New Graphics Card Not Working

[britodar360]

I recently purchased a Sapphire Radeon HD 7770 Vapor-X graphics card. I installed the card then headed over to the (AMD) website for latest drivers. After finishing all that I got on Steam to try some games out. I started Tomb Raider and I got nothing but screen flickering, then I tried another game Garry's Mod then I got a black screen, the sound was still coming in. I also tried watching a YouTube video and all I got was a green screen. I tried everything literally, took off drivers and installed them again, I even installed a fresh copy of the Operating System and nothing is fixed. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks! I forgot to mention, after installing this (GPU) things started to go nuts. Firefox would crash as soon as I opened it.... I don't know if this matters but in (Device Manager) on the Other Devices tab it says PCI Device, SM Bus Controller and some other stuff that have no drivers. I tried updating them but it can't find anything.

PC Specs

Motherboard - MSI A88X-G43 FM2+ / FM2 AMD A88X (Bolton D4)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...


CPU - AMD A6-5400K Trinity 3.6GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) Socket FM2 65W Dual-Core
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

HDD - Western Digital WD10EZEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

CPU Cooler - Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

PSU - CORSAIR CX series CX500 500W ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS BRONZE
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

CASE - Thermaltake Element V
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

RAM - CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 15000)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

GPU - SAPPHIRE Vapor-X 100358VXL Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition 1GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

OS - Windows Vista 32Bit

 

[Jake Thorn]

Did you set the 7770 as the primary video output, and disable the a6 integrated graphics? Did you push the card all the way into the PCI-e slot?

As a side note, your 32-bit OS will only use a maximum of 4gb of RAM, it can't address more that, you'd need a 64-bit OS for all 8gb to be used.

 

[britodar360]

How do I set it as primary video output? I did go into bios and disable the A6 integrated graphics, but no luck. Yes I did make sure the GPU was seated correctly. And I do know about the RAM and windows vista. I want to get windows 8 but i don't have the money at the moment.

 

[Jake Thorn]

It doesn't have to do with Win8 vs Vista, it's a 32-bit vs 64-bit issue. Vista and 8 both have 32-bit and 64-bit options.

As far as setting video output, you should be able to right click on the desktop, and select AMDs control panel. I don't have experience with AMD, so this may not be they way it's set up for you, but you will need to navigate the menus to find "primary video output" or something along those lines, and select the 7770. Vista may require you to open up regular control panel to find the AMD control panel. If this does not work, you can try moving to a different PCI-e slot, and see if that will change anything. Odds are it won't, but if it does, then it's a motherboard issue, not the cards fault.

 

[britodar360]

I will try that now, but I did before move it to another slot and same thing happened. I got a feeling that is the drivers. I did the mistake of not uninstalling the drivers of the APU first. This time I did so I will see what happens now.

 

[britodar360]

Ok i started up the pc and went to device manager. Now is showing in display standard VGA graphics adapter. Why is that? Should it not be like radeon hd 7700 series or something.

 

[britodar360]

Ok i got on youtube and the videos are working fine idk if is the apu doing the work or the actual gpu

 

[britodar360]

Yeah, am starting to think is the drivers. After installing them and restarting I got on YouTube and the same thing started to happen green screen on videos. The weird thing is if i lower quality to 144p I can see the video. Some one please help me, this is the most frustrating thing in the whole world right now.

 

[britodar360]

ok so now i right click on the youtube video went to setting and took off hardware acceleration and now videos are playing fine. am still getting black screen when i start up games.

 

[britodar360]

Am also on a 50" Sony bravia at 1080p if that means anything.

 

[Jake Thorn]

You have to enable the "game" mode on your tv, otherwise the onboard card(tv) will output to the display. That's the big difference between tvs and monitors, size and resolution may be the same for both, but a tv will use its own card unless you tell it otherwise. With the "game" setting on, it should bypass your tvs card and only use input from the 7770. Have you checked to ensure you used the Vista 32-bit drivers? The driver changes based on OS type(Vista,7,8) and bit size. Sorry I can't help more, using my phone right now, not near my pc to help better.

 

[britodar360]

Dude ok, yes I always have game mode on. The drivers are for windows vista 32 bit I just don't get why when i start a game is just black screen and only sound. could it be that the gpu is broken???