Question Red light under VGA on motherboard - no display on monitor

Dec 26, 2024
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Was in the early stages of installing drivers, had to do other things so shut my new pc off. Turning it back on later in the day, the monitor won’t detect any signal from the HDMI cable or DP. I’ve tried connecting these cables to the motherboard and to the graphics card, nothing changes. The monitor is acknowledging them, as a brief “HDMI cable connected” appears at each reconnection, but nothing else from there.

There is also a red light under “VGA”, so I have tried turning off the PC to take out the GPU and put it back in, replug any PCIE cables, check everything by the power supply, and ensure all motherboard cables are still connected. Not sure what else to try, here are some specs:

- AMD Ryzen 9 7900X
- Gigabyte B650M Aorus Elite AX Micro ATX AM5
- Zotac Gigabyte RTX 4070 Ti Super

Any help is seriously appreciated.
 
This:

"had to do other things so shut my new pc off."

What other things were done?

How was the new pc shut off?

For the most part, new PC's very often start downloading and installing various updates as soon as the PC gains internet access, "phones home", and who knows what else may start to happen.....

Look in Reliability History, Event Viewer, and Update History: Look for errors, warnings, failures etc..

Not uncommon that good faith attempts to update and upgrade run afoul of each other.

Try to get the system stable and then make changes only one change at a time allowing a couple of restarts between changes.
 
This:

"had to do other things so shut my new pc off."

What other things were done?

How was the new pc shut off?

For the most part, new PC's very often start downloading and installing various updates as soon as the PC gains internet access, "phones home", and who knows what else may start to happen.....

Look in Reliability History, Event Viewer, and Update History: Look for errors, warnings, failures etc..

Not uncommon that good faith attempts to update and upgrade run afoul of each other.

Try to get the system stable and then make changes only one change at a time allowing a couple of restarts between changes.
Hi, a few updates since then. The red light disappeared and I managed to get the monitor on using integrated graphics (though I didn’t know I was using them until I got to looking at NZXT software). I obviously wanted to change this and actually use my GPU, so I looked up how to, went into my BIOS and turned off integrated graphics, then saved and let the BIOS restart.

The monitor didn’t turn on, so I assumed the HDMI cable and Display Port cables should just be put into the graphics card, as is normally expected, but the monitor doesn’t even acknowledge the connections at this point. On top of the VGA red light on the motherboard, the fans on the graphics card sometimes stop. The lights on the GPU are still on, so it’s not completely dead.

With almost no tech knowledge, the only thing I can assume is that the power being supplied to the GPU is not sufficient, leading to this staggered functioning. Is this right, and/or are there any other things I need to check like the GPU itself? For reference, it’s an 850W Corsair alongside a 4070Ti Super.

In short:

-VGA constant red light for GPU
-GPU fans inconsistent functioning
-Monitor not turning on
-PC will only work with integrated graphics
 
Hi, a few updates since then. The red light disappeared and I managed to get the monitor on using integrated graphics (though I didn’t know I was using them until I got to looking at NZXT software). I obviously wanted to change this and actually use my GPU, so I looked up how to, went into my BIOS and turned off integrated graphics, then saved and let the BIOS restart.

The monitor didn’t turn on, so I assumed the HDMI cable and Display Port cables should just be put into the graphics card, as is normally expected, but the monitor doesn’t even acknowledge the connections at this point. On top of the VGA red light on the motherboard, the fans on the graphics card sometimes stop. The lights on the GPU are still on, so it’s not completely dead.

With almost no tech knowledge, the only thing I can assume is that the power being supplied to the GPU is not sufficient, leading to this staggered functioning. Is this right, and/or are there any other things I need to check like the GPU itself? For reference, it’s an 850W Corsair alongside a 4070Ti Super.

In short:

-VGA constant red light for GPU
-GPU fans inconsistent functioning
-Monitor not turning on
-PC will only work with integrated graphics
Also, here are full specs to clarify:

  • CPU - AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 4.7Ghz 12C
  • Cooler - NZXT Kraken Elite 360 RGB 78.02 CFM Liquid Cooler
  • Motherboard - Gigabyte B650M Aorus Elite AX Micro ATX AM5
  • Memory - Teamgroup T-Force Delta RGB 32 GB DDR5-6000 CL30
  • Storage - Kingston Fury Renegade with Heat Sink 2TB M.2-2280 PCle 4.0x4 NVME SSD
  • Graphics Card - Zotac Gigabyte RTX 4070 Ti Super Trinity OC White Edition 16GB
  • Power Supply - Corsair 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX
  • Case Fans
    • Lian Li Uni Fan SL-Infinity 61.3 CFM 120mm (3 pack)
    • Lian Li Uni Fan SL-Infinity 120mm Reverse Blade ARGB White (3)
 
Are you using only the cables that came with the PSU?

= = = =

Try running "dism" and "sfc /scannow" to find and fix any corrupted or buggy files.

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-use-dism-command-line-utility-repair-windows-10-image

https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-use-sfc-scannow-to-repair-windows-system-files-2626161

Manually download the GPU drivers directly from the manufacturer's website. Install and reconfigure. No third party tools or installers.

Be sure that the source is the manufacturer's website. Just because "Zotac" may appear in the URL does not mean that the link is Zotac.
 
Are you using only the cables that came with the PSU?

= = = =

Try running "dism" and "sfc /scannow" to find and fix any corrupted or buggy files.

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-use-dism-command-line-utility-repair-windows-10-image

https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-use-sfc-scannow-to-repair-windows-system-files-2626161

Manually download the GPU drivers directly from the manufacturer's website. Install and reconfigure. No third party tools or installers.

Be sure that the source is the manufacturer's website. Just because "Zotac" may appear in the URL does not mean that the link is Zotac.
Only using those from the PSU box. The graphics card requires 3 PCIe slots filled and the PSU box only came with 2 cables, so obviously one of these has 2 branches in use, with the other having 1 branch used and the other left hanging.

I ran the dism and scannow commands, and supposedly corrupted files have been fixed. As for the driver, if I am correct in assuming going to the NVIDIA page and downloading the graphics driver for the 4070Ti super is correct, I tried and it says no NVIDIA GPU is detected on the system, and that no compatible graphics hardware are there (as the integrated graphics are AMD). The graphics card is in right now, but I don’t see it in device manager. I’ve reconnected the PCIe cables to the card and it hasn’t done anything, though the fans on the graphics card aren’t moving at all at this point, just the LEDs on.

Edit: 2 mins after initial post, fans are constantly spinning now which I take to be a good sign ?
 
Another update: in NZXT cam, I can actually see the GPU! Hooray! I changed primary GPU to the Zotac one, but unfortunately the frequency is very uncertain and the power is only at 8W. Will this be a problem of power cables?
 
Are you following the installation guide?

https://www.nvidia.com/content/geforce-gtx/GeForce_RTX_4070_QSG_Rev1.pdf

Be sure to verify that I found the applicable installation guide.

= = = =

What is the source of that 8 W power value?

Is it possible for you to take some photographs showing the GPU and the connections being used?

Photopgraphs can be posted here via imgur (www.imgur.com).

Double check the installation, take some photographs, and post accordingly.
 
Zotac and Gigabyte are two different brands, both are mentioned and both require pcie 16 pin 12vhpwr plug.

Which Corsair psu model do you have? What's the sku? There are updated atx 3.1 models with the native 12vhpwr plug while older units required adapters - either using the supplied adapter shipped with graphics card or bought from Corsair separately. These adapters use the regular pcie 8pin which connects to psu, some adapters have two, some more. Trying to understand what you have exactly.