as me, because it is exactly the same system. Only difference, is he uses windows 7..damn.

For the 6670, mine was this model: R6670-MD2GD3, http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127669 . It isn't explicitely stated that it had a tdp of 66W, but that's what pretty much all other sites agree on.

 

[junkeymonkey]

I wonder if the newer cards now require uefi bios support and your old dell is legacy bios ?? maybe something else to look into ??

from newegg review

''have the HP P6-2350, my BIOS are updated as of 2/1/16, UEFI version but can revert to LEGACY for older hardware if necessary ''

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487024&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&PageSize=10&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&IsFeedbackTab=true#scrollFullInfo


read the tech supports response in this

http://forums.evga.com/EVGA-750-Ti-Legacy-Support-m2148392.aspx

then you wonder how the guy got one working in his 540 in the other thread unless it's a older card with a older v-bios that did support older boards in some way and your newer card got a newer v-bios that don't anymore ??

 

[william p]

Some Dells have EUFI BIOS, some like mine have the older AHCI BIOS. The video card needs to match. MSI GTX750Ti is EUFI, My PNY GTX750Ti was AHCI and ran just fine. You should have seen what Dell told me about my Sapphire R9-285 ITX. They said it wouldn't run, send it back, buy a new computer. It has dual BIOS and runs both ways. (there are some issues so don't run out and buy one just yet).