Powercolor Radeon HD 3870 X2 seriously a headache

[nach0 party]

yea please do i know nothing about 64 bit windows and its benefits

[nach0 party]

ok well someone directed me back to my old thread because they were very bright and noticed the name of the same person who started both threads so hell ill just continue my old one. either way i have another question about the 3870x2 that i bought say 2 months ago.
its still a headache, of course. in the past 2 months i ordered 2 different motherboards, 1 did not work with the card, RMA'ed it back to newegg, got the one i have now, it did not work (ATX main psu cable wouldn't go in correctly) and i just recieved my new motherboard.
Good news: the motherboard works
Bad news: the card does NOT work with the motherboard.
Motherboard name : DFI Lanparty 790fx
Newegg reference: Newegg.com - DFI LANPARTY DK 790FX-M2RS AM2+/AM2 AMD 790FX ATX AMD Motherboard - AMD Motherboards
I even checked all over the web, it was seemingly common knowledge that the 3870x2 works with this motherboard. the brand i ordered was powercolor, maybe they just don't work well with systems or what but any help / suggestions aka: update bios, clear cmos (tried that actually), or if theres anything simpler before updating my bios that i should check for please let me know im just about ready to sell this piece of junk

[RicheemxX]

Considering it looks like you've tried just about everything known to man there is really only two possibilities I can see.

1. You got two bad cards back to back, very unlikely but possible.
2. You aren't connecting something correctly, make sure you've got the power connections made to the card

Does the fan spin up on the card or give any sign of life? I didn't read the entire thread but did you try another power supply?

[nach0 party]

yes, i did try another psu my buddy brougth one over he had a 800 Wpsu i believe, then again i didnt try it on the new mobo. i just updated the bios on this one and im gonna test it ou when i get home from work, this whole thing has been incredibly aggrivating lol. and yea, the fans spin, its definetely working just no display. it takes 2 of the 4 pins from my psu and they are snug, as well as the card is firmly placed into the pcix16 slot. who knows though i suppose maybe the bios update helped i wont know until later

[nach0 party]

ok well the bios update did not work, its been 2 long months, 3 different motherboards, 1 rma for this card its officially been a waiste of money and time. I have a new question. where is the best place to sell your computer parts im offically just getting rid of this thing

[nach0 party]

is it also possible that my psu needs to be crossfire ready to run this card? i mean its just one card with 2 gpu's but hell i dunno

[Horrorcosmic]

[quote=RicheemxX;2760825]1. You got two bad cards back to back, very unlikely but possible.[quote]


Yea, there is a guy on newegg that commented saying that 2 of the 3 cards he bought were bad.

Bro i bought this card about a week ago, came in and i love it. I Honestly think that you got a bad card, the board should have worked unless it was DOA which i think i saw you say it wasn't, Its a 790, i'm sure you met the requirements, PCI-E X16, 550+ watts, you got the chipset, the 1gig of system memory.

Something i gotta ask though, what kind of power supply did you test it with?
all of them, your buddies as well,

it says that if you use a PSU that does not meet the 550 watt requirement it will damage the card, but i'm think that there is something with the 12v rail or if its even SLI/Xfire supportive.

Brand Name, Wattage, rail, certifications, connectors would help alot. Or hell a link from newegg if you bought it from there.

Honestly that is the only thing i can think is wrong with it,


Also, If you know if its not bad or dead, i'll buy it from you lol i was planning on getting another for XfireX. And where to get a waterblock for this card, because of the added ram the DangerDen and EK blocks don't fit this card, RAM and control chip is in different places.

[nach0 party]

haha well if i can get it to work i dont wanna sell it but man the specs looked amazing, if you go down towards the beggining of the post i think the first or second page i posted the brand (OCZ) and the model # and also its specifications (wattage rails etc). I'm still kind of new to building systems, so i'm assuming i could have easily done something wrong. I did buy the psu from newegg, but it was a year ago and i couldn't find it but like i said i posted the complete specs of the psu on the first or second page. my buddies psu i was uncertain of, however. what may help is the order of events that things have happened as well:
1.got the card
2. plugged it into my ecs kn3sli2 (590 chipset NOt compatible woot)
3. rma'ed the card back confused
4. got the card still did not work
5. discovered my stupidity ordered the abit ax78 mobo, with a 770 (minimum requiremetn) chipset AND updated bios card still did not work.
6. RMA refunded that back (its now like the 1 month period so i cannot RMA the card back to newegg so i can send it to china or something like that)
7. ordered my current mobo (which i happen to like and ill keep it for further upgrades liek am2+ processor some ddr2 1066 RAM) which is a dfi lanparty 790fx m2rs mobo 790 nb 600 sb i think.
8. that mobo had a problem with the atx main and it wouldn't power on my pc
9. sent that back, got the new one, it works just tried it earlier today after updating my bios last night still no response from the card.

the card does power on, there are lights on it, red lights though not sure if red is good/ bad lol (there are like 2/3 red lights)

[Horrorcosmic]

I'm gonna try and help you out as much as possible nacho, I have the same exact card with no problems and i hate seeing that you have been fighting this thing for so long.

Ok, Lets say the card is not DOA, i have a feeling that your power supply or they way you have your computer setup is the reason its not working.

I got my card in yesterday, tested it today in a Nforce comp, Specs:

Nforce mobo.
Core 2 Quad 2.4
3gig RAM
2x500gb HD
Roswill 600Watt PSU
HP video capture card

This is not my system, its my friends, i just use it to make sure my card wasn't DOA, i'm missing the OS and PSU for my system.


We had minor problems and it was power consumption, the box states that a minimum of 550 Watts is required, that is wrong!

Even the Roswill 600 Watt had trouble powering this beast, it was stealing power from the hard drives and wouldn't boot. We had to remove the slave drive to have enough power to boot. After that it was like dropping a V8 engine in a volkswagon beatle!

I'm going to say a minimum for this card to work is 650-700 Watts.
Now i can only think of a few things with your setup:

1. make sure you have 2 6-pin plugs connected to the card, it really needs both of them. and don't use the adapters that come with the card, use the ones on your PSU, if it doesn't have it then thats a problem.

2. Your setup is just like my test, try removing any non-needed drives or PCI cards. just try booting with the bare minimum.

3. Honestly i think this is the problem, That PSU your using is not SLI or Crossfire certified, now i know your not using a crossfire system, but this card is the idea of a crossfire merge, its basically two 512mb single core GPU cards merged into one, even if you crossfire 2 of these things it actually see's it as CrossfireX (quad crossfire). if everything else fails, try a SLI/Xfire cert PSU.

4. Highly doubtful but i'm just saying this, maybe the mobo is bad, if you have a cheap, working card around test it with that and see if it boots.

I hope you get this card working, i know you will like it.

[Horrorcosmic]

Also, X-bit labs - ATX Power Supply Units Roundup. Part VI (page 6)

Theres your PSU, it seems to have a problem with voltage fluctuations, dirty power.