Having trouble with a Radeon 4890

hempfed

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Jun 20, 2010
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Hi all,

I have been trying to upgrade my system, I was hoping someone could give me some advice. I am trying to upgrade my video card, but I am having difficulties. I have an Acer Aspire E380 with a Radeon 1650SE video card, and a Samsung SyncMaster 226BW monitor. Here are the base stats for the Acer:

http://support.acer.com/acerpanam/desktop/0000/Acer/AspireE380/AspireE380sp2.shtml

I have added a 650w PowerKing power supply, another 2 gb of ddr2 ram, and it is running on Windows 7 Pro 64 bit.

When the Radeon 4890 is put in the machine it takes awhile to boot. I notice 3 red lights flashing above where the two 6-pin connectors are plugged in. The computer eventually boots, but the monitor is blank and the power button is blinking as though it's on standby. There is no picture.
I bought a pci-e adapter that uses two 4-pin molex and turns them in to one 6-pin pci-e plug. I noticed these things only have 5 actual pins, as I bought several since I thought the first one was defective and missing a pin. I'm not sure if that is the problem. When I unplug the 6-pin adapter plug and boot it up, it boots the same as if both were plugged in, it eventually loads a blank screen. I left the other 6-pin connector from the power supply plugged in. Maybe it's not getting enough power?

Anyways, I was hoping someone would know what I need to buy to get my new video card to work. I bought the Radeon 4890 on eBay, the seller said it was working. I'm hoping he was right. Do I need a different power supply? Motherboard?
 

cromedome

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Dec 26, 2009
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650watts is more than enough for a 4890. But you bought it from ebay which could be the problem. Buying second hand computer parts is a risky business. But just to make sure, try the card in another computer with newer motherboard and bigger power supply.
 

hempfed

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Jun 20, 2010
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Can anyone recommend a low price power supply with two pci-e connectors that would power a 4890? The one rolli posted looks good, but it only has the one pci-e connector.
 

hempfed

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Jun 20, 2010
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Actually, I that P/S rolli posted should work fine, I just looked at a picture of a 6+2 pin pci-e connector. The +2 pin isn't attached to the 6 pin, so the 6 pin can be plugged in no problem.

Thanks again