Solved Sapphire HD5770 problem.

[xioploi]

I have recently installed Windows 7 Home Premium and now I have a Sapphire HD5770.
I have installed it in my PC but the screen is totally black?!
I don't get any image or something.
but when I use my Nvidia 8500GT it is as normal?!

My PC specs:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
OCZ 500 Watt ModXstream
Sapphire HD5770
2GB RAM

 

[stormy13]

K1pc0rn, welcome to the Seven Forums.

First thing that comes to mind is, did you remember to connect the 6 pin PCI-E power connection from the power supply to the video card?

 

[xioploi]

Yes, i have done that.
And de fan from the graphicscard is spinning Very hard ar startup.

 

[Damonlandsdown]

Yes, i have done that.
And de fan from the graphicscard is spinning Very hard ar startup.

does it continue to spin at 100% ?
i had a sapphire 5770 and the fan spinning like crazy = not enough power.

 

[xioploi]

No I don't think so. Its only 2 seconds spinning Very hard.
The CPU fan is continue spinning Very loud.
normally it is 3 seconds loud and then goes it slowly.

 

[Damonlandsdown]

could you supply me with your motherboard model and make? i will find the post codes for you.
also, when you turn it on what beeps do you get? one single beep? long or short continuous beeps?

 

[dsperber]

I know this an old thread, but apparently I have exactly the same problem.

I have a Supermicro C2SBX motherboard, which I've been running happily for about 3 years. First year I ran with a fanless HD3850 video card, and then I went to a fanless HD4850, which is what's been running perfectly and happily for the past two years. PCI-e x16 2.0 slot, according to the documentation on the mobo.

Until a few weeks ago I'd been running a dual-monitor setup with #1 being an Eizo HD2441W LCD (DVI to the HD4850, running 1920x1200) and #2 being an IBM P275 CRT (VGA D-sub to the HD4850, running 1280x960).

Recently my P275 monitor finally died and I decided to buy a second Eizo monitor, this time an S2433WFS. I intended and expected to run the second monitor also at 1920x1200.

Foolishly, I didn't realize that the HD4850 only has one DVI port. So temporarily, I continued to use the VGA/D-Sub port and cable for the new S2433 monitor, as it still supports 1920x1200 in that analog mode. However I did want to run it in digital mode, if I only had a video card with dual DVI output.

After a bunch of shopping for a new fanless ATI video card with dual DVI outputs, there turns out to be nothing. Sapphire makes (or made) a fanless HD5450 but it was only a single-DVI card. You don't get dual-DVI now until you go with a stronger card, and you have to accept a fan.

So I opted for a Sapphire Vapor-X HD5770.

It arrived last week and I made the switch in my PC. Used exactly the same PCIe x16 slot and PCIe power cable for the new HD5770 that I'd been using with the old HD4850. I expected no problem whatsoever.

Well... the PC would not boot. It emitted a beep-code of 4-2-3-3. Since the only thing I'd changed was the video card I assumed it might have been defective, although it certainly seemed brand new. After disconnecting from power, removing, reinserting and reconnecting, I tried again. Still no video out of either DVI port, and still 4-2-3-3- from my C2SBX board.

I then removed the new HD5770 and reinstalled the old HD4850, and sure enough the machine boots perfectly. And video from both DVI and VGA output.

Repeated the whole process, removing the HD4850 and reinstalling the new HD5770, and once again total failure. No video on either monitor (in fact their green power light goes amber after a while, indicating total absence of video signal... consistent with a complete video output failure from the video card).

Ok. Even though the blue light on the card was on and the fan was spinning, I decided the card must be DOA. So I RMA'd it back to Amazon and they shipped a replacement, which arrived today. This afternoon I once again attacked the machine, assuming that this time it would work just fine with the replacement card.

Well... astonishingly, I am having exactly the same symptom with this replacement card. No video out of either DVI connector, and 4-2-3-3 from the motherboard. Ok. Obviously there appears to be an incompatibility of this new HD5770 with my C2SBX board.

So I called Supermicro and they recommended that I update the BIOS from the 1.0b which I had to the latest 2.0 version. He looked up the specs on the two video cards and noted that the HD4850 card has DDR3 memory and the HD5770 has DDR5 (and is PCIe 2.1), and he thought that beep code was indicative of a video memory problem, probably . However he couldn't assure me that the 2.0 BIOS would solve the problem.

Ok, I updated the BIOS to 2.0, checked all of the default settings, and thankfully there were no problems other than the same silly apparent temperature sensor malfunction which I'd seen several years ago when attempting a previous BIOS upgrade. The claimed CPU temperature was ridiculously high. When asking Supermicro about it they explained it was a change from Intel which now reported temperatures simply as "low, medium or high" rather than in numeric values. And because of that, software programs (such as Everest aka Aida64) mis-reported that CPU temperature. Well I couldn't stand that and backed off the BIOS update, back to the prior version...and sure enough accurately reported CPU temperature returned to Everest/Aida64. That's how I've been running for two years.

Well tonight, after upgrading to the 2.0 BIOS, sure enough I'm back to seeing a crazy CPU temperature (which is inconsistent with the Core#1 and Core#2 and motherboard sensor temperatures). I guess I'm just going to have to live with it.

Anyway, the new BIOS 2.0 made no difference. The HD5770 still does not seem to work. So, reinstall the HD4850 (so I could run my computer) and dial right into SevenForums to see if anybody else has seen this issue with this video card. And here is this thread.


Now there was a question above about whether the fan on the card was "spinning like crazy". Actually, it DID do that before settling down (at least I think it did, but maybe I was distracted). What is the significance of the wild maxed-out fan speed?

The blue light on the card kind of blinked dim/bright several times before going stable (can't remember whether it was dim or bright, but it stopped oscillating).

Remember, this is the identical PCIe x16 slot that the HD4850 runs perfectly in and is the identical PCIe power supply connection that the HD4850 runs happily with.

And yet... the C2SBX clearly is VERY VERY unhappy with this Sapphire Vapor-X HD5770.


Anybody have any ideas? Anything I might explore or try?

I honestly have no desire to upgrade my motherboard, CPU and memory at this moment. I'm perfectly satisfied with what I've got (which is a built-out Ceton-based HTPC) and I don't have any interest in tampering with it. I can certainly accept running my new 24" LCD monitor using a VGA cable as a compromise, rather than investing time, money and energy into essentially a significant computer upgrade just to use the HD5770 with dual-DVI in order to run my second monitor digitally rather than analog.

Any thoughts?? Could it be a power problem to the card?? Seems unlikely, as the HD4850 works perfectly in the same slot. It's the same 6-pin PCIe 75W connector from my 600W Nesteq ECS6001 PSU.

 

[Solarstarshines]

why not just test the other slot first ?

got to try all angles

 

[dsperber]

why not just test the other slot first ?

What other slot... you mean the other x16 on the motherboard? Easier said than done, as it's not vacant.

I've got my Ceton tuner card in the top PCIe x1 slot, but wanted to keep the space to its south vacant because the card runs hot. Also, it fits better (as it's fairly long) up there at the top .

As it turns out, I had a perfect card to put into the other PCIe x16 slot just south of the Ceton card, namely a small USB 3.0 card that runs off of the PCIe bus. It's is very small and short, so it's essentially not there (taking only an expansion slot and the very end of that PCIe x16 slot) and does not affect my desired airflow and cooling for the Ceton card.

Also, both of the ATI cards are double-wide (they take two expansion slots). And while the HD4850 is longer than the HD5770, there really would be a challenge getting a video card into the other PCIe x16 slot (moving that USB 3.0 card down to the slot currently being used for either video card).

And finally, I had all of my cables tied down and that PCIe 6-pin connector comes out right where the video cards need it. I actually had to snip one of the ties to get it to reach to the connector on the HD5770 since that card is shorter than the HD4850. That lower PCIe x16 slot is where I've ALWAYS had my video cards in this PC, because of the mulitiple internal hard drives, power/data cables, cage location, etc.

But I don't see why the slot should make any difference. It's not like this slot is defective... as the HD4850 inserted into it works perfectly. The ATI "requirements" for both cards only mention the 75W power 6-pin PCIe connection and PCIe x16 slot.

I will call Supermicro again tomorrow, but his mention of the DDR5 memory on the HD5770 has me concerned, although you'd think that would only be the concern of the video card and GPU's, and have no relation at all to the motherboard itself.

And these PCIe x16 slots are supposed to be gen 2, which I believe should accept this 2.1 HD5770... but who knows? Certainly doesn't seem like it's happening.

 

[dsperber]

does it continue to spin at 100% ?
i had a sapphire 5770 and the fan spinning like crazy = not enough power.

Where are specifics on this situation? The ATI site says nothing special about extra power requirements for this card, as contrasted to any other card.

My HD4850 in this very PCIe x16 slot and the exact same power connection works perfectly. Seems unlikely that there's a power issue with my new HD5770.


I'm going to perform one more experiment. I have a second PC with an ASUS P5Q3 mobo, also with PCIe 2.0 x16 slots. I currently have an HD4670 in that machine, which of course also works perfectly. I will try replacing that HD4670 with this [second, replacement] HD5770 that doesn't work in my C2SBX machine, and see it it works there.

Results of trying it in a second machine with a different but equivalent mobo from a different manufacturer should be very informative.

 

[dsperber]

I'm going to try it in a second machine (ASUS P5Q3, also LGA775, also 3.0Ghz DualCore Intel CPU, just like my Supermicro C2SBX), and see what the results are.

Well... the new HD5770 works perfectly in the ASUS P5Q3 machine. So the card is perfectly fine. Not defective.

I think I will perhaps give it one more try in the Supermicro machine... or maybe I'll just give up, since I have invented an alternative workaround solution.


An option is to literally swap physical machines, reversing their locations in my house. This would also involve transferring the guts of both machines (other than motherboard, CPU and memory) to the opposite because the Supermicro machine is currently my HTPC.

So I'd only have to remove 2 TV tuner cards and 2 large SATA hard drives from that Supermicro machine, and transplant it into the other ASUS machine which will have the new HD5770 in it and become the HTPC going forward. The other 2 hard drives can remain with that machine in its new location.

In turn, 1 hard drive from the ASUS machine will need to be removed and transplanted into the Supermicro machine.

This isn't so bad a transplant surgery at all, now that I come to think of it. Both machines are LGA775 3.0Ghz DualCore CPU's with 4GB of memory, but in fact the ASUS machine has faster memory and a higher-grade Intel CPU, since it was built about a year after the Supermicro machine was built. Otherwise, they're very very similar.

The only wrinkle is the whole lot of copy-protected content from WMC which is currently living on a partition of the Supermicro machine, which can only be played back by that very Supermicro machine (mobo + CPU) since it was recorded by WMC running on that machine. When the hard drives get reversed that partition will be living in the other ASUS machine, but I can still get to it from the Supermicro machine (and its WMC) in its new location. And I can reconfigure my two DMA2100 extenders so that the existing WMC on the Supermicro machine can be used to "view down" that backlog of existing recordings (since the ASUS machine cannot do that, because of encryption) using one of my HDTVs.

In the meantime, I will set up WMC to run on the new HTPC, i.e. the ASUS machine, producing new recordings into a newly created folder on one of my large hard drives which is getting transplanted into the ASUS machine. And I will thus be able to use that WMC to view my normal new ongoing recordings on my other HDTV.


In other words, it's a relatively minor hardware transfer to accomplish the swap, in order to get the ASUS machine to become the HTPC going forward as well as host the new HD5770 video card to support my two LCD monitors via DVI.

And I'll still be able to use existing WMC on the relocated Supermicro machine, to simply view down all current existing recordings in the existing "My Recordings" folder.

Yes, there are a few more consequences of the machine swap, such as printer and scanner at one location, and a different printer at the other location. And there's associate application software and drivers for these devices, but they're just USB and not an issue.

I think this is very feasible, gives me everything I want and need, allows me to use the HD5770, and costs me nothing. If anything, the new ASUS HTPC machine will actually be somewhat stronger than the Supermicro machine was as HTPC.

I think this is what I will do this weekend.