Need some advice / help on setting up 5870 GPU

[D_Thomas]

I picked up a used 5870 video card to play around a little with mining and also to have a card for an occasional video game. I tried to run it on an older Asus motherboard and the mobo would not even post with the card plugged in. Not being familiar with these cards I don't know if the card is bad or if my mobo doesn't support it. The mobo is an Asus P5PL2 which as a PCIe x16 slot. I have a 500w PS but with only one of the 6 pin connectors. By what I read it sounded like only 1 connector was needed if not using the crossfire setup but I'm fuzzy on that.

When the video card is plugged in the mobo just maked an infernal loud solid continous beep sound and does not post.

I think this mobo is about 7 years old. I updated the bios to the latest bios from about 3 years ago and still no go.

So my questions are:

1) Should the mobo boot up with this card?
2) Do I need to connect a second power cable to the card?
3) If yes to #2, how do you combine a couple of the regular power cables to make an extra 6 pin? I heard of peple doing that but no details on how.

MoBo specs:

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_775/P5PL2/#specifications

Thanks!

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[Vdizz]

5870 requires 2x6 pin 12V power connector or PC won't POST.

Assuming you have 2 spare molex connectors get yourself one of these

http://www.microcenter.com/product/301357/12V_Molex_to_12V_6-Pin_Adapter

[D_Thomas]

Thanks for the info Vdizz! I just drove by MicroCenter this afternoon. I'll drop by there tomorrow and pick up the adapter. I have plenty of spare Molex connectors coming out of my PS.

Glad to hear this as I was dreading that the graphics card was bad.

[kwoody]

What brand is your PSU? More importantly, what kind of amperage setup is on the 12Volt rail? Most 500w PSUs tend to have 17/18 amps on 2 seperate 12v rails. There is a good chance that even after you turn molex connectors into another 6pin pci-e power connector, the card won't be getting enough amps. My first card was a 6950, and would not operate with 18 amps on 12V.

[Vdizz]

I knew this would come up.

My oldest mining rig runs a 6970 @ 900MHz, PS is Dell 350W yanked from an ancient desktop.
It's been running pretty much non stop for a year. Kill-a-Watt shows ~250W/h.
I never had any issues!

Needless to say, there's no point in purchasing a new PS now.