Graphics Cards

[RaidZero]

Here's proof that better is the enemy of good. Grab popcorn.

Lay of the land:

- main desktop, 5800X, MSI X570 Tomahawk Wi-Fi, 32 GB RAM, 850 W SuperFlower, 3 x 1 TB NVMe SSD (one of them in a PCIe adapter), 1x spinning rust, 1x SATA. And of course the 6800 XT midnight edition, bought new from a scalper during the worst graphics card draught, in April or May 2021, for 50% over retail.

- secondary desktop: 5600G, Gigabyte X570 Gaming X, 32 GB RAM, 650 W Seasonic, 1 x 1 TB NVMe SSD

Initially the 6800 worked in the secondary laptop, until about a year ago when I built my main one. I am using it almost daily, the (non-demanding, strategy) games I am playing never crash the computer. I dabble with VR some time ago, but I get dizzy playing in VR.

A few days ago I decided to remove the 1 TB SSD in the PCIe adapter, together with the adapter, and also replace the primary one with a 2 TB drive. 

I opened the case, took out the PCIe adapter, removed the old SSD and put in the new 2 TB one, so I can copy the partitions from the primary SSD, and plugged the adapter back in the PCIe slot, and started the computer.

It starts, it boots fine, but then Windows complains that the swap file drive has been changed. I say OK, I set again the swap file and I restart Windows. 

Now the fun part starts. The monitor does not come on after restart. I look at the video card, light is on, fans spinning. I power cycle the system with the PS switch, no post. I check the diagnostic LEDs on the MB, VGA and Boot are on. 

I take the 6800 out, I remove the PCIe cables, I put them back, reslot the card, nothing. I put it in the other x16 PCIe slot, nothing. Same thing, lights on, fans spinning, no post. BIOS reset to defaults, nada.

I take the card and put it in my secondary system, no post as well. It does not even start with the integrated graphics. 

Final try this morning, I find a PCIe riser that I bought right at the end of the mining craze, but I never used. And I also have around a brand new power supply, an 850 W Rosewill, that the scalper threw in for free when I got the 6800 XT.

I plug in everything, jump start the power supply, same thing, lights and fans on on the 6800, but no device detected when USB is plugged in. I did not bother attaching a monitor.

My conclusion at the moment is that I have a bad video card. I don't have another one to try in my main system. What baffles me is that the PC started after I put the PCIe NVMe adapter in. I did not expect the video card to die during a simple Windows reboot. Power cycle maybe, but just a software reboot, no.

So now I am looking at an Arc A550, or a 6700 XT, cause I don't really need the power of the 6800 XT and not interested in VR anymore. I incline towards the Intel card, it's a lot less money and seems good enough, and TBH I am a bit angry with AMD, I did expect this card to last longer. And I am/was a bit of an AMD fan.

At some point I will get another powerful card, maybe a 4070 Ti, maybe a 7800 XTX or XT if my opinion about AMD changes, but at the moment the mortgage and cars payments are more important.

Thanks for reading this.

[ThreeDee]

so are you plugging the GPU directly into the motherboard or are you using a PCIe riser cable?

..and you made this statement that I'm assuming is a typo?

"Initially the 6800 worked in the secondary laptop"

..and you say your 5600G setup doesn't post without the 6800XT in it?

[RaidZero]

Thanks for reading through my block of text. My bad, I meant secondary desktop, not laptop

The 5600G works fine without the 6800 XT, but it does not post with the 6800 in. 

I tried both desktops with the video card in both the x16 main PCIe slot, and in the second full length one, I believe though the second slot is 8x, but it should not matter.

I tried the USB riser in a laptop, but it should not matter, USB is USB. I am not sure if the riser or the Rosewill PS are good or not, never tried them before, but I have no reason to doubt them. Anyway, I will try them once I get another video card.

[RaidZero]

Forgot to mention, the 5600G system beeps one long two short with the 6800 in, which means VGA problem.

[ThreeDee · Accepted solution]

it could very well be that your GPU died 

Have you tried different ports on the card?

..and in your text you typed:

"I take the card and put it in my secondary system, no post as well. It does not even start with the integrated graphics." ..hence the question for clarification

It is my experience that during reboots are when a lot of parts will fail 

[RaidZero]

Thanks, I did not try anything else, since it does not post

Appreciate the help. Just wanted another opinion. I will try to open the card, see if I can find anything, but my days of soldering are behind me, and I definitely am not good enough to work on SMDs. 

[Vynski]

Have you tried a clean install of everything.  When you go swapping components from one machine to another and Windows can no longer find the info needed for a complete and stable POST it is time to wipe everything clean and start over.

[RaidZero]

Thanks for the feedback, but there's nothing to clean install. No post means I don't get to even see the BIOS. Which I wiped anyway... 

[Casper410sugar]

Jeepers, if you query was abit shorter, i might read it

[RaidZero]

I tried to add as many details as possible, in case I missed something. No worries though, I am sure there's plenty of other stuff to read :):):)

And AMD's captcha's is ridiculous, I did not had to go through seven screens of captchas in years... And then it expires in 30 seconds. Really?

And darn, AMD's captcha is ridiculous, I cannot recall having to go through 7 screens of captchas in years...

[RaidZero]

Oh my, and it threw an error and removed my addition about captcha, and when I type it again, it adds it. And cannot edit posts. Is this the cheapest board solution we are using here?

And why I am a bit angry at AMD - besides the fact that they did not care about gamers during the mining craze, and many cards got to scalpers that had good bots to buy hundreds of cards, instead of creating a registry or something, the cards are warrantied only to the original buyer. Shame.