[hristobg]

Hi. Recently I bought HD 6770 video card, according to my friends, it is great. My motherboard is Gigabyte GA-M52L-S3 and it looks like there are some problems with the compability. When I turn on the PC, it keeps restarting for around 8 times and then it ACTUALLY turns on.

So, I have some questions for you:

- Should I update my BIOS and how?
- Should I buy a new video card and if so, please, help me with my choice.
- Should I do anything else and what?

Thank you in advance.

P.S. And yup, I'm not "that into" the hardware part, so try to sound less techician.

[Slamman]

Did a bit of research and the chipset can dictate if a SLi or Crossfire is the better supported option. nForce was known for working with AMD, earlier boards, and then later a spokesman for nVidia said they'd show support for AMD and ATI as well as Intel, due to demand I suppose

It's again a question of vendor's support and options they CHOSE for their boards, and not all are committed to using the same all the time, so you have to investigate as you shop. In most cases I believe you can run either or, but make sure the drivers are properly installed. In my case, I swap out what I have a lot, so try using CCleaner to purge old drivers before you install new ones. Since I'm not too fussy, I install drivers repeatedly on top of old, or use Control panel to remove them. It depends if one method still is giving you issues

The best policy is start with a clean install, no previous drivers, some overlap though as we'd discussed with audio, a driver specific to the chip will have it's own GUI, a driver specific to your Wireless can trade off capability with Windows. Video drivers are more divorced.
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-p...spx?pid=2818#sp

^
Here's a spec link on your board, should help those choosing to virtually outfit it for you
My AMD socket 939 is an nForce 4, that means the Nvidia chip at the heart of the mobo takes the place of the normal North and South Bridge chips

The MCP;

NVIDIA® GeForce 6100 / nForce 430晶片組
The brand new NVIDIA® GeForce 6100 / nForce 430 MCP (Media and Communications Processor) features CineFX™ 3.0 Engine. This unique combination of MCP creates a single motherboard featuring a world-class DX9, Shader Model 3.0 GPU for faster and smoother game-play, a high quality video processing engine for advance quality of video and DVD playback.

nVidia GPU is what's onboard, my ECS board is dated around the same time, using onboard nvidia GeForce 7100 graphics and a DVI port on the board itself. It's Intel, and your board is a step up from my AMD64 939 socket, using AM2 means it's memory controller was revised to allow DDR2 RAM, mine uses the prior DDR400 speed
Anywho, you can or should be able to use both brands of card, I tested my HD5450 in Asus's PCIex16 slots, dating to 2005, there's no result, no booting, that's because the card demands more power it seems, and there's no PSU support to these cards to supplement the slot
There's also a problem because the board is dated, it's PCIexpress version 1 (2 and 3 now exist, basically...with version 4 on the way!)

Hopefully not too much TECH wording for you, I hope I'm relaying in layman terms enough, I try

http://discussions.virtualdr.com/showthread.php?t=240797

Notice this Q and A here, I did a Google search ^ Another guy asked about a swap he got on a service call with that same board, for a G31 Gigabyte. I have a G33 board as I recall, my MSI. mATX, so he complained that he got jipped for a board with fewer slots, HOWEVER, if you're giving up PCI standard peripheral slots for ATX down to mATX, there's no cause for concern, really

This post has been edited by Slamman on Monday, Mar 19 2012, 02:07

[hristobg]

Thank you very much for your answer. As I see, NVIDIA GeForce 6100 / nForce 430 is pretty much old and it doesn't meets the requirements that I have. My previous video card was NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT and my main reason to change it was the video memory. So I chose HD 6770 mostly for that reason. And I really don't know if ATI or NVIDIA are more compatible. I tried to understand all that you wrote, but I couldn't. I'm really thankful for your respond, but... well, I'm mostly a fan of the software than the hardware, if you know what I mean.

I just want to clear that to my mind: is there any video card that is compatible to my motherboard and has vram of 1GB. And also, my BIOS drivers are the only one that aren't updated, just because I don't know how to update them and as I read somewhere - it wasn't necessary. But I guess now it is.

Again, thank you very much for you answer and your effort.

[Warlord.]

The video card is compatible with your motherboard 100%.

I think your problem lies in your PSU. What's the brand and wattage of your PSU?

[hristobg]

It is

FSP GROUP INC.
FORTRON/SOURCE

MODEL: ATX-350PNR, 350W.

I asked in one another forum also and they asked me the same, I answered them and it looks like that 350W is enough for this video card.

[Slamman]

I have a Palit 8600GT as well, beats out the 7100 onboard my Elitegroup board, but I did see an online review of mine on an Overclocking site, still says the board is good enough to game on, but the Asus P5Q allows better RAM support, full ATX but still only one PCIe, but it is 2.0 spec, which is another bonus!

I bought two of the Palit 8600s thanks to eBay, they match spec perfectly for a SLi platform.

The PSU is not a real problem if your card is not supported with it's own input jack for power, but the HD 5450 is proven not to work in older PCIe boards, I can attest as much, the highest power supply I have is about 430 watts, none of which supply power to a GPU card, and I rather not have a power issue, but it is something to know before you plunk your cash for a PSU and GPU upgrade, considering what will be supported on your mobo

This post has been edited by Slamman on Monday, Mar 19 2012, 16:44

[Wolf68k]

@hristobg
You didn't say exactly which 6770 you have. What maker that is.
I looked at XFX's 6770 and they say it needs a 500W PSU. SAPPHIRE, the leading maker of ATI/AMD cards, requires 600W. Gigabyte makes 4 different ones and all says 450W. HIS also says 450W.



@Slamman
That was one hell of a long drawn out answer, which answered nothing. And your first suggestion of starting of starting with a clean install. Really? He has to get past the bootup before worrying about the OS and drivers first. And it doesn't matter what chipset he's using, what mobo you have or chipset it uses, or what the spokesman for anything says. Simple straight answer to a simple question. Not a history lesson.

[hristobg]

AMD Radeon HD 6700 Series, this is a c/p of my Display information and I got a bit confused, because on the cover of the box it says 6770, but it still makes sence.

I guess that's all you asked for. So, I guess PSU with wattage more than or equal to 500W is everything I need?

[Wolf68k]

I would say so. Try to get one that has at least 30A on the +12V as well. The problem I've seen with ATI/AMD cards is that they never mention that part.

[Slamman]

I don't buy premium RAM or PSUs, but I can still build a system, I know my HD 5450 card works
That's what I'm relating is testing I've done with any PCIe board I get, my first one was the AMD64 I mentioned, an Ebay deal, it was not even known to boot or POST

=-=-=
@Slamman
That was one hell of a long drawn out answer, which answered nothing. And your first suggestion of starting of starting with a clean install. Really? He has to get past the bootup before worrying about the OS and drivers first. And it doesn't matter what chipset he's using, what mobo you have or chipset it uses, or what the spokesman for anything says. Simple straight answer to a simple question. Not a history lesson

=-=-=
Any history is beneficial for a novice to get a better idea

The CLEAN OS install is for managing the memory better, It's my feeling that the upgrades to XP at it's max RAM threshold will give better results if installed that method, use a fresh, large capacity HDD and clone the old one as a backup

[Wolf68k]

It doesn't matter if he does a clean install of XP, Linux or DOS.
You can't do a clean install of an OS if the hardware doesn't want to start to begin with, or in this case has problems starting.

[Slamman]

A POST is what you're suggesting, that happens just prior to bootstrapping Windows or any other OS
The point I am making is in regards to memory issues, not the booting process

[Wolf68k]

Where does he mention anything wrong with the RAM? No where.
He said he got a new video card and the system had problems booting. He thought maybe the card might be bad or maybe even the mobo or maybe need to update the BIOS. We later find out that he has a 350W PSU. The video card seems to need at least 500W from what little can be found. Thus the problem is the PSU



@hristobg
I believe you got your answer and are satisfied with that.
I'm going to lock this before Slamman decides to continue to derail this any more useless babble.
If you would like to have this topic reopened for any reason please feel free to PM me.