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Started By
Message
My son bought a new graphics card for his alienware..now his computer won't boot
Posted on 12/11/15 at 10:05 am
Posted on 12/11/15 at 10:05 am
He swapped it and the computer fan powers on but it never gets past the point where it gets the 'i'm booting' beeps.
Now when he puts the old one back in, it will beep but he gets a BSOD.
Without knowing the details, any ideas on things he might want to do to troubleshoot?
Here are the specs (he bought this 3 years ago)
Alienware Aurora R3 comes with an Intel P67 MicroATX. It has four DDR3 Ram slots supporting up to 16gb of dual channel ram. It has two PCIe 2.0 x16 slots and two PCIe 2.0 x1 slots.
Alienware Aurora-R3 - Alienware Aurora Desktop
Operating System - Windows 7 Home Premium, 64Bit, English
Processors - Intel® Core™ i7-2600 (8MB Cache,Overclocked Turbo Boost to 3.9GHz)
Memory - 8GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz
Video Card - 1GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon™ HD 6870
Hard Drive - 1TB SATA 3Gb/s (7,200RPM) 32MB Cache
Chassis Color - Matte Stealth Black Chassis with 875W Multi-GPU Approved Power Supply
Floppy Drive - Alienware® 19-in-1 Media Card Reader
Network Card - 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1 EDR USB Combo Adapter
Optical Drive - Single Drive: Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (BD-ROM, DVD±RW, CD-RW)
Sound Card - Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
Avatar Alienhead 3D
Cooling Option - Alienware™ High-Performance Liquid Cooling
ETA ok here's the card he bought:
PowerColor PCS+ Radeon R9 380 DirectX 12 AXR9 380 4GBD5-PPDHE 4GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 CrossFireX Support ATX Video Card (NEWEGG)
4GB 256-Bit GDDR5
Core Clock 980 MHz
2 x DL DVI-D 1 x HDMI 1 x DisplayPort
1792 Stream Processors
PCI Express 3.0
ETA2 i haven't had time to go look at it with him. i will have more info when i do but was trying to get some advice so he could help himself and thought it might be something simple.
Now when he puts the old one back in, it will beep but he gets a BSOD.
Without knowing the details, any ideas on things he might want to do to troubleshoot?
Here are the specs (he bought this 3 years ago)
Alienware Aurora R3 comes with an Intel P67 MicroATX. It has four DDR3 Ram slots supporting up to 16gb of dual channel ram. It has two PCIe 2.0 x16 slots and two PCIe 2.0 x1 slots.
Alienware Aurora-R3 - Alienware Aurora Desktop
Operating System - Windows 7 Home Premium, 64Bit, English
Processors - Intel® Core™ i7-2600 (8MB Cache,Overclocked Turbo Boost to 3.9GHz)
Memory - 8GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz
Video Card - 1GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon™ HD 6870
Hard Drive - 1TB SATA 3Gb/s (7,200RPM) 32MB Cache
Chassis Color - Matte Stealth Black Chassis with 875W Multi-GPU Approved Power Supply
Floppy Drive - Alienware® 19-in-1 Media Card Reader
Network Card - 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1 EDR USB Combo Adapter
Optical Drive - Single Drive: Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (BD-ROM, DVD±RW, CD-RW)
Sound Card - Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
Avatar Alienhead 3D
Cooling Option - Alienware™ High-Performance Liquid Cooling
ETA ok here's the card he bought:
PowerColor PCS+ Radeon R9 380 DirectX 12 AXR9 380 4GBD5-PPDHE 4GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 CrossFireX Support ATX Video Card (NEWEGG)
4GB 256-Bit GDDR5
Core Clock 980 MHz
2 x DL DVI-D 1 x HDMI 1 x DisplayPort
1792 Stream Processors
PCI Express 3.0
ETA2 i haven't had time to go look at it with him. i will have more info when i do but was trying to get some advice so he could help himself and thought it might be something simple.
This post was edited on 12/11/15 at 10:15 am
5
Posted on 12/11/15 at 10:17 am to CAD703X
PSU should be fine, so check to be sure the card is properly seated and the right PSU cables are fully connected. Possible something was damaged while trying to remove the old card or seat the new one?
Try the other x16 slot as well.
Try the other x16 slot as well.
Posted on 12/11/15 at 10:18 am to CAD703X
He doesn't have that little crossfirex cable attached to the single GPU does he? Doubtful but I actually don't know.
He had a GDDR5 GPU before so it should be able to handle this one. Sounds like it may just need a BIOS tweak?
He had a GDDR5 GPU before so it should be able to handle this one. Sounds like it may just need a BIOS tweak?
Posted on 12/11/15 at 10:20 am to DoubleDown
quote:
He had a GDDR5 GPU before so it should be able to handle this one.
wut
This post was edited on 12/11/15 at 10:29 am
Posted on 12/11/15 at 10:27 am to ILikeLSUToo
Bios is ancient
Posted on 12/11/15 at 10:32 am to CAD703X
I imagine so. Always worth checking for and installing the most up to date mobo bios. Sometimes secureboot can be bitchy about new foreign hardware, so disabling that may help.
This post was edited on 12/11/15 at 10:35 am
Posted on 12/11/15 at 10:34 am to ILikeLSUToo
quote:
He had a GDDR5 GPU before so it should be able to handle this one.
quote:
wut
I was comparing his old GPU to his new one. They both are GDDR5 GPU. Thought he may have been on the older GDDR3 and trying to install a newer GDDR5 but he's not, so that point is irrelevant.
Posted on 12/11/15 at 10:38 am to DoubleDown
quote:
Thought he may have been on the older GDDR3 and trying to install a newer GDDR5 but he's not, so that point is irrelevant.
I'm trying to figure out your line of thinking here, though. Why do you believe the vram of the previous card affects whether or not you can install a new one with a different vram type?
Posted on 12/11/15 at 10:39 am to ILikeLSUToo
quote:
Always worth checking for and installing the most up to date mobo bios.
We had a problem updating the bios a couple years ago so I told him not to worry about it. I'm a bios whore so I always update mine but I want prepared to get into the weeds in his system at the time if we ran into more problems.
Posted on 12/11/15 at 10:47 am to ILikeLSUToo
quote:
I'm trying to figure out your line of thinking here, though. Why do you believe the vram of the previous card affects whether or not you can install a new one with a different vram type?
Doesn't the mobo have to be compatible for GDDR5? Guess at worst it would just downgrade it but still thought it might have been a potential issue.
Am I off base there?
Posted on 12/11/15 at 11:03 am to CAD703X
quote:
alienware
found the problem
Posted on 12/11/15 at 11:04 am to Hulkklogan
It's been a great computer for him. Y'all are such snobs.
This post was edited on 12/11/15 at 11:05 am
Posted on 12/11/15 at 11:05 am to DoubleDown
quote:
Doesn't the mobo have to be compatible for GDDR5?
No, vram is completely independent of the motherboard, system memory, and the CPU's memory controller.
Posted on 12/11/15 at 11:07 am to CAD703X
Try to disable secureboot in the bios, for realz.
Posted on 12/11/15 at 11:20 am to CAD703X
quote:
It's been a great computer for him. Y'all are such snobs
I'm surprised it took that long for someone to say it.
Posted on 12/11/15 at 11:23 am to CAD703X
Just giving you a hard time.
Nothing like overpaying for a gaming PC!
Posted on 12/11/15 at 11:30 am to Hulkklogan
We already busted his balls about it in other threads. He got it as a refurb deal so it wasn't so egregiously overpricedPosted on 12/11/15 at 11:32 am to ILikeLSUToo
Speaking of video card problems, I had my SSD die on me, which had my OS on it. Got a replacement...reinstalled Windows 10.
On the first boot up after about 3 minutes the monitor turned off and couldn't find a signal anymore. I assumed it had to do with Windows 10 auto downloading/installing drivers on that first boot up and trying to switch to optimum resolution. Tried restarting and was never able to make it past windows loading screen before the monitor would lose signal.
After Googling the problem, I end up taking the battery on the MB out for 30 minutes, plugged it back in and it worked. No real question, just trying to figure out what I actually did to fix it.
On the first boot up after about 3 minutes the monitor turned off and couldn't find a signal anymore. I assumed it had to do with Windows 10 auto downloading/installing drivers on that first boot up and trying to switch to optimum resolution. Tried restarting and was never able to make it past windows loading screen before the monitor would lose signal.
After Googling the problem, I end up taking the battery on the MB out for 30 minutes, plugged it back in and it worked. No real question, just trying to figure out what I actually did to fix it.
Posted on 12/11/15 at 11:38 am to taylork37
quote:
I end up taking the battery on the MB out for 30 minutes, plugged it back in and it worked. No real question, just trying to figure out what I actually did to fix it.
Possibly a bios setting that was screwing things up. For example changing from AHCI to IDE mode or vice versa will make Windows not boot.
What were the symptoms of your dead SSD?
Posted on 12/11/15 at 11:45 am to ILikeLSUToo
quote:
Try to disable secureboot in the bios, for realz.
ok. any idea how to do that? (i guess use google)
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