Question HP Workstation won't recognise NVIDIA Quadro K4200 graphics card.

Aug 29, 2020
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Morning Community,

First time poster here. I have a rather unusual combination of problems here that requires a bit of explaining so please bear with me!

My system is a HP XW4600 workstation which is admittedly, now very old (it still has a sticker proudly proclaiming it is built for Windows Vista)
but since it was a CAD workstation when new, it would have been far above your average desktop when it was new so after upgrading to an SSD running Windows 10 plus a few extra memory modules, the system still performs quite well and I still use it as a CAD workstation in my home office​
. It mostly runs structural analysis software which historically normally require CPU and memory grunt which this system still performs reasonably well on but as these programs become more and more graphical, the graphics performance is starting to become an issue. The current card is an NVIDIA Quadro FX 570 so we are talking pretty old school technology here.

I had opted for the second hand Quadro K4200 as it was a substantial upgrade from where I am at but still fairly old school technology so I figured it shouldn't have too much compatibility problems running in an older system but I am having issues with the system board recognising it.
When I install it on the HP workstation, it doesn't even boot to the BIOS screen but rather I get a 4 beep error warning of a graphics problem.​
I have installed it on an alternative, even older system made from a dubious selection of really old parts from several computers that I use for Netflix streaming onto my TV and it works perfectly fine so the issue is not the card itself.​

My HP workstation has 2 PCI x16 slots on it so I currently have the FX570 and the K4200 installed so the system is booting and working normally but I can't see the K4200 in device manager. I have tried installing the K4200 driver but it refuses to install, quoting that it can't find any compatible hardware and when
I pull out the FX570 it goes back to the 4 beeps. The K4200 requires an auxiliary power connector and ironically the only thing I got from it was when that wasn't connected and it gave me an error message obviously from the card itself telling me to connect it. I also tried hot wiring it if you will whereby I connected the auxiliary power connector from an old chassis and motherboard to the graphics card to give it power without drawing it from the HP workstation power unit to test if there was an issued with the auxiliary power connector or the power required to run card (I looked up the specs and noticed it actually draws quite a bit of power) plus the system exceeds the output of my power unit but still nothing. The fan unit on the K4200 is running so it is getting at least some power from the HP workstation power unit.

Other things I have tried are updating the BIOS which although very old, it is the latest available from the HP support site so it is as up to date as it is going to get, using older versions of the NVIDIA driver and trying to boot the machine into Windows 7 (it is a dual boot setup).

This is the first time I have ever had a compatibility issue with a PCI x16 device not talking to a system board so I would be interested to hear if anyone else has ever come up with this problem and if it can be resolved.

Anthony
 
Did you check for a newer BIOS for your system? The card does not have a very high power draw as far as video cards go, it's about 100 watts which is in line with a lower mid range gaming card. Does the power supply have the correct PCIe power cables for the card?
 
Aug 29, 2020
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Did you check for a newer BIOS for your system? The card does not have a very high power draw as far as video cards go, it's about 100 watts which is in line with a lower mid range gaming card. Does the power supply have the correct PCIe power cables for the card?

Yes the BIOS is as up to date as it is going to get for an old board unless there is some compatible 3rd party BIOS that could be newer but I have never heard of a 3rd party BIOS for a motherboard. The power supply is the standard 6 pin PCIe which the power unit has and is connected. I will purchase a 4 pin Molex to 6 pin PCIe adapter to see if that helps as they don't cost much in case there is an issue with the existing 6 pin PCIe. I am pretty convinced though that there is some fundamental communication problem between the board and the card.
 
Aug 29, 2020
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Just a quick update on this. So I have done a little more tinkering with different graphics cards in my HP Workstation borrowed from other machines and thus far, every single one works in it as expected even using much newer cards than the Quadro K4200. Similarly, I have put the Quadro K4200 into a few other machines and again, every single one of them works as expected. I am beginning to confirm the problem is I have accidentially stumbled upon some odd combination of the HP motherboard, its BIOS and the Quadro K4200 where something fell through the cracks and they just won't play nice with each other!
 
Oct 19, 2020
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I'm considering replacing an old NVS 925 with an
HP WS095AA Nvidia Quadro 4000 2gb Pci Express 2.0 X16 Gddr5 Sdram Video Card
The money is acceptable and I need better graphics but I'm wondering if I'm gonna have compatibility issues as well.

I have a single E5-2620 v3 chip, with 32GB DDR4 memory and a Quadro NVS 295 video card now.
Any thoughts on this?