Hi. I have recently tried to upgrade my GTX750 Ti GPU to a GTX 970. Came across the blackscreen pre Win logon. Tried everything including my patience So I sent it back to base. Very disappointed I'm not banging away at the speed of light on my work units but I have not given up.
First, can anyone shed some light on why this may have happened and will it happen again if I try another GTX card?
Second, if I google "GTX n issues" the boards are full of problems. Does anyone know of a fully tested card that actually works first time?
Also, can I, and how can I, include my old 750 card? What is the order of things?
Thanks in advance!

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Which mainboard do you use ? Bios up to date ? What PSU do u use ?

If u got a second pcie-slot u can use ur second card, with small adjustments.

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Second, if I google "GTX n issues" the boards are full of problems.

If you Google anything you'll find the boards are full of problems.

Does anyone know of a fully tested card that actually works first time?

GTX970.
Seriously, I can't remember the last time there was a major issue (or even any significant minor issues) with a generally released video card. There is always the possibility of a DOA card, but you have to be very unlucky to get one.

There have been issues with some video cards and some motherboards, and if you don't have the right driver you will have problems. Your Power Supply Unit needs to be up to the job, both GPU auxiliary power connectors need to have power to them.
And some times it can take ages for a system to update & install the driver for a new video card; I personally prefer to do it myself manually. Even then, things can sometimes take a while.

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Grant
Darwin NT

@Grant (SSSF)

...and ur the lucky one who doesnt got a socket 1150 mainboard,

i almost writed to much , more im PM if u wish. :)

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The best out of the box cards I've got are the pair of GTX970s, I plugged them in, loaded the Nvidia drivers (after Windoze had loaded its driver) and sat back.

The pair I've got need one 8pin connector each, but any reasonable modern PSU should have have at least one of those.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Back in June last year I picked up an MSI GTX960 for a $160 bargain (6 hr sale) and it's worked like a champ. Everyone had told me to get the 970 as it had much more bang for a little more buck - compared to a full 980 but I gave the little one a shot. It is a great card as far as I am concerned.

PS-My only issue with this new box I build using an old i7-2600 is that I think my 430W PS should have been a 650W just for safely. My calculations told me I wouldn't pull over 370W. So far so good.

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Life's short; make fun of it.

My GTX 980's report each eating 140-150W power @ 1310MHz and ram at 7200.
I use nvidia-smi to get the card status.

While being quite expensive they do give some decent RAC.

The three 970's that you can find on the top hosts page seem to be doing quite well also.

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To overcome Heisenbergs:
"You can't always get what you want / but if you try sometimes you just might find / you get what you need." -- Rolling Stones

Sorry, I should have put thisup too. The PSU is Corsair 600W so should have enough there, the board is Gigabyte Z97-HD3 Motherboard - Haswell CPU only, the BIOS - not sure how to find out but when trying a flash I had the following message: Fireware image PCI subsystem ID 1462.3160 does not match adapter PCI subsystem ID 1043.8508. to be honest it is not clear to me which is the BIOS and which is the upgrade so I said NO and did not upgrade. Should I have done? Would this fix it? I only have one x16 slot and plan to put the 750 in the x4 slot later if I can without buggering it all up!

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Seems you are very lucky Rob - there are loads of blackouts and black screen issues. My PC was only built last April so I would expect it to just work seeing as the card has been around the block a bit already - but NOOO, too much to ask.
PS> If old drivers have to be un-installed first then why does the driver installation not do that first or at least point out the fact and get operator to do it?

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Also, is it not possible for an install to flash the BIOS if needed?

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As I said, my two worked straight out of the box, and have done for some months.
I think the big issue is that some manufacturers are better at providing cards that work properly first time, and others less so. And you only hear about the ones that fail...

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

True, Rob which manufacturer did you go for? Mine was Asus Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 Strix Graphics Card (4GB, GDDR5, PCI Express 3.0) - phaa.

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http://www.gigabyte.de/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4955#bios

Always install the chipset drivers at first under windows, seen here:

Intel INF installation

http://www.gigabyte.de/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4955#dl

If u run W7 64-bit...

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AMD can be problematic also. I experienced a black screen myself, a reboot recovered the rig. Now I won't install new drivers without using DDU in full clean and reboot mode. I have the latest Crimson drivers installed now. My cards were purchased open box and used; 2 R9 280Xs. They are Powercolor and actually didn't receive very good reviews, they work quite well though, crunching or gaming. I got both cards for less then $200 each, great deal.

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Asus GeForce GTX 970 TURBO OC 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express - not the Strix version but the "sexy" white one with the single "through the hole" fan.

The biggest issue I've had with any Nvidia cards in recent years has been Windows insisting it knows best what drivers I should be running, and making a total hash of installing them. Inevitably that leads to having to do a "clean" installation twice, once to get rid of the defective driver and then a second one to get the correct driver installed. Likewise I avoid the card manufacturer's drivers and go to Nvidia for them.

As for your comment about automatically removing previous drivers - I agree a new driver should always do a clean installation rather than "trust" that the old one will not have left a something lying around. I gather that this is also a problem with AMD/ATI drivers...

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Rob, nice tip! I stupidly used the CD that came with the card!! I think I may need to flash the BIOS and also look for the latest driver from NVIDIA direct. I will try one more time...

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I've never had to flash the BIOS on a new Asus card.

(I had to do it on a secondhand one where the PO had flashed, or at least tried to flash, with the BIOS from another card type and so rendered it u/s)

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Change of heart - I'll get a new card, if I have the same issues I will flash BIOS. Thanks for all your input.

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Fireware Firmware image PCI subsystem ID 1462.3160 does not match adapter PCI subsystem ID 1043.8508

1462=Micro-Star International (MSI) ("Firmware image" = the "bin" file with new Firmware)
1043=ASUSTeK Computer ("adapter PCI" = the real Hardware)

"subsystem ID" = who made the card/motherboard (e.g. ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, EVGA)
"Vendor ID" (not shown in your post) = who made the chip (e.g. NVIDIA, Intel, ATI, AMD, Realtek)

PCI Vendor and Device Lists
http://pcidatabase.com/

P.S.
If the computer is very unstable (can hang/crash/BSOD any moment) it is obviously dangerous to flash BIOS / Firmware

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- ALF - "Find out what you don't do well ..... then don't do it!" :)
 

If the computer is very unstable (can hang/crash/BSOD any moment) it is obviously dangerous to flash BIOS / Firmware

Not with a Gigabyte board, that got dual-bios,

and flashed bios can be rewriten from backup-bios chip.

Dont know the keyboard key combination right now, must search...

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