Question Upgrading an old system with RTX 3070 - GPU not recognized on boot

[perinigricon]

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.

• 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.

Right now I'm thinking along 3 lines.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.

Unfortunately most of my searching has turned up cases where people haven't gotten their PC to boot at all, so many of the suggestions are oriented to getting the system into a first boot. I'm not too worried about whether the card is seating properly, whether there's a short on my motherboard, whether I have a bum RAM stick, or whether my CPU is getting power, because the system worked fine with an older GPU for almost 10 years and...again, I'm using the PC without the new GPU. (But, yes, I did read this thread.)

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!

 

[DSzymborski]

Buy a new PSU. This PSU should never have been run with an RTX 3070. It's a group-regulated PSU of ancient design that should be replaced under any and all circumstances. I don't think they've even made this PSU in 12 or 13 years, not that it was good when new. You were extremely lucky that your older GPU survived all this time, but that doesn't make a cheap group-regulated PSU a good idea in any gaming rig more recent than a Pentium III. Do not test your wife's GPU with this PSU; if this old, archaic PSU has damaged your 3070, it's best not to then have to pay for two new GPUs rather than one.

 

[perinigricon]

Heh. Thanks for the reply.

So, I am happy to look at a new PSU (this one seems like an obvious choice) but, before I spend money, what I'd really like to know is if there's some test I can do to determine if replacing the power supply will solve my original problem.

 

[perinigricon]

Well, fwiw, we confirmed today that the new 3070 works in the other machine. (And Horizon: ZD looks terrific.) So my problem is not the new card itself.

I'd just hate to go buy a new PSU and find it's actually some motherboard compatibility issue, and I'm not sure what I can do to determine if that's the case.

 

[DSzymborski]

Again, you need a new PSU in any case. It's absolutely shocking that you're running an RTX 3070 on a very old, very poor-quality PSU like this. It's the equivalent of buying a fancy sports car and then filling it up with oil you found in a rusty can at the city dump.

There's not much point doing any further diagnosis until you have this mess out of the equation.

 

[perinigricon]

you're running an RTX 3070 on a very old, very poor-quality PSU

No, that's not what I meant, sorry. I tried it on another system with another PSU entirely to confirm that I had not, in fact, damaged it. Now the card is sitting on my table, not installed in anything.

So here's what I know at this point:

• The 3070 gets a POST light in the system I bought it for and does not produce video output, though the system does boot up into the OS.
• Various combinations of cables, PCIE slots, and other basic troubleshooting did not affect the outcome.
• Without the GPU the system is perfectly usable on integrated graphics.
• Someone on the internet thinks my PSU is a piece of junk.
• The 3070 works just fine when installed in a completely separate system with a different, and more recent, PSU, motherboard, CPU, and everything else. We demated the card and set it aside, and that is its last known state.

The reason I am not running out instantly to buy a new PSU is that clearly there was some interface issue between the 3070 and my motherboard or PSU that I didn't or couldn't identify from my available documentation, and I don't want to buy a new PSU that does not fix the issue.

Honestly, I am excited by the idea that there could be a straightforward fix that gets my PC up and running with the new card, without completely revamping the motherboard! But if I go to the Tom's Best PSUs of 2022 article and buy the Cooler Master currently sitting on top of that list, is that all I need to do or is there some spec I need to be paying attention to that's buried in the literature? Put another way, I'm looking for a comment like "oh the 3070 has a turn-on inrush of X amps, you need a PSU that can supply at least that," in case that's not just all PSUs these days.

 

[DSzymborski]

The reason I am not running out instantly to buy a new PSU is that clearly there was some interface issue between the 3070 and my motherboard or PSU that I didn't or couldn't identify from my available documentation, and I don't want to buy a new PSU that does not fix the issue.

Someone on the internet thinks my PSU is a piece of junk.

If you're unwilling to take the obvious next step in properly diagnosing the issue, then that's the end of the road for me. I hope you have good fortune and are able to resolve your issue.

 

[perinigricon]

Don't get me wrong, I am perfectly willing to go buy a new PSU that is likely to solve the issue!!! What I am asking about is the dividing line.

When I go google that old M700 that held up for a decade, I find mostly favorable reviews and mostly favorable recommendations from this forum, all from around the time that I first built this system. But you're saying it's terrible. Okay. Let's say that I've just been lucky. How did you know? How can I tell that I'm not going to get into the same situation with this guy?