Hi everybody,
I built a gaming system about 10 years ago that has been running well all this time, and Jedi: Fallen Order even looked and played just fine in early 2020. It's had a few upgrades over the years. But then, at the beginning of the pandemic, my graphics card finally died. There were lots of graphics artifacts showing up and then finally the system wouldn't boot. I pulled the graphics card out and moved the monitor over to the motherboard's integrated graphics. The computer now functions well for an everyday use sort of machine, though not for games. But! I thought. NVIDIA's about to come out with a new architecture! I'll just get a new GPU and be good to go.
I researched what would be about the most graphics card my current build could handle, and arrived at the RTX 3070. It wasn't until now that I felt the availability was reasonable enough for me to go get it. Now I have a PNY Uprising 3070 in hand. I did find forum posts here and elsewhere with people plugging 3070s into the same motherboard I have, I checked for compatibility issues on PCPartsPicker, and my power supply is the minimum required on PNY's web site for this card, so I did not expect a problem.
(Yes, I'll be bottlenecking things horribly with my older CPU and my PCIE 3.0 motherboard. It's just my philosophy to keep using things as long as they are in working order and satisfy my needs. I figure that as soon as either my CPU or motherboard eats it, I will upgrade both to something more state of the art, and carry over my new graphics card which I now have.)
I uninstalled my old graphics driver, shut the computer down, unplugged, installed the 3070 into my PCIEX16_1 expansion slot, installed the power cables, and moved my HDMI monitor cable over to the GPU. When I booted, the motherboard's VGA_LED came on and stayed on steady, indicating the new card had an issue during POST. I could hear the OS startup noises start playing, so clearly the computer completed the rest of boot, got into the OS, and was otherwise fine. I've been trying to figure out the next troubleshooting steps ever since. I'm looking for advice.
Here is the other stuff I have in my case right now:
Motherboard: ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3
CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K (stock cooler)
Power: COOLER MASTER Silent Pro M700 RS-700-AMBA-D3 700W
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL 4GB 1600 x4, total 16GB
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-222AB CD/DVD Burner
System Drive: SanDisk SDSSDH31000G Solid State 1TB
Storage Drive: Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB (x2 in RAID1)
Storage Drive: Western Digital Caviar Black WD2003FZEX 2TB (x2 in RAID1)
Happy to take any suggestions!
I built a gaming system about 10 years ago that has been running well all this time, and Jedi: Fallen Order even looked and played just fine in early 2020. It's had a few upgrades over the years. But then, at the beginning of the pandemic, my graphics card finally died. There were lots of graphics artifacts showing up and then finally the system wouldn't boot. I pulled the graphics card out and moved the monitor over to the motherboard's integrated graphics. The computer now functions well for an everyday use sort of machine, though not for games. But! I thought. NVIDIA's about to come out with a new architecture! I'll just get a new GPU and be good to go.
I researched what would be about the most graphics card my current build could handle, and arrived at the RTX 3070. It wasn't until now that I felt the availability was reasonable enough for me to go get it. Now I have a PNY Uprising 3070 in hand. I did find forum posts here and elsewhere with people plugging 3070s into the same motherboard I have, I checked for compatibility issues on PCPartsPicker, and my power supply is the minimum required on PNY's web site for this card, so I did not expect a problem.
(Yes, I'll be bottlenecking things horribly with my older CPU and my PCIE 3.0 motherboard. It's just my philosophy to keep using things as long as they are in working order and satisfy my needs. I figure that as soon as either my CPU or motherboard eats it, I will upgrade both to something more state of the art, and carry over my new graphics card which I now have.)
I uninstalled my old graphics driver, shut the computer down, unplugged, installed the 3070 into my PCIEX16_1 expansion slot, installed the power cables, and moved my HDMI monitor cable over to the GPU. When I booted, the motherboard's VGA_LED came on and stayed on steady, indicating the new card had an issue during POST. I could hear the OS startup noises start playing, so clearly the computer completed the rest of boot, got into the OS, and was otherwise fine. I've been trying to figure out the next troubleshooting steps ever since. I'm looking for advice.
- When I remove the GPU and put the monitor back on the motherboard's integrated graphics, I can boot into the OS just fine. (In fact, I'm posting this question from the same PC.)
- I tried blowing out the PCIE slot with compressed air, with the same result.
- I tried moving the 3070 to PCIEX16_2, with the same result.
- I reversed the order of the PSU cables going into the GPU, with the same result.
- I can plug the new RTX 3070 into my wife's much more recent PC, replacing a GTX 2080, to determine if the card works there. (At the same time, I can plug her 2080 into my system to see if I get a different result, but, see next item.) If not, maybe there is a problem with the two-8-pin-to-one-12-pin power adapter this card comes with, or the card itself.
- I've seen some suggestions that a power supply as old as mine might not be performing up to spec and not properly supplying my new GPU, and so I could get a new one at >700W. If there is a good way to test this I am comfortable probing with a multimeter, but I need some advice on what to look for. I'd rather not buy a new PSU assuming that will solve the problem without some supporting evidence.
- There actually is some undocumented compatibility thing, and/or the folks I saw discussing a 3070 on this motherboard were not ultimately successful, and I should just go out and upgrade those components as well.
Here is the other stuff I have in my case right now:
Motherboard: ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3
CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K (stock cooler)
Power: COOLER MASTER Silent Pro M700 RS-700-AMBA-D3 700W
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL 4GB 1600 x4, total 16GB
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-222AB CD/DVD Burner
System Drive: SanDisk SDSSDH31000G Solid State 1TB
Storage Drive: Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB (x2 in RAID1)
Storage Drive: Western Digital Caviar Black WD2003FZEX 2TB (x2 in RAID1)
Happy to take any suggestions!