[Solved] Power cable needed for NVIDIA 8600 GT?

[parabola]

I ordered up a NVIDIA 8600 GT 256MB graphics card. It came with a power cable, and I expected it to. Not having too much experience installing and peice of hardware, I connected the cable to the mobo on the only place open. The card worked just fine. Come to find out, I could not save any settings in the bios as I attempted to reset the boot order to the CD drive as being the first in the boot order. Configure, back to default. Configure back to default. I was on the phone with Dell tech for a good hour. Not a bad experience either, just time. They could not get the boot order to save, or save any settings with me on the phone either.

It should also be mentioned that I purposely ordered the graphics card through Dell to insure it would be compatible with my machine to avoid exactly what is now happening. Incidentally, the card was one of the upgrade options as I populated how I wanted my new computer to be built.

Solution? New mobo. Sounded reasonable to me. The tech was promptly dispatched and troubleshooted the problem as being the cable for the graphics card being connected to the bios boot jumper, not where it should be. The graphics card would not work at all not being connected. He tested that. I saw it. He got on the phone with Dell tech as he could not find any other place to connect the external cable for the graphics card, where I'm at right now with this.

Currently, my new card is not installed as I do not wish to connect the cable where it was, messing with the bios setting even though the card worked just fine from there. It's sitting right there, begging to run my City of Heroes game...lol. I got a new mobo out of the techs visit at least. He was there to replace the mobo, so that is what he did.

My questions and my problem is:

1) Where on the mobo do I connect the damn cable?
2) Is it necessary to connect the cable?
3) Does the NVIDIA 8600 GT have to use the external cable to operate?
4) Can the card run off of the PCI slot exclusively even though the cable came with the NVIDIA 8600 GT?

My General Motherboard Information :
Manufacturer : Dell Inc. (Dell)
Product : 0RY206
Version : ÿÿÿ
Serial Number : ..CN698617B702CD.
Support MP : Yes, 2 CPU(s)
Version MPS : 1.4

Thank you all in advace for you answers. Before I get on the phone with Dell, again, I would like to have some educated amunition from you pro's. They started to walk me through the graphics card "re-install" today on the phone but unfortunately I was not at my computer, so I had to hold off. I thought I would reach out here first before calling. If you need more information to troubleshoot, please do not hesitate to ask. I I plan to be very attentive to this thread.

Thank you,

 

[martyjs]

Not sure about Dells but I have an OC 512MB version of the 8600GT and it doesn't have a power cable. Ive sold several other 8600GT and none have had power cables.
Don't need them!

 

[nvalhalla]

Where on earth are you connecting a cable to the MB??? You have to post a picture of this!

 

[parabola]

Thanks for the reply. Is is possible Asus packages the cable by default then?

Not sure about Dells but I have an OC 512MB version of the 8600GT and it doesn't have a power cable. Ive sold several other 8600GT and none have had power cables.
Don't need them!

 

[parabola]

As I wrote in my post, the tech told me I connected to the bios jumper. I will take a picture and post when I reinstall the graphics card. Where I connected is located on the outside of the mobo connected to a blue something with two pins. It worked is all I know, except for messing with the bios, not letting me save anything like the boot order, disabling the A:\ floppy. (I don't have a floppy and wanted to just disable it)

Where on earth are you connecting a cable to the MB??? You have to post a picture of this!

 

[crazywheels]

not quite sure exactly what you mean, you should just be able to drop in your new card. but you don't need to hook anything else to the card from inside the pc. now you will have to move the monitor cable to your new video card

 

[parabola]

Thanks for the reply. I am saying that the card came with an a external cable and at this point I'm unsure if I need to use it. From these replies it sounds like I do not need to connect an external cable to operate the graphics card. There is a fan on the card. I am thinking the external cable is the power supply for the fan then?

not quite sure exactly what you mean, you should just be able to drop in your new card. but you don't need to hook anything else to the card from inside the pc. now you will have to move the monitor cable to your new video card

 

[martyjs]

On all the cards I've used and fitted in recent times the fan is ran of a plug on the Video cards PCB.

 

[parabola]

I just looked at the card again. I do see the fan and a cable connecting to the pcb. There is also an external cable that came with the card. There's a two pin connector on the pcb. What would that be used for? Do I even need to connect the external cable at all? I guess I should install the card, then troubleshoot from there if I have any problems. I will report back with what happens after I install the card to the PCI slot.

 

[parabola]

The card does not work if not connected. the monitor does not pick up the signal, just the test box is floating around. the latest 8 series driver has been installed 12.20.07.

Are there two different 8600 GT cards? One that does require a connection using an external cable, and one that does not?

Help please...

 

[WR2]

Asus EN8600GT

 

[pauldh]

I have never seen an 8600GT with an external power connector. The 8600GTS has the extra 6-pin pci-e power connector on the end of the card. Look at these pics: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/486/4/

Here is a GT and GTS in the same pic. Note the connector on the end of the GTS. http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2970&p=4

Any chance you can post of pic of your card?

 

[pauldh]

Ah, you nailed it WR2. it's the SPDIF cable he is talking about. It's used to route audio to the card when using the HDMI out.

Edit: parabola, If you are just using DVI or VGA to a computer monitor, you should not need to worry about that cable. If you use the HDMI output adaptor, you need to plug that cable into the SPDIF output on your motherboard (if using integrated sound) or your sound card (if you have one). The bad news is, your mobo may not have the right audio output. The 8600GT does not have an integrated audio controller so you must use this cable to get sound when using HDMI out.

 

[parabola]

http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/productimage/14-121-089-06.jpg

Asus EN8600GT

All the items in your picture came with the 8600 GT graphics card. I did purchase the card new through Dell too. I made sure to buy the card through Dell as I wanted to ensure compatability. In fact, it was one of the cards you can choose to upgrade as you build a computer online.

 

[parabola]

I have never seen an 8600GT with an external power connector. The 8600GTS has the extra 6-pin pci-e power connector on the end of the card. Look at these pics: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/486/4/

Here is a GT and GTS in the same pic. Note the connector on the end of the GTS. http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2970&p=4

Any chance you can post of pic of your card?

Thanks for the help guys. It's really late, and I just caught the replies here. Great idea on taking a picture. I will do that tomorrow and post it here for sure, tomorrow! Thanks again for all the help, much appreciated.

 

[rosu9801]

Didn't the card arrive with a quick setup folder or something?

 

[evongugg]

Put the jumper back to where you removed it from.
If you don't remember, look at the motherboard schematic.

 

[parabola]

Didn't the card arrive with a quick setup folder or something?

Thanks for the reply. I am not sure if you have been following this whole thread or not, but the instructions that came with the Asus NVIDIA 8600 GT said to connect to mobo. The only available 2 pin connector on the whole mobo turns out to be the bios jumper. Connecting there resets any bios settings. The machine works fine, just cannot save settings, etc. Not the right place to connect. Even the Dell tech confirmed this. Thank you...

 

[pauldh]

You hooked the video card up to the cmos jumper on the mobo???

Unless your motherboard has an SPDIF output (to do with the integrated sound) or you add a soundcard that has one, you won't be connecting that cable. If you don't use the HDMI out adapter, it won't matter anyway.

 

[parabola]

Put the jumper back to where you removed it from.
If you don't remember, look at the motherboard schematic.

Thanks for the reply. I am not sure if you have been following this whole thread or not, but
the instructions that came with the Asus NVIDIA 8600 GT said to connect
to mobo. The only available 2 pin connector on the whole mobo turns
out to be the bios jumper. Connecting there resets any bios settings.
The machine works fine, just cannot save settings, etc. Not the right
place to connect. Even the Dell tech confirmed this.

I never originally disconnected any cable. This is a new install so I never removed the cable to begin with. I wish it was as simple as just putting the cable back.

It should also be noted that I am not a novice when it comes to Windows, PC's, software, etc. I am not saying I know more than most of you here. I know more than most dare to know period...lol. I like to apply myself, and have when it comes to personal computing and Windows OS's.

Thanks again all for your kind replies trying to help. I will report back with some pictures of my card, etc. Maybe that will help.

 

[pauldh]

Argh! Remove the spdif cable altogether, it is doing you no good hooked up to the clr cmos jumper pins.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Like Pauldh mentions if you're plugging in the 2 pin cable that came with it, that is for digital audio only, and should only be plugged into an SPDIF connection, which is usually found on stand-alone audio cards and not on most MoBos.

Plugging it into the CMOS reset/conf jumpers might not only do 'no good' it might do harm.

I agree with paul, unplug whatever you think it is, until you can provide a clear picture of what exactly you're plugging in to whatever else.

So far your descriptions don't make sense from what we're expecting, so until you have some picures, better safe than sorry.

 

[martyjs]

It's not a power cable.
What is SPDIF?

SPDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interconnect Format) is a digital audio format, and is also referred to as S/PDIF, S/P-DIF, and IEC 958 type II.

SPDIF is used for transporting stereo digital audio signals on PC audio cards, CD players, DVD players, car audio systems, and other systems which transmit or receive stereo digital audio.

For S/PDIF, two 192 bit blocks (left and right channel data) is divided into 12 words of 16 bits each. The first 6 bits of the first word are a control code.

 

[martyjs]

oops to late. Didn't read the other post properly.

 

[parabola]

Here is my Asus NVIDIA 8600 GT 256MB graphics card:

Notice the (2 pin connector) jumper cable connected to the board. I really hope this helps.

Thank you...