Question XPS 8300 won’t boot with GTX 1650 but I can switch to the GTX 1650 after it’s booted using cpu onboard graphics.

[Elfise187]

I have an old XPS 8300 with an i7-2700 GT640 16gb ram that my son plays on. I recently upgraded my computer so I have an extra Zotac GTX 1650 OC single fan with no external 8 pin power plug that I know works great. I decided to put it in the XPS.

The first time I tried to boot it up it would just freeze on the Dell screen with the option to enter the bios and after about 30 seconds it just shuts off even if you hit F2 to enter the bios. The XPS has a BFG 550W PSU so I tried swapping it out with an EVGA supernova NEX750G but it still didn’t boot past that screen. I then unplugged the HDMI from the GPU and plugged it into the motherboard to see if the onboard cpu graphics would boot that way and it did. But the GTX 1650 didn’t even show up on the device manager. I then rebooted and entered the bios. I changed the Intel Multiple Monitor Feature setting from disabled to auto and rebooted. This time the GTX 1650 showed up as a generic GPU in device manager but it was disabled saying it couldn’t find any drivers for it. After I downloaded the latest drivers using GeForce experience and a couple more reboots it suddenly decided to apply the proper drivers and the card was recognized and enabled in device manager.

I shut it down and reconnected to the GTX but once again it froze on the dell screen. I tried 4 or 5 more times with same results. I unplugged the cable again and connected to the mb, it booted up fine and the GTX was still showing up. This time I left the computer on and hot swapped the hdmi cable and the GTX worked fine. But every time I try to reboot the computer with the HDMI cable plugged into the GTX it freezes on the dell screen. I’ve since hooked up an HDMI 3 way switch and boot it through the CPU graphics and once it’s steady I switch over to the GTX.

Am I missing something? This is driving me crazy and now I just want to know why it’s acting like this.

 

[punkncat]

So far as I am aware from my own ownership of one of those some years back was that it is BIOS locked to (IIRC) the three cards it was optioned with, new. This was actually the reason I updated as the game I purchased at the time was unable to play on any of those three cards.

It may be worthwhile to try and locate another "standard" motherboard PC with something like a 2nd gen i5 and update with the better parts you have on hand. Finding that now may well be pretty difficult and I am not sure whether this issue would exist within the HP workstations of that time which most certainly will be available.

The 10th gen i3 is still available pretty cheaply, but that also leave you with a bevy of standard parts to buy to build it up. Maybe search on CL or Marketplace for an older "gaming" PC that someone is selling off?

 

[Elfise187]

So far as I am aware from my own ownership of one of those some years back was that it is BIOS locked to (IIRC) the three cards it was optioned with, new. This was actually the reason I updated as the game I purchased at the time was unable to play on any of those three cards.

It may be worthwhile to try and locate another "standard" motherboard PC with something like a 2nd gen i5 and update with the better parts you have on hand. Finding that now may well be pretty difficult and I am not sure whether this issue would exist within the HP workstations of that time which most certainly will be available.

The 10th gen i3 is still available pretty cheaply, but that also leave you with a bevy of standard parts to buy to build it up. Maybe search on CL or Marketplace for an older "gaming" PC that someone is selling off?

Well thank you very much for shedding light on that for me. After looking it up it certainly does look like that must be the issue. Apparently the GTX1050ti is the best card that can be used normally but I think I lucked out and accidentally found a solution that will allow me to still use the GTX1650. Because by using the 3 way switch I am able to boot with the onboard GPU and then click the button to the better card. It’s still baffles that it still boots if you just unplug the hdmi cable. The card is still physically installed on the board and works fine once it has booted. I would think it shouldn’t boot if it detects the card period.

Thanks again for clearing this up for me but I have no intentions of investing any money into this dinosaur and will just let my son play it till it stops.

 

[stonecarver]

I think what happening is the Bios as your loading PC to turn on is looking for UEFI for the GTX 1650. I don't think the Dell 8300 has UEFI just standard BIOS.

So yes your trick of what your doing is satisfying the BIOS to boot as it uses the Onboard GPU to tell computer to boot side stepping the road block the UEFI GPU is playing havoc. Just an FYI the 1070/ 1080's and the GTX 2000 series Nvidia cards still work with the older BIOS " Non UEFI " systems.

AMD cards are harder to play nice on that system. Funny the original 8300 had a AMD Dell card.

 

[Elfise187]

Yeah that makes sense and has satisfied my curiosity enough to put it to bed. Thank you very much because my OCD was driving me crazy as to why it was happening.