Question PC power cycles x3, then posts but no picture

[stoobjay]

Got an old PC that I'm trying to upgrade on the cheap. Its a Dell Ispiron 530. So its got a Q6600, mobo is a stock Foxconn DG33MO3. Just bought a 2nd hand HD5850 and upgraded the PSU too cause stock was 350W. Bought a brand new Evga 500W 80+. Problem is as title. No picture, it boots then quickly restarts, does that twice then fully boots with the post beep on the 3rd restart. The gpu fan is spinning, also replaced the thermal paste. Still no picture though so I can't see anything that's going on. I had to "mod" the case to fit the double slot back plate so I thought maybe it was that the gpu wasn't sitting right. So I've pulled out the mobo and tried reseating it, tested with mobo still out to ensure the seating is good but still nothing. Switched the GPU for the "old" one, it doesn't need any additional power cables from the PSU, the HD5850 needs a 4 and 6 pin. And everything works perfectly fine. So I then uninstalled the old GPU drivers thinking maybe there was some sort of conflict but still the same problems with the 5850. Also unplug the 4 and 6 pins and changed which one which (they are 4+2 pin plugs) so I'm at a loss to what it is. I bought it from an exchange retailer so should be good for returning. But I'm wondering if I should hold out because I bought a better mobo so I could upgrade the ram to 8gb, as mines is locked at a 4gb max. So should I wait and test with other mobo, is it a compatibility issue with that? Or should I just put it down to the GPU being faulty? I've read elsewhere a lot of "PSU must be the issue" but literally I stripped the system of the bloat, so aside from everything listed so far, I have 2x 500gb 7200rpm HDD and a sd card reader. And every wattage calculator says I should shy of 400W and a 500W PSU is plenty. Also the fact it works with the "old" GPU makes me rule that out.

Any help would be appreciated

 

[RememberThe5th]

I would say crappy motherboard support, if you manage to find the bios to update (i will look for it later today) it might fix the issue, but second tought the motherboard is locked at 4Gb of ram, there should be cheap mobos like G41 or even if you manage to find gigabyte p35/p45 and you can overclock cpu and that pretty well, ive managed 450fsb and 3.6Ghz on Q6600 G0
Is it ddr2 or ddr3?
Cause some old p35/45/x38/x48 support ddr3 and ddr2 but not at same time.

 

[RememberThe5th]

https://www.dell.com/support/home/hr/en/hrbsdt1/product-support/product/inspiron-530/drivers

 

[stoobjay]

I would say crappy motherboard support, if you manage to find the bios to update (i will look for it later today) it might fix the issue, but second tought the motherboard is locked at 4Gb of ram, there should be cheap mobos like G41 or even if you manage to find gigabyte p35/p45 and you can overclock cpu and that pretty well, ive managed 450fsb and 3.6Ghz on Q6600 G0
Is it ddr2 or ddr3?
Cause some old p35/45/x38/x48 support ddr3 and ddr2 but not at same time.

Cheers for the reply. Sorry, for not getting back sooner.

I updated the bios, years ago at this point, so that is as up to date as possible. I ordered a MSI G41. But it was DOA so wasnt able to test the GPU on that. Looks like the ebay store has another for exchange, so fingers crossed I have better luck with that and if you're thinking mobo support issue then I will hold off returning the GPU so to try it on the replacement mobo.

I can't get my head round sockets but from my observation using PC part picker as reference (so could be wrong), the micro atx's don't get the more upper end sockets so best I was seeing was DDR 3 1333 oc (I bought 8gb ram at this speed) support. Which from my somewhat novice knowledge means that I'll be limited to a 333 fsb. There was maybe better fsb support through ddr2 800 but I went tunnel vision for ddr3. I know you need ram to support an oc but have I understood that right, I would of needed ddr3 1600 support in order to reach 400 fsb? Or is a higher fsb on my "new" mobo achievable, in theory at least. But yeah my whole point of upgrade was to OC the CPU and get the ram to a more acceptable 8gb.

Again, thanks for the reply

 

[RememberThe5th]

No, you're wrong.
Be carefull which 775 DDr3 mobo you pick, mostly those G chipsets do not support overclocking well (Expect some intel X48 motherboards and other , just go for review find on google).

For overclocking you always set the lowest ram strap, for instance you run your ram strap at 400:2, you change it to the 333 (Sorry I do not remember well), and then if you hit fsb of 333MHz your ram will be 333 and you will achieve 1:1 ratio from ram and FSB and that makes what overclockers want 0 latency between CPU and ram.