9800 AiW problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter Matt Clemson
  • Start date Start date
M

Matt Clemson

Okay, I've just bought a new PC, starting completely from scratch; a new
experience for me, so there's a not-unreasonable chance that I've screwed up
somewhere.

After putting all the bits together, the machine failed to startup -
wouldn't even get as far as kicking off the PSU fan. After disassembling it
and building it up again, powering up at each step, I discovered that the
culprit appears to be the graphics card, an All-in-wonder 9800 Pro from
Powercolor. To be precise, if I power the graphics card, the system refuses
to boot. Cut power, it boots fine.

Now, the obvious culprit here would seem to be the PSU - but it's a pretty
beefy 400W thing, and really shouldn't have trouble with this. In fact, if I
strip power from everything else bar the motherboard, it *still* won't
boot - so I'm wondering if some other element's causing the problem.

Any ideas?

-Matt
 
Matt said:
I discovered that the
culprit appears to be the graphics card, an All-in-wonder 9800 Pro
from Powercolor. To be precise, if I power the graphics card, the
system refuses to boot. Cut power, it boots fine.
Click to expand...

Obvious question. But anything's possible...

Did you attach the separate power supply cable. These cards don't get
all their power from the PCI bus - they have an additional power cable
connector too. Just attach a power cable from the PSU (one of the
'floppy disk power cables') to the connector at the back of the card.

Sorry if you already knew that!
 
On my Asus board there are power connectors that are only for the
fans. See that you haven't inadvertently connected the video card to
one of those. Try reseating the card if the former suggestion doesn't
work. Of course, if you have an older card laying around, one that
doesn't require a power connection, put that in there for a test.
 
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