Please, please help. Graphics card won't detect, have tried two different cards

[JJHH420]

Hi everybody!

First post, hope somebody can please help end what will soon drive me insane. Guess I'll start with my basic specs so it's all there:

AMD FX4300, Quad Core @ 3.8GHz
8GB RAM
500W power supply
Windows 10

I've just bought an AMD R9 280, plugged it into the motherboard and power supply via the 6 pin and 6+2 pin to the PSU. Fan spinning, but can't get my computer to detect it in device manager or anything. It's worth mentioning my power supply didn't come with the 6 pin and 6+2 pin connectors and I had to buy these separately and connect them via the 4 pin molex on my power supply. Keep in mind I've now been trying to get this to work for about 4 or 5 days, so I've read an unbelievable amount of threads on this and tried everything I've been told. Tried getting the drivers, constantly getting the 'No AMD graphics driver is installed' message on startup since getting Catalyst Control Centre etc. Tried reseating it, reconnecting the cables, disabling the onboard graphics, going into the BIOS... everything, really.

With the AMD R9 280 being quite a big card, the only stone I really haven't turned is getting a better power supply. So, as I'm waiting for payday, I did the next best thing and returned the card and got a Sapphire Dual-X R9 270X instead. This one only takes two 6 pins to the power supply. Again, the fans are spinning, but the card will not show up anywhere. I can't get anything to autodetect and download the drivers for it and I've tried manually downloading them but absolutely nothing works. So I'm totally stumped guys. It's driving me totally mental.

Before attempting to install these cards I was using an old Radeon HD 5450 from a previous computer, just as a placeholder til I got something better. Worked absolutely fine, still does when I put it back in.

So, my main question really is, what am I doing wrong? Surely it can't be both the cards, and even if my power supply (it is a generic one that came with my case) wasn't particularly sufficient, would this cause the cards to not be detected at all? My previous experience with an insufficient power supply is just that the card would run poorly, crash a lot etc, but would still at least be recognised by the computer. I've just built this machine in the past week, everything is brand new - except the cards. They're both secondhand from CEX, but seem in good condition and I've purchased perfectly working cards from there before. Everything's tested before they accept it and I'm just pretty confident that both cards aren't broken, so I'd rather look at what else might be causing the issue instead of just accepting both are broken.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated - really sorry for the long post but hope some good will come of it! Thanks

 

[EpIckFa1LJoN]

I don't know much about AMD but is it possible these cards are not compatible with the CPU?
I'm really reaching here because I am pretty confident the PSU should be powering the GPU fine. Unless you are using Crossfire.
If you are using Crossfire and failed to mention it for whatever reason, you will need a bigger PSU.

Again I am reaching here. You seem to have done everything else. I also seriously doubt that two completely different cards are not working. That is an extremely low possibility but still... WCS most likely.

 

[EpIckFa1LJoN]

I might have a better solution after looking into it more.
Uninstall the old graphics card drivers and then install the new card.
Apparently the computer may think that you are trying to use the old card and won't boot with the new card properly.
If you delete the old card's drivers it will boot up as normal hopefully, and let you install the new drivers.

 

[JJHH420]

In order to do that, would I need to plug the old graphics card in and uninstall it from device manager? Because when I try to uninstall old drivers as directed on other threads, it seems to only try do it for the onboard graphics (ATI Radeon 3000 Graphics)?

 

[EpIckFa1LJoN]

In order to do that, would I need to plug the old graphics card in and uninstall it from device manager? Because when I try to uninstall old drivers as directed on other threads, it seems to only try do it for the onboard graphics (ATI Radeon 3000 Graphics)?

Possibly. I have never had to do that. Try it and see.

 

[JJHH420]

Sorry for the late reply, so, tried that - plugged in the old graphics card, device manager clearly detects it (Radeon HD 5450), uninstalled drivers, plugged in the new card... nothing. Returned the card and gonna try get a brand new one today instead of getting a secondhand one again, but still pretty worried that I'm not gonna be able to use it once bought. Any suggestions for what might be causing this? Unless I'm just really unlucky and got two non-working cards from CEX?

 

[EpIckFa1LJoN]

Sorry for the late reply, so, tried that - plugged in the old graphics card, device manager clearly detects it (Radeon HD 5450), uninstalled drivers, plugged in the new card... nothing. Returned the card and gonna try get a brand new one today instead of getting a secondhand one again, but still pretty worried that I'm not gonna be able to use it once bought. Any suggestions for what might be causing this? Unless I'm just really unlucky and got two non-working cards from CEX?

As I said I don't know too much about AMD but is it possible that the card will not work without FIRST installing a driver? I know with NVIDIA cards you can just plug em in and they will work. I assume AMD cards are the same, but you might have gotten two bad ones. It's not unheard of, even if highly unlikely. I would take every extra precaution possible when installing the new one. Wash your hands, ground yourself multiple times before touching anything, don't even set the card down.

Aside from that, I would try to dig up some research and see if there is any kind of compatibility issue with your MB, CPU, RAM, or GPU that would for whatever reason prevent you from using that specific card.