I am being driven mad by a graphics card/motherboard problem and would be so grateful if anyone could help:

I bought a new HD2600XT about a month ago. I tried to install it but when I rebooted the computer started up but with no display on the monitor. The GPU fan was running, but no display on monitor.

I was advised on a Sapphire forum that I probably had an inadequate PSU for my system with this card. I then bought a PC Power & Cooling Silencer 620 PSU, fitted it and the results were the same - still fan running but no display.

I then sent the card back to suppliers as faulty and in the mean time ordered another one from a different company (this time going for the one with GDDR4 instead of GDDR3 which the last one had).

It arrived and... guess what? Still no display! The (very noisy) fan is running again but nothing on the monitor.

Another person on that forum recommended that I look into the motherboard. As he suggested I upgraded to the most recent bios from the ECS site. However, now not only is the graphics card problem still there, but I have lost all sound on the pc!! (motherboard onboard sound is all I have). I have tried installing the sound drivers from ECS but no change.

I would be very thankful for any help you can give on this - I guess the chances that I have a second faulty unit are very very slim so I assume there must be some kind of conflict with my other hardware??

What is my solution? I kind of feel I am running out of options and am desperate for everything to just work! And not to spend much more money! The new graphics card cost about £90. Should I be thinking about buying a new motherboard now??

Any suggestions welcome as this is all driving me nuts!!

My system info:

Motherboard: ECS EliteGroup P965T-A
CPU: Core 2 Duo 6600
RAM: 2GB (2x1GB - both same brand)
Video Card: Sapphire HD2600XT 256MB GDDR3 (Currently running on my old, unstable Inno 3D GF-7300-LE)
PSU: PC Power & Cooling Silencer 620W
Monitor: Iiyama with a DCI connection
Hard drives: 300GB

Hi welcome to PCHF ok here we go with the graphics card could you check that the socket is enabled in the BIOS if it is disabled you will have a problem like you are. With the sound card go in device manager and uninstall all items under the sound card section and reboot the PC it should find and reinstall the drivers for your sound after reboot..

Thank you MadMatt for your help. I am pretty sure the card socket is enabled in the BIOS. I looked in there for any settings that seemed to be to do with video and they all look right. Also, I am running the PC still on my old graphics card which runs of the same slot.

Re. the sound issue, I looked in Device Manager but couldn't find a way of uninstalling sound drivers. The 2 sound items listed (under 'Sound, Video and Game Controllers') are 'Audio Codecs' and 'Legacy Audio Drivers'. In the 'Legacy Audio Drivers' properties box there are General, Properties and Details tabs... In Properties there is nothing listed. In Details, there is a drop-down menu but I can't see anywhere to delete drivers.

In the Audio Codecs Properties box Details tab has the same drop down menu. Under the Properties tab there is a list of 'Audio Compression Codecs' (12 of them). These are the only things I can find to do with audio that have an option to delete them.

Sorry for going into so much detail. I really appreciate your advice and any more help and suggestions you or anyone can offer.

do you have the 2x3 power plug connected to the card? If your power supply does not have one you can get an adapter from a regular 4 pin to a 2x3. If the GPU fan is running but there is no video then more than likely the card does not have enought power to boot the GPU. Also check the vga/pci(which ever you have) jumper on your motherboard and make sure it is set to enable.

Thanks for that linkinmylog. The power issue seemed to be what it originally sounded like but the card has no power connectors on it (just the power from the PCI express slot), and it is now a pretty high-powered psu fitted (620w with 45a on the 12v rail). The jumpers seem to be set right on the motherboard.

I was wondering, could there be anyway that even though there is enough power from the psu it is still not reaching the graphics card through the pci-e slot?

Thanks again.

Ok, if you right click on my computer>manage>device manager>expand system devices> and find something like PCI express root port- (some #)>right click>properties>driver. Look for the driver provider, it should be intel, if it is microsoft then you will more than likely have to update your motherboard/onbaord gfx via motherboard manufacturer because most newer gfx cards wont stick to a microsoft provider. try that.