Used Video Cards used for Mining
 

Against my better judgement, I bought a used video card from eBay. It was part of a multi-card set that was used for mining. I know these cards can be abused however the price seemed right. $175 for an RX5700XT 8GB card seemed like taking a chance. I'm upgrading my old computer, Phenom II 965B to a Ryzen 5 5600X. Yeah, I usually upgrade to a prior generation because I don't need a new system. I tried the video card in my old PC and got a single beep. Removed it and put the old card back in and single beep. Pulled the PSU and replaced it, single beep.

There was no puff of magic smoke when I turned it on and my PSU has enough power for the card. I tried an old card and even an old PCI video card. It's stuck at the post. No display, no nothing.

Did I kill my old PC? I didn't want to try the used card in the new MB just in case something was bad. I've never heard of a bad video card killing a computer.

Ideas?

TIA,

CK

First, I would refer to your motherboard owners manual and see what the single beep code means. They have different beeps to help troubleshoot boot issues.

Try reseating your RAM sticks.

Reseat your ram, make sure you didnt bump your CPU cooler


Maybe you got a static spark and touched something on the mobo?



I seriously doubt that the video card fried your mainboard...

Single beep, you want me to RTFM? Took out all the RAM and got a single beep and no display. Put a stick back in and use and old PCI VGA card and it boots to bios setup. Put the rest of the memory in and it boots to bios setup. Reloaded saved defaults and it's alive again. Put in the used video card and it boots to Windows. Going to download the latest video drivers and see what the setting are compared to defaults.

Thanks for the info; perhaps something just wasn't making good connection and messing with it fixed it. I have learned a lesson as well, cheap cases don't line up very well. I didn't tighten down the MB screws very tightly and the cards in the expansion slots don't line up with their screws very well. Time for a new case before I build a new computer. You get what you pay for...

Thankis again.

Yeah, you gotta make sure those standoffs for the mobo are tightened down. They can short if they're not tight enough.

Main issue is that the expansion cards flex the MB when I attempt to screw them in. This is even with the MB hold down screws lightly seated. There's a little bit of slop around them however the expansion screws are off about 1/8" which is too much flex.

Put the old card back in, downloaded the AMD driver cleanup, ran that in safe mode, shut down the computer and installed the RX5700XT. Installed the new AMD drivers and ran Furmark 2 for about 20 minutes. Looks good, no issues or artifacts.

Next, I need to download a utility to copy the HDD to and SSD and build the Ryzen 5 system in a different case.

I would recommend starting with a fresh Windows install on the new SSD instead of trying to copy your old spinning drive to it. You can run into driver related issues if you use a Windows install that was setup on different hardware. Sometimes it won't even boot.

Yeah, I had that problem with the video card. I have multiple Windows licenses so I can start over. Reinstalling the software is a PITA. Figure it's worth a try before doing the full wipe and install. Will do the copy, remove the HDD, startup on the SSD and shutdown with restart set for safe mode. Can then uninstall the old chipset drivers and let Windows install the default stuff. I remember Win95 have major issues when I did this so hopefully MS has corrected this. XP/7 handled it pretty well.

Next time you get a new video card, try this: https://www.guru3d.com/download/disp...ller-download/

But as for Windows, even if it boots it can still cause stability issues. Check Device Manager afterward to make sure there's not a bunch of hardware missing drivers.

There's a ton out there. If you don't mind cheap, Chinese software, this one is pretty simple and easy to use.

https://www.ubackup.com/

Oh and you can use it to just backup your file system. A full clone could possibly cause problems like Fish said. I'm sure Windows has some built in utilities but I haven't done backups of Windows in years and always found it lacked good functionality.

Oh, and get a new case. :thumb:

Yeah, I'm a cheapskate so i don't like paying a bunch of money for a fancy case with LEDs, etc.

Just buy a cheap one without LED's. You can get a ATX mid case for about $40-$50. If you have a smaller board & can go with a smaller case they can be even cheaper. You can get a set of RGB fans for a couple bucks a piece if you want to add some bling. I got a full ATX case with 2 ARGB fans for like $70 & bought a set of 3 RGB fans on Amazon for like $15 & added 2 RGB top exhausts & replaced the fan on my tower cooler with an RGB.

Does it sound a lot like this? :hmmm:


<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uirRsoRDFl4?si=ogeA9GY2JOKHHTUS" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>