Intermittent problem booting PC when graphics card is installed i5 4460 (MSI H81m-p33) and GTX 1060 3gb

[btenn4]

Hello everyone,

New to tom's hardware, very happy to now be apart of the community and hope to learn and share knowledge with all of you.

I have an issue with my first time PC build which I completed in February 2017, these are the parts that I used:
-Intel i5 4460
-MSI h81m-p33 motherboard
-8GB ddr3 ram
-Evga GTX 1060 3gb
-500W Evga psu

Ever since I built this PC I've had this intermittent problem that occurs when I power on the computer, the fans start and run continuously but no display, just a black screen on monitor showing no input. I also have this same problem when I wake the computer from sleep, fans will start but black screen showing no display appears and I hold power button to restart and it will boot normally. Other times this weird situation happens: I power on the PC, MSI splash screen appears, then screen goes black for about 30 seconds (no display input), and then MSI splash screen appears again and boots normally. It seems like half of the time it powers on normally and the other half it doesn't. Other than this problem, PC works great in gaming or just all around general use, no other issues.

I updated the motherboard bios and have all latest drivers and graphics card drivers installed but problem still occurs. I use an HDMI cable from the gpu to the monitor, and I tried out different HDMI cables but no improvement.

The one solution I found that makes this problem go away is if I remove the graphics card completely and display using CPU integrated graphics using the VGA port on the motherboard to the monitor. With no gpu installed, PC starts perfectly every time.

So what do you think this might be, a problem with the graphics card or with the PCIe slot on the motherboard or is this just something normal? I appreciate in advance and thoughts you are willing to share on this and what the problem might be.

 

[DRagor]

No, it's not normal. It could be either problem with GPU or motherboard or PSU. Hard to tell which one is playing tricks on you without testing with spare components.

 

[btenn4]

Another thing I wanted to mention, when gpu is installed and I power on the PC, on the bottom right corner it shows A2 then 9C just before the MSI splash screen. It doesn't do this when I turn on the computer without the graphics card, just thought I'd add this in, I am not sure if this means anything relevant just something I observed.

It's a weird issue with this graphics card display, sometimes computer starts perfectly fine. After it powers on and loads windows, I'm very happy with the way it performs, especially in games I get good fps on very high settings, works great otherwise. Just this intermittent mystery issue only when powering on no display. I press and hold power button to shut off and when I restart it will boot fine. Quite odd.

 

[DRagor]

Another thing I wanted to mention, when gpu is installed and I power on the PC, on the bottom right corner it shows A2 then 9C just before the MSI splash screen.

About 9C error code, read this and see if it helps https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=169937.0 (in short: change boot order to make your SSD/HDD first).

 

[btenn4]

I have an SSD with Windows 10 selected as #1 on the boot priority. Any other ideas on what might cause the intermittent no input display when powering on the PC? I am thinking about looking for another graphics card and see if that changes anything.

 

[aaronw928]

Do you have any GPU sag? I used to have problems similar to this. I bought a PC on eBay with a PowerColor R9 380X in it. It was advertised as a 380 so it was actually a free upgrade of sorts. The problem I had was that the card was so large with the 3 fan design that it caused sag on my Z97 motherboard's PCI slot. It would startup every time if I propped up the GPU, but I didn't like the idea of something contacting the circuitry or the appearance of a piece of fishing line hanging from my case as some suggested. I contacted the seller and he shipped a regular R9 380 direct from NewEgg. I never had an issue again.

I mention this only because I just got an EVGA SSC 1060 6GB card myself and it's definitely not the lightest card I've ever handled. I have an ASRock Z270 Extreme4 motherboard now which has nice reinforced slots.

 

[btenn4]

Thank you Aaron for your reply and for sharing your story with me, after reading your post I feel like it might be a similar issue, especially since like you said, the graphics card seems heavy especially compared to my motherboard which is just a very basic MSI micro atx motherboard. A day after I started this thread, I re-installed the graphics card and also used a brand new HDMI cable this time and haven't had the issue since. It's been 5 days since then and so far it starts normally every time whether powering on or waking from sleep as well. So problem solved it seems like, I am not sure if reinserting the graphics card did it, or maybe the HDMI cable did, but so far so good. Thank you again for posting, your reply really helped me a lot. Nice to read that you have a GTX 1060 as well, what a great card it is for sure! The ASRock motherboard sounds really interesting, I might consider using ASRock next if/when I upgrade my current PC.