Since installing my 5850, my PC will not boot every time I start it up. Most of the time all I get is the vid card fan goes hyper sonic and the mobo reports no vide with beep codes. I shut it down and it starts up and runs perfectly (except a little wobble from the gpu fan when its getting a work out).

I would RMA my card but...

The retailer and the mfg both refused my request for cross-shipping

The card is not in stock so, I could be down for a long time.


I will RMA it when the demand dies down but, for right now, does this sound like it might be remedied with a new PS?

My current one is an Antec Neo 550

I was thinking of going up to a 750?

I have besides the components listed in my sig I have 2 sata HDs, 1 sata optical, Cisco wireless card and an Audigy 2

Thanks!

Did you test by pulling the card and running off of onboard video or an older card?
Could the issues come after running a while, maybe a heat issue?

Certainly concur on testing with another card.

I was doing some work on a PC last week, and suffered intermittent boot failures. Reseating the graphics card solved that particular issue.

Not sure on the exact TDP of your CPU, but I would say 550 is safe, and it's an Antec.

My bet would rather be on a slightly bad card. Am I correct to assume you can always get a boot on second restart (doing a "warm restart" rather than a cold boot?)

This could also be a mobo issue BTW. Best would be to test the card in a different system.

I would say that 550 PSU would be good and you have some other issue. I'm running a E4400 at 3.4Ghz, P5N-e SLI, 4 SATA hard drives, two burners, PNY 9800GT 512, 2X1Gb DDR2 and many fans on a supposedly not too good Apevia 500W PSU with no problems.

Also, you could try pulling out the other add-in cards and extra HDDs if you suspect a power problem. That way, more juice will be available to the graphics card in theory.

The system ran fine with my old 8800 but, the difference is that this card wants 2 PCI-E power connections. The old one does not.

I will disco 2 sata drives and see whats up.

It does not always boot on the second try. Some times it takes 3 or more attempts. But when it's up, it is rock solid with ArmA2 and FSX.

You might also want to move that Audigy to another slot. I've seen them not play nice in one slot and be fine in another.

But does it start up reliably when you remove it?
Check for dust. Check for any particles in the slots. You said the last card used one slot, the 2nd one used now in particular could have dust/residue in it. If there is not solid contact that might explain that kind of issue. As said, if it isn't properly seated that could do it. Check everything in there while you have it open, any other loose connections? Unplug, replug them all. Check the memory to be properly seated.
Put your old card in the slot you're now using that you didn't before and see if you have issues using that slot alone.
Dust will do crazy things.

Okay, this is becoming pretty clear now. Since the card needs much more wattage under load (A2 and FSX) yet is running solid there, the total watts of your PSU are more than fine for the boot process. It can only be that there's a spiking peak power demand when switching the unit on, which I would put down as problem with the card or mobo, maybe the combination of both, but that shouldn't happen. If a PSU can steadily run a system under load it's strong enough.

Considering this only started when I put the new vid card in, less than 2 weeks agao, I am hoping it's just the card. I also hope it does not cascade an issue down onto my mobo as I wait for an RMA card to get stocked.

I guess I just leave my PC on as much as possible for a little while.

Thanks guys!

I wouldn't worry about secondary effects. I seem to have under-supplied my 9600GT on a few occasions (running at a 300W supply does that sometimes) but the mobo doesn't mind, even the 9600GT doesn't mind.

The whole thing reminds me about my Razor Diamondback Plasma mouse. It will occasionally not come up active when XP finishes loading - on the second system now. The reason seems to be that it can't draw enough initial power on boot. Such stuff is a hardware design problem (and often only felt in combination with certain mobos), I hope it's not specific to your brand of HD5850.

If you had a no-name PSU I might argue that the PSU can't deliver enough peak load on initial power, but not with an Antec.

Yeah, seems like it is the card...


http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18063487

Aye, what I thought. They must have too generously specified the power needed to initialize the card.

I hope my HD5870 will not do such tricks... shame for you though, as an RMA does not guarantee a resolution in this case. Maybe get a 5870?

I would love to but you would have to convince my wife

I updated the bios on my mobo yesterday in hopes that it might help. No joy. However, I did learn that Asus has a nifty bios based utility that will upgrade your bios using an image on a thumb drive. That was neato!

Some of the ASUS boards now even include a web browser in Bios to go online and download updates.

Hhmm, I wish you luck with the RMA, but chances are if it's a known error across a range of different vendors, then the 5850 is simple designed to draw a bit too much power upon initialization. Maybe a different mobo or PSU would "do that" but if your other components are close to specification...

We have the issue at our company with the wireless 3G modems - Lenovo laptops are very close to specification for USB power, and those modems draw a bit more, so they don't always work.

Meaning, it's not technically your other components fault - if they are delivering the specified voltage and amperage - but it could be easier to fix by swapping them (in hope to find a part that supplies more than specified) rather than RMAing the card.

And compared to swapping these boards (PSU and Mobo) it'd be much easier and cheaper to ebay the RMA card (after testing) and get a 5870.

My VisionTek HD4870 would Randomly do this on boot. It is currently in RMA after putting up with this crap for about a year. The final straw was failing to post with the D1603 led being lit up when the error occurs. You may want to check if the card has diagnostic LEDs on it. I have a 700watt power supply & I also checked mine with an 800 watt too but it did not fix it.


SlackAdjuster

I lit them up with a craptastic newegg review and they responded asking me to contact them to resolve this. Hopefully they decide to cross ship a part to me.

I may have missed this, but did you try the suggestions?