[SOLVED] No display with GPU installed. Faulty mobo?

[Apoca1ypse]

I'm trying to diagnose and fix a friend's PC. They tell me it originally worked fine, they could play games just fine, but then the video stopped displaying entirely so now I'm looking at it.

If the GPU is removed:
- Onboard graphics work fine. I see it post, and go to windows. I can brows online etc without any issues. Fantastic.

If I install a GPU:

• I wont see anything. No post, no windows, nothing. Just a black screen at all times.
• I have tried the original GPU and an old one I had laying around. No change.
• Tried using different PCIE slots with both cards. No change.
• Switching between being plugged into the onboard and GPU display outputs. No change.

Does this confirm that the motherboard has had a failure? If not, what does is indicate?

Notes:

• Updated BIOS to see if that changed anything. It did not.
• Did a totally fresh install of Windows 10 (probably not relevant)
• I do not have a PC available to confirm that both GPUs work in another system. My old GPU worked last time I used it 14 months ago.
• I only had a DVI cable to test with. This shouldn't matter though right?

Hardware:
Mobo - ASRock z97 extreme4
GPUs - Gigabyte HD 7950, Sapphire R9 295x2

 

[SM/Madao]

I'm trying to diagnose and fix a friend's PC. They tell me it originally worked fine, they could play games just fine, but then the video stopped displaying entirely so now I'm looking at it.

If the GPU is removed:
- Onboard graphics work fine. I see it post, and go to windows. I can brows online etc without any issues. Fantastic.

If I install a GPU:

• I wont see anything. No post, no windows, nothing. Just a black screen at all times.
• I have tried the original GPU and an old one I had laying around. No change.
• Tried using different PCIE slots with both cards. No change.
• Switching between being plugged into the onboard and GPU display outputs. No change.

Does this confirm that the motherboard has had a failure? If not, what does is indicate?

Notes:

• Updated BIOS to see if that changed anything. It did not.
• Did a totally fresh install of Windows 10 (probably not relevant)
• I do not have a PC available to confirm that both GPUs work in another system. My old GPU worked last time I used it 14 months ago.
• I only had a DVI cable to test with. This shouldn't matter though right?

Hardware:
Mobo - ASRock z97 extreme4
GPUs - Gigabyte HD 7950, Sapphire R9 295x2

Likely Motherboard "Chip" gone faulty, you may try bring it to PC Technician to try out with both of your friend GPU.

 

[GenericUser]

Sounds maybe like something went wrong somewhere in between the PCIe connections and the CPU? Especially since it doesn't want to post when you have anything plugged in there.

Do you have any non-GPU related hardware that you can plug into a PCIe slot, like a sound card, USB hub, WiFi adapter, etc.? If it still won't post with any type of PCIe device plugged into any slot, I think that would indicate something of that fashion going on. If it does, then I'm more at a loss as to what the exact issue might be.

 

[Apoca1ypse]

Sounds maybe like something went wrong somewhere in between the PCIe connections and the CPU? Especially since it doesn't want to post when you have anything plugged in there.

Do you have any non-GPU related hardware that you can plug into a PCIe slot, like a sound card, USB hub, WiFi adapter, etc.? If it still won't post with any type of PCIe device plugged into any slot, I think that would indicate something of that fashion going on. If it does, then I'm more at a loss as to what the exact issue might be.

Good call. I just dug up an old USB hub and tried it in all the PCIe slots. No bueno. Now to break the bad news to my friend