Video card doesn't work - power issue 2

[goombawaho]

Customer bought a EVGA GeForce GT 610 Graphics Card (02G-P3-2619-KR) to put in his Lenovo ThinkCentre M90p (type 5536).

With the PCI-E card inserted - no video at all. Neither from the old integrated video port or any on the new card. It looks like the PC is booting though - hard drive light flashes for a minute or two.

Is this an issue with the card needing too much power? It says Minimum System Power Requirement (W) = 300 for the card
The computer specs says: 280 watts with variable speed fan, autosensing, 85% PSU
I'm doubting this entry level system has enough juice to run it. Is this the correct diagnosis?

The card and the PC both have PCI-E X16 slots
Updated the BIOS to latest - no difference.


"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[cdogg]

The card only demands up to 29 Watts, though the specs say a 300-Watt power supply is recommended. If this entry level system only has the typical components installed (1 hard drive, 1 DVD-ROM, and nothing else), then I would seriously doubt the power supply is the issue. Are you able to try it in another system to make sure the card isn't bad?



-Carl
"The glass is neither half-full nor half-empty: it's twice as big as it needs to be."

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[rclarke250]

It will work with that power supply. I wish they would give the amperage requirements per rail for the card, and then you could look at the specs of the power supply, and easily determine if the card can run in a machine. Most drives and what not use the 5v rail, while the video card makes heavy use of the 12v rail, some hard drives, will split it, and run the spindle motor on the 12v line, and the controller on 5v. Needless to say, when a manufacturer says "power requirement is 300 watt", it is a guess. Power ratings are a sham in some ways. You can have 2 power supplies with the same 400 watt rating, but when you look at how they determine the 400 watts, they are vastly different, one could have a single 12v rail rated at 17 amps, while the other could be rated at 26 amps, and yet they have the same 400 watt rating.

 

[goombawaho]

Thanks!! Sorry, I'm so ignorant on video issues. Never have to deal with them really.

So, other than trying the card in another machine, any other troubleshooting ideas?
Not sure the customer has another desktop, but I guess I can drag my old desktop there for testing.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[rclarke250]

Well, just because the power supply should drive that card, it may not be supplying the correct current under load. I say it should work, because the 610 is a 29w card, and an official option for this machine was a 310, and it is a 31w card. So it could be the power supply. Have you checked the BIOS, and made sure the video was set to Auto or PEG and not IGD?

 

[goombawaho]

BIOS set to AUTO. I didn't want to change that in case I got locked out of any display at all.
I'll plug it into another desktop. That's the best (not easiest!!) way to test the card.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[DrB0b]

I have had older machines not Auto select even if the BIOS was set in Auto. Had to manually set it to PCI-E to get it to work. Had the exact symptoms you are seeing now. I understand the scary factor of possibly loosing all video though....

Learning - A never ending quest for knowledge usually attained by being thrown in a situation and told to fix it NOW.

 

[goombawaho]

Yeah, how do you get it reset back to AUTO if you set it to PCI-E and NO VIDEO after reboot!!
Aren't you hosed?

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[MaxZZ]

Check the motherboard....?

 

[DrB0b]

Clear/reset the BIOS to get it back to the default Auto setting. Test it first by setting it to onboard and resetting your BIOS to make sure it goes back to Auto. Reset via jumper, if the board has one, or CMOS battery.

Learning - A never ending quest for knowledge usually attained by being thrown in a situation and told to fix it NOW.

 

[goombawaho]

Not sure how I would forget that there is normally a "reset to defaults" jumper on the BIOS. Wow. Probably because I haven't had to use that feature in YEARS. I still carry a little vial of jumpers - motherboard/IDE drives. Doesn't see much use!!

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[rclarke250]

Also, it tells the system in what order to look for a video device to use, so if set to PCI it would go PCI,embeded,pcie. not turn the others off. there was an issue early on in Lenovo machines that if this was set wrong, you would miss the F2 to enter BIOS as it wasn't showing up fast enough if it was sent to another output, and coupled with some of the older bulb backlights taking awhile to warm up and display to show, it was there, you just had to bang away at F2 and hope it sent you to setup.

 

[goombawaho]

Thanks to all. I'll look and see if there is a "reset" jumper and then I wouldn't worry about setting the video card in the BIOS, but first I will try in a totally different PC.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[cdogg]

Just a quick point that even if you don't see a jumper or don't want to fuss with it, you can alternatively pull the CMOS battery while the PC is unplugged. Should accomplish the same reset.

 

[goombawaho]

Man - I have TOTALLY forgotten all these tricks that I may have used in the year 2000 era. I guess that's a testament to hardware being much more reliable now and not needing things like a brute force BIOS reset. I wonder what else I've forgotten over the years.................

As a side note - I tried a video card destined for a different customer in one of my PCs and it required that the video card be set to external PCI-E before you could get any video out of it. So same symptom - maybe same fix.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.

 

[goombawaho]

So the BIOS setting to use PEG PCI Express Graphics Link Mode) for video fixed the issue.

"Living tomorrow is everyone's sorrow.
Modern man's daydreams have turned into nightmares.