[SOLVED] Graphics Card Shows No Picture on Boot (until reset button)

[uttechm]

Hello everyone! I am new to the PC community and learning a lot as I tinker and figure out this new computer. I have had some problems with the graphics card ever since I got the PC . After I installed all of the drivers from AMD, the computer booted in on the card. I have had a few problems since but the main problem is on start up. When I press the power button, everything turns on, fans, lights, hard drive, keyboard, etc. but the graphics card does not show a picture. After I hit the reset button (sometimes multiple times) or manually restart the entire PC, the graphics card finally kicks in and everything is great! I can play games and do work with no issues at all. It's like I had no problem starting whatsoever. I'm open to try anything, I've taken the graphics card out, messed with the BIOS, and I've checked the power and reset switch connections. The only thing I can think of low power from the power supply, I'll link my specs below, if someone could maybe tell me if it all works together or not, I'm really not sure, it was a cheap pre-build but it defiantly gets the job done. When it actually turns on...

Asus H81M-PLUS
Intel i5-4670 3.4 GHz
Radeon RX 550 4 GB
Kingston 16 GB DDR3 1600 MHz
500 GB WD Blue 7200 RPM HDD
Thermaltake Smart 430 WATT 80+

 

[Colif]

is this windows 10?

Try turning off fast startup and see if it makes any difference to startup - https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/4189-turn-off-fast-startup-windows-10-a.html

 

[uttechm]

is this windows 10?

Try turning off fast startup and see if it makes any difference to startup - https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/4189-turn-off-fast-startup-windows-10-a.html

yup, it’s windows 10! Turning off the fast boot didn’t change anything . I also made sure the fast boot from the motherboard itself was off as well.

 

[Paperdoc]

Since you have a mobo that supports both graphics generated by an appropriate CPU chip and graphics done by a video card added in a PCIe Slot, you may need to tell the BIOS to use the added video card, and not try the CPU for this. See your manual, p. 2-29 at the top. For your Primary Display, select PCIE. Then use Esc to get to Main Menu, and F10 to get to the Exit Menu (p. 2-42). There choose Save Changes and Reset to save this setting and reboot.

 

[uttechm]

Since you have a mobo that supports both graphics generated by an appropriate CPU chip and graphics done by a video card added in a PCIe Slot, you may need to tell the BIOS to use the added video card, and not try the CPU for this. See your manual, p. 2-29 at the top. For your Primary Display, select PCIE. Then use Esc to get to Main Menu, and F10 to get to the Exit Menu (p. 2-42). There choose Save Changes and Reset to save this setting and reboot.

Thank you, but it looks like in my BIOS there’s only a priority for graphics and the priority is set to PCIe. Would disabling the integrated graphics in the device manager have the same effect? That seems dangerous to me if I ever need to access the integrated graphics for any reason.

 

[Paperdoc]

I agree you should not disable the integrated graphics of the CPU chip. When you tell the BIOS to use the video card in the PCIe slot, it will ignore that other video source and relay that info to the Windows OS so only the card is used for video output.

The suggestion above to turn off Fast Boot seemed a good idea o me, but you say that did not solve it. That got me thinking. Although the trouble might be that the video card is slow to initialize, maybe another problem is that some other significant problem at boot time.

What you describe says things appear to turn on, even the hard drive, but then you get no display of any kind. That can happen if there is a major failure during the POST process at the very beginning, in which the BIOS checks all its connected resources to be sure they are responding properly. That process normally takes 15 to 30 sec, depending on what hardware you have, and ends with a "beep code". Now, you may never hear a beep at all. These days it is common NOT to provide the little piece of hardware needed for you to hear that. So, if your system never has made any beep as it starts up, ask at your local computer parts shop to a tiny speaker device called a PZO. It is a little cylinder about ½" diameter with a short pair of wires ending in a small connector. You plug this into the pins on your mobo's Front Panel header that are marked for the Speaker. See your mobo instruction manual for this, or post here what mobo and model you have so we can look up the manual. ALSO look in your mobo manual for info on what "beep codes" it can generate. Virtually all mobos will signal a successful completion of POST with a single short beep. Any other beep pattern is a code for the problem it encountered that prevented it from completing. If that happens, post here what code you got, and what the manual says about that IF it says anything.

Now, there is also the possibility that the video card is the problem. You say you tried removing the video card, but let me ask for a specific. What you should have done for that is: BEFORE removing the card, go into BIOS Setup where you found that it was set to use the PCIe slot card. Change that to using the Integrated Graphics, then go through the SAVE and RESTART option in the Exit menu. The machine will shut down and start to reboot, but turn it off right away. Disconnect power, open the case, and remove the video card. Close up and boot. NOW, in that situation with no video card AND the BIOS instructed to use Integrated Graphics, does the problem still happen? If it never does, then that would point to the graphics card, or to a flaw in its connections to the PCIe slot, or to its power supply connections.

 

[uttechm]

is this windows 10?

Try turning off fast startup and see if it makes any difference to startup - https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/4189-turn-off-fast-startup-windows-10-a.html

Okay, update time! I was poking around the BIOS once again and first, changed the POGO Gen to 2from auto and the display freaked out, I was able to change it to gen 1 and that seems to be working. I do not think that solved the problem. However, there is a fast boot option within the BIOS that I disabled and the PC turns on without fail. I have only checked this 3 times including the original reboot out of the BIOS and every time it boots great. Maybe it's a combination of the 2 changes or just the fast boot but whatever it may be, it seems to have worked. Thank you for the suggestion, I had no idea that could play a factor!!

 

[uttechm]

I agree you should not disable the integrated graphics of the CPU chip. When you tell the BIOS to use the video card in the PCIe slot, it will ignore that other video source and relay that info to the Windows OS so only the card is used for video output.

The suggestion above to turn off Fast Boot seemed a good idea o me, but you say that did not solve it. That got me thinking. Although the trouble might be that the video card is slow to initialize, maybe another problem is that some other significant problem at boot time.

What you describe says things appear to turn on, even the hard drive, but then you get no display of any kind. That can happen if there is a major failure during the POST process at the very beginning, in which the BIOS checks all its connected resources to be sure they are responding properly. That process normally takes 15 to 30 sec, depending on what hardware you have, and ends with a "beep code". Now, you may never hear a beep at all. These days it is common NOT to provide the little piece of hardware needed for you to hear that. So, if your system never has made any beep as it starts up, ask at your local computer parts shop to a tiny speaker device called a PZO. It is a little cylinder about ½" diameter with a short pair of wires ending in a small connector. You plug this into the pins on your mobo's Front Panel header that are marked for the Speaker. See your mobo instruction manual for this, or post here what mobo and model you have so we can look up the manual. ALSO look in your mobo manual for info on what "beep codes" it can generate. Virtually all mobos will signal a successful completion of POST with a single short beep. Any other beep pattern is a code for the problem it encountered that prevented it from completing. If that happens, post here what code you got, and what the manual says about that IF it says anything.

Now, there is also the possibility that the video card is the problem. You say you tried removing the video card, but let me ask for a specific. What you should have done for that is: BEFORE removing the card, go into BIOS Setup where you found that it was set to use the PCIe slot card. Change that to using the Integrated Graphics, then go through the SAVE and RESTART option in the Exit menu. The machine will shut down and start to reboot, but turn it off right away. Disconnect power, open the case, and remove the video card. Close up and boot. NOW, in that situation with no video card AND the BIOS instructed to use Integrated Graphics, does the problem still happen? If it never does, then that would point to the graphics card, or to a flaw in its connections to the PCIe slot, or to its power supply connections.

I believe I have solved the problem through the BIOS possibly with turning a fast boot option off. It still wouldn't be a bad idea to grab a speaker to listen to any post codes in the future! thanks for the reply!!

 

[Colif]

Okay, update time! I was poking around the BIOS once again and first, changed the POGO Gen to 2from auto and the display freaked out, I was able to change it to gen 1 and that seems to be working. I do not think that solved the problem.

Playing around in the bios isn't always a clever move.

However, there is a fast boot option within the BIOS that I disabled and the PC turns on without fail. I have only checked this 3 times including the original reboot out of the BIOS and every time it boots great. Maybe it's a combination of the 2 changes or just the fast boot but whatever it may be, it seems to have worked. Thank you for the suggestion, I had no idea that could play a factor!!

Fast boot in bios just removes the number of checks the bios makes before passing control to windows at boot

Fast start-up in windows is different, it changes how windows shuts down & restarts. With fast startup on in win 10 the PC isn't actually off when you shut it down. its asleep. At shutdown it saves a copy of all running drivers + a copy of other files needed to run windows into either ram or into hiberfil.sys. Meaning at startup its half loaded already and starts faster.

or should, unless you have drivers that don't understand that mode and they mess up at startup. This is what appears to be happening to you.

 

[uttechm]

Playing around in the bios isn't always a clever move.



Fast boot in bios just removes the number of checks the bios makes before passing control to windows at boot

Fast start-up in windows is different, it changes how windows shuts down & restarts. With fast startup on in win 10 the PC isn't actually off when you shut it down. its asleep. At shutdown it saves a copy of all running drivers + a copy of other files needed to run windows into either ram or into hiberfil.sys. Meaning at startup its half loaded already and starts faster.

or should, unless you have drivers that don't understand that mode and they mess up at startup. This is what appears to be happening to you.

Okay, I think I get what you’re saying. When I said poking around I really meant trying to find something that would help the boot process. Is it dangerous the way I have it since it may not doing proper checks? It’s been booting first try every time and all hardware is working as expected. To me, that doesn’t seem like a problem but if that’s harmful I’d rather not keep it like that.

Thanks,
Uttechm

 

[Colif]

i think it just skips memory checks and other processes it would normally run at startup.

if its working fine now, it must have fixed it

Try running memtest86 on each of your ram sticks, one stick at a time, up to 4 passes. Only error count you want is 0, any higher could be cause of the problem. Remove/replace ram sticks with errors. Memtest is created as a bootable USB so that you don’t need windows to run it

 

[Paperdoc]

Thanks for the updates. Glad to hear it is working now.

 

[uttechm]

i think it just skips memory checks and other processes it would normally run at startup.

if its working fine now, it must have fixed it

Try running memtest86 on each of your ram sticks, one stick at a time, up to 4 passes. Only error count you want is 0, any higher could be cause of the problem. Remove/replace ram sticks with errors. Memtest is created as a bootable USB so that you don’t need windows to run it

Memtest86 has been ran! All 4 passes came back with 0 errors. The problem seems to have been resolved! I will of course be watching for anything strange happening with all of the hardware as I continue to use it. Thank you to everyone who helped me! I was truly lost and all of you came in to save me. Thanks!!