New video card on an old system

TopherC

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Jun 1, 2009
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I recently got a (somewhat) new video card for an older system, and can't get it to work. I have a newer system that the card *does* work in, and an older card that works in the older system. I'm looking for suggestions of what to try next.

The problem is that I get one long beep (or maybe it's long-short, I'll have to double-check tonight) during POST and no video signal. Other peripherals seem to whir and tick appropriately afterward.

The card is an EVGA Geforce 8600 GT, a PCI-E (v1 I assume??) card. My motherboard is an MSI K8N Neo4.

I have a 380W power supply and I am a little suspicious it may not be enough. I have a 2x2 and 10x2 connector from the supply plugged into the motherboard but four pins of the motherboard's 12x2 connector are not connected. The manual suggests the right positioning for this and sure enough the connector won't fit any other way. And again the computer's working fine with an older PCI-E video card. The video card does not have a power connector.

I'm sure that I'm plugging things in correctly because I've tried swapping cards between my two systems twice so far with the same results. Could an old BIOS be a problem? Could the EVGA card not be "v1.0a" PCI-E bus compliant? The newer system that it does work in also supports PCI-E v2.

Does anyone know what I might try next? Or could there be a genuine incompatibility? If so, what other card should I try?
 
Solution
You get no video, 1 long and 1 short beep?

Check your postings, and if your monitor wire isnt fully inserted on the outside.

the 380w is enough for a 8600gt.

Instead of plugging your monitor into the dvi, try vga if you can.

TopherC

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Yes, I certainly am. The "shoe" part of the connector clicks into place nicely and the card is fully inserted. Also, I'm using all the default clock speeds -- no overclocking (yet).
 

fullmetall

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You get no video, 1 long and 1 short beep?

Check your postings, and if your monitor wire isnt fully inserted on the outside.

the 380w is enough for a 8600gt.

Instead of plugging your monitor into the dvi, try vga if you can.
 
Solution

TopherC

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Thanks for the suggestions! I'll work with this more when I get home tonight. I'm not too sure of the beep beyond it being long with a possible interruption that I wasn't clued into listening to carefully. I also have a POST decoder board somewhere, and will search more for it. I can be a little more careful about the VGA connector. I'm using a CRT, and tried both the VGA and the DVI with an included adapter. If it was a scan frequency problem I'm pretty sure the monitor would give me an out of range message. Instead it was just blank. Again an older video card works fine and doesn't give any beeps during POST.

It's helpful to exonerate the power supply since I would need to buy a new one just to test that theory!
 

TopherC

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Well, I tried again last night without success. Again the new video card failed to initialize during POST. I got a long beep and two short beeps. I was extra-careful about making a good connection with the motherboard and VGA connector. I also had updated the motherboard's bios to the latest version (1.D). The card that _is_ working is an MSI geforce 6200 card but I don't yet know the specific model. It has the exact same edge connector as the EVGA 8600. I'm not sure what to do at this point but I think I'll just return the video card. It works fine (great actually) in a newer system but that's not really where I needed it.

Many thanks for your help!