Question GT 1030 Not working properly. Wont stay on (AX3400G Acer)

[Atom Bong]

Heres My PC:
http://m.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6337465

CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 @2.75GHz
GPU: Nvidia GeForce 9200
Motherboard: AX3400G
4GB DDR3 SDRAM (220w PSU)

I received my new card yesterday to try and pair with current system and have spent countless hours trying to get the darn thing to work right. To explain where im at right now, ive used DDU Utility to uninstall and clean and allow computer for a fresh installation. I started out with having zero detection at all from the card regardless of having HDMI directly connected to the card, i eventually fixed that tweaking a setting in the bios and then installing card drivers from Nvidia's website quickly as possible, due to screen cutting to "no signal" after a few minutes being logged into windows.

Thru all of these tedious things along the way l have gotten device manager to display "GT 1030" instead of the other unknown/standard VGA/coprocessor itd seem to show as, of course this would only happen thru manual driver install from nvidia website, Now a few of these times i got it to stay on a little longer before either needing to reboot or getting no signal again, The times it'd stay on, id try to load up a few games and all would either not start entirely or give me an error. The order i'd do the steps would seem to yield different results but didnt personally tell me much and still ended with either it randomly switching to no signal, or just not being able to load games (and more than likely whatever else that uses the cards components)
Luckily i do have integrated graphics that i can at least use to boot in windows and sketch what else to try next, or find what steps (in what particular order) do i need to take to either get working or at least narrow down the issue to pinpoint it.
Also safe mode for whatever reason will not work one way or the other it gets stuck at "CLASSPNP.SYS" when loading up.
Not confident safe mode would be the solution here anyway, but i thought I'd throw that intel out there.
As you may see with my specs, i have a old small form factor acer mITX mobo, not sure if compatibility there could be an issue, ive seen people with similiar Acer PC's to mine claim to have a similar sounding issue with new graphics card, and say it being an compatibility issue with old BIOS/CMOS or perhaps mobo entirely.

Regardless im hoping someone would have the time to assist me with this issue and provide some answers, at this point ive already got a brand new PC build picked out in case i end up having to drop hopes of upgrading the card in this one. So here's hoping this computer can be saved before that outcome is necessary,
Please let me know if theres anything specific you'd like to know, and toss some possible solutions my way.
Appreciate your time, cheers

 

[Atom Bong]

UPDATE: Luckily right after i posted this i gave it another go directly thru the hdmi slot in the graphics card, and this time it worked fine, booted up, and interestingly this time it didnt immediately no signal. I was able to install drivers and everything went smooth.
Now this time around, it installed correctly with geforce gt 1030 showing in display with no error sign, AND i was able to play STALKER my favorite game on steam at the moment at higher settings then what i could on igpu GeForce 9200. First few minutes it ran very smooth and as time went on (10-15 minutes) the performance decreased and i was slowly but surely seeing frames drop and stutters, then maybe 20 minutes or so in, Boom, no signal. Power remained on and cpu fan was still spinning tho.

Now this changed my initial impressions on what i felt the issue was, im wondering if this is an overheating issue, I DID have to take off the heat sink to the gpu, as it just would not fit inside this small form case, the card was indeed pretty hot to the touch, so im not excluding that as a possibility.
Cheers.

 

[Vic 40]

Look for secure boot in the bios and disable it,see if that wil help.

 

[Atom Bong]

Will see what that does next boot.
Sorta Update: Ive played other games like insurgency, project zomboid and a few others with no issue other than the weird fps instability/fluctuations that was fixed in 1 game by locking framerate. It appears the games that i have completely lowered settings on for use on the old IGPU dont like using the same settings on new gpu, and causes the instability and crashes.

I managed to get Project Zomboid working flawlessly by turning up a few settings and locking framerate to 40, along with having v sync enabled,
Insurgency also runs great during the intervals between the random fps instability/fluctuations, havent changed much settings wise on it yet. Might do a reinstall of it and let the card auto pick the settings to see what that does.

Weird how some of the higher settings i wasnt able to use on old IGPU are the settings giving me stability on this new card. Ive noticed the settings that helped most with the instabilities were mainly rendering type stuff(at least i think), and not involving the models/textures, lowering textures just helped increase fps during stable moments of gameplay, but once the card starts loading whatever its doing thats causing the instability to start up, those kinds of settings seem to not matter. Maybe i can find perfect settings across the board to pinpoint what the root of issue is. Not sure whats the issue at this point for sure.

 

[Atom Bong]

Update: Main issue im having today is my gpu wont stay on, whether im in the BIOS or booted into windows, after a random amount of time, my display cuts to "no signal".
Really frustrating that i cant seem to pinpoint the issue to fix it. Im finding little information on GPUs no signaling AFTER seemingly working for a bit. I almost wish it was no signaling upon start so i have some understanding, but im able to boot in and even play games for a lil while before it "no signals", albeit with fps fluctuations here and there but nonetheless. What the f**k computer..?

 

[Vic 40]

So disabling secure boot doesn't help. Might be drivers issue,but guess you use the latest for your version of windows. Other problem might be psu since only 220watt and probably old as well.

 

[Atom Bong]

At least the options close enough to 'secure boot' i should add^^
I have Quick Boot and Quiet Boot, i assumed Quick Boot is the equivalency of disabled secure boot on my old a** bios. I was having driver issues that first day i put in the new card, but here a few weeks in, i was able to download the drivers correctly which fixed me not being able to launch anything video related and the no signal upon launching thru cards port in general.

At this point im just having a hell of a time trying to figure out why it wont stay on, it seems to work for a random timespan but suddenly it'll just crash to ''no signal'' blue screen.
I mean sure, it could still be the drivers, but i just know what the issues were when they were an actual problem preventing me from using the card period, Ive fixed most that to the point where the cards detected, i can launch video related stuff like games, it doesnt no signal straight away soon as i connect hdmi to the video card, and i can actually run and use the card for a random amount of time before the frame drops slowly seep into notice, and the card suddenly shuts off/crashes to ''no signal''.

Honestly ive lost hope, i keep messing with it for learning reasons, to maybe boost some tech IQ by seeing what i can do to keep it on longer and to give me purpose in life while i wait for a good time to order the rest of the parts for my new build im shooting for. I was hit by a drunk driver recently and ive been, well, kinda disabled at the moment. So im just using my time wisely and becoming more in tune with my geek side i guess haha.

Buut to conclude this weeks tinkering, im still empathic-ly feeling its overheating maybe. Or a PSU issue like Vic said, Even though this card uses like nothing psu wise, but with 220w, even 30 could screw it all up i reckon. Idk. There should be a way to find out these things.. Maybe there is and im dumb. who knows. Let me know if you have any suggestions or perhaps an answer to the issue at hand 😀

 

[Vic 40]

Did you check wndows energy settings as well? If not try putting those to high performance and see if iy helps.