monitor & marital problems

[kevinm]

Well I built my first rig and I have had all sorts of technical problems.
First off, the ASUS P8Z77 Pro mobo was a duffer and had to be exchanged,
that took me 2 days but the new 1 is running fine and I got the vendor to upload my W7 OS on it at the shop, plus he did the thing with the BIOS.

Now everything is working except the new monitor, I went for a Samsung Syncmaster SA100 which was cheap and cheerful cos I dont do gaming
When I plugged the VGA plug into the mobo and turned it on, an odd looking figure comes on the screen for about 4 seconds then it goes off (this is with 2 x 7970'S connected directly to the board) got a 3rd but still waiting for the risers off of e-bay.

I took the monitor & mobo back to the (monitor) shop (minus the cards) and they tried it all and nothing. They changed the VGA cable and hey presto, windows booted up on the monitor. So off I trotted home and set the cards back on the board and plugged the replacement cable in to the mobo and the back of the monitor, power up then I get the exact same figure pops up, for want of a better description it looks like a wobbling mouse or diode with 4 dots under it which disappear 1 every second, then nothing.

So then I hooked up the HDI/VGA converter to one end of the cable and plugged this into one of the cards and tried the monitor again, still the same odd looking figure comes up for 4 seconds then nothing, tried plugging into the other card and get the same.

All the cables are screwed in tight, no pins are bent, the RAM cards are in properly as are the 2 cards

I am really getting fed up now, my wife is constantly giving me that "knowing" look cuz she has an idea how much i spent on all of this and I havent even got to dealing with the various mining software issues yet. I am beginning to feel like a real prat for ever starting this.

can anyone save me from stepping off of this high rise balcony   

Kev.

[d4rkbreaker]

Well I built my first rig and I have had all sorts of technical problems.
First off, the ASUS P8Z77 Pro mobo was a duffer and had to be exchanged,
that took me 2 days but the new 1 is running fine and I got the vendor to upload my W7 OS on it at the shop, plus he did the thing with the BIOS.

Now everything is working except the new monitor, I went for a Samsung Syncmaster SA100 which was cheap and cheerful cos I dont do gaming
When I plugged the VGA plug into the mobo and turned it on, an odd looking figure comes on the screen for about 4 seconds then it goes off (this is with 2 x 7970'S connected directly to the board) got a 3rd but still waiting for the risers off of e-bay.

I took the monitor & mobo back to the (monitor) shop (minus the cards) and they tried it all and nothing. They changed the VGA cable and hey presto, windows booted up on the monitor. So off I trotted home and set the cards back on the board and plugged the replacement cable in to the mobo and the back of the monitor, power up then I get the exact same figure pops up, for want of a better description it looks like a wobbling mouse or diode with 4 dots under it which disappear 1 every second, then nothing.

So then I hooked up the HDI/VGA converter to one end of the cable and plugged this into one of the cards and tried the monitor again, still the same odd looking figure comes up for 4 seconds then nothing, tried plugging into the other card and get the same.

All the cables are screwed in tight, no pins are bent, the RAM cards are in properly as are the 2 cards

I am really getting fed up now, my wife is constantly giving me that "knowing" look cuz she has an idea how much i spent on all of this and I havent even got to dealing with the various mining software issues yet. I am beginning to feel like a real prat for ever starting this.

can anyone save me from stepping off of this high rise balcony   

Kev.

Your story isn't very helpful and what kind of vendor installs OSes for you, did you even pay them $200-$300 and get a install disk with the license code?

Aside from getting yourself the physical discs to install your Windows 7:

1- Do you even know when you GPUs are plugged in properly?

2- Did you power your PSU?

3- Does your PSU have enough power (how many Watts)?

4- Are you sure the 8/6 pins are powered on both GPUs?

5- Have you tried making sure the Samsung monitor is checking for a VGA input source?

6- Did you connect your monitor to the GPU itself or the motberboard?

[theGECK]

Did the shop plug it into a different jack than you did? Did you plug it into the mobo and the shop plug it into a card?

[kevinm]

Well I built my first rig and I have had all sorts of technical problems.
First off, the ASUS P8Z77 Pro mobo was a duffer and had to be exchanged,
that took me 2 days but the new 1 is running fine and I got the vendor to upload my W7 OS on it at the shop, plus he did the thing with the BIOS.

Now everything is working except the new monitor, I went for a Samsung Syncmaster SA100 which was cheap and cheerful cos I dont do gaming
When I plugged the VGA plug into the mobo and turned it on, an odd looking figure comes on the screen for about 4 seconds then it goes off (this is with 2 x 7970'S connected directly to the board) got a 3rd but still waiting for the risers off of e-bay.

I took the monitor & mobo back to the (monitor) shop (minus the cards) and they tried it all and nothing. They changed the VGA cable and hey presto, windows booted up on the monitor. So off I trotted home and set the cards back on the board and plugged the replacement cable in to the mobo and the back of the monitor, power up then I get the exact same figure pops up, for want of a better description it looks like a wobbling mouse or diode with 4 dots under it which disappear 1 every second, then nothing.

So then I hooked up the HDI/VGA converter to one end of the cable and plugged this into one of the cards and tried the monitor again, still the same odd looking figure comes up for 4 seconds then nothing, tried plugging into the other card and get the same.

All the cables are screwed in tight, no pins are bent, the RAM cards are in properly as are the 2 cards

I am really getting fed up now, my wife is constantly giving me that "knowing" look cuz she has an idea how much i spent on all of this and I havent even got to dealing with the various mining software issues yet. I am beginning to feel like a real prat for ever starting this.

can anyone save me from stepping off of this high rise balcony   

Kev.

Your story isn't very helpful and what kind of vendor installs OSes for you, did you even pay them $200-$300 and get a install disk with the license code?

Aside from getting yourself the physical discs to install your Windows 7:

1- Do you even know when you GPUs are plugged in properly?

2- Did you power your PSU?

3- Does your PSU have enough power (how many Watts)?

4- Are you sure the 8/6 pins are powered on both GPUs?

5- Have you tried making sure the Samsung monitor is checking for a VGA input source?

6- Did you connect your monitor to the GPU itself or the motberboard?

The kind of helpful vendor that was sorry to hear that I had travelled accross the border to another country to get to his shop and bought a dud mobo from him, then returned home, only to have to travel back days later. Yes I paid him in full for the OS and got the disk and KC with it.

Yes the GPU's are in the board properly - both are in the 16x PCI-e slots
Yes I powered the PSU
Yes I powered each GPU from the CPU - 2 x 8 pin on each
CPU is Coolermaster 1300W 80 Gold - Thats plenty for 3 x 7970's
Both GPU's are powered properly - Fans are running when powered-up
Yes the monitor is checking for VGA source when the cable is unplugged (there is a little icon of a VGA plug bouncing round the screen)
Connected the monitor to both mobo & GPU altenatively and in that order.

Do you have any idea what the problem could be?

Kev

[kevinm]

Did the shop plug it into a different jack than you did? Did you plug it into the mobo and the shop plug it into a card?

No the shop plugged the (new) cable into the VGA socket on the mobo (I took the cards off to take it all back to the shop as it was quite bulky) and everything was fine. When I got back home, I put the cards back on the board and tried the cable in the VGA socket, nada. then I tried the cable directly in turn, in each of the cards using a VGA/HDI adapter and still nothing   

Thanks for your support   

Kev

[kibblesnbits]

Google "BAMT", use windiskimager to make a bootable USB drive.  No muss, no fuss - don't even need the hard drive.  If you need to access it, try SSH from a laptop or even "I-devices".

[pheaonix]

Google "BAMT", use windiskimager to make a bootable USB drive.  No muss, no fuss - don't even need the hard drive.  If you need to access it, try SSH from a laptop or even "I-devices".

that is over his head more than likely.

he is trying to get the monitor to work.

[miter_myles]

Google "BAMT", use windiskimager to make a bootable USB drive.  No muss, no fuss - don't even need the hard drive.  If you need to access it, try SSH from a laptop or even "I-devices".

that is over his head more than likely.

he is trying to get the monitor to work.

lol - talk about a mindfuck

[dobatron81]

well, if you are plugging in the cards w/o the drivers installed from AMD and expecting the monitor to turn on you may be mistaken... also, plugging the monitor in the mobo vga slot with video cards in the pci ports may not work as well, as i had this problem i think w my friends rig.  unplug the cards and get the monitor working like they did in the shop, then upload the latest drivers from AMD to run your 7970's.  Also tell your wife that she can be of help with this as two brains are better than one.  Always take a break, and ground yourself from static before working on the system.  I'm kind of a newbie myself but sometimes the obvious isn't obvious to seasoned miners.  Hope you are hashing away shortly...

[CrazyGuy]

If you are looking for help here, you will need to provide more information:

• Does the monitor support DVI input? Display port? HDMI?
• Motherboard manufacturer and model number
• PSU(Power Supply Unit) manufacturer and model number

I would recommend avoiding VGA at this point, it's analog and we are in the digital age. From the info you provided, it seems you are trying to use an hdmi-vga converter. This is a bad idea as hdmi does not have analog output ability like DVI. Get a digital cable that your monitor supports and go with that(DVI,HDMI,Display port). If your monitor is ancient and only supports VGA, use the DVI-VGA adapter that came with your cards. If you plan on gaming, 3 way crossfire to a VGA monitor is a waste of power in my opinion. If you plan on mining, you have wasted your money as you will never earn your money back on your investment. I would suggest selling the PSU and 2 of the 3 cards to someone on the forums for bitcoins. BTC is extremely undervalued at this point. $600 in BTC could easily be worth $1200 next month. It's a smarter investment and your wife won't give you that look when it pays off.

If you absolutely must mine at 1.8gh, I suggest you follow this thread and buy 6 when they come out. They will be much easier to setup and maintain and use less power.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=99497.msg1819469#msg1819469

[CrazyGuy]

well, if you are plugging in the cards w/o the drivers installed from AMD and expecting the monitor to turn on you may be mistaken... also, plugging the monitor in the mobo vga slot with video cards in the pci ports may not work as well, as i had this problem i think w my friends rig.  unplug the cards and get the monitor working like they did in the shop, then upload the latest drivers from AMD to run your 7970's.  Also tell your wife that she can be of help with this as two brains are better than one.  Always take a break, and ground yourself from static before working on the system.  I'm kind of a newbie myself but sometimes the obvious isn't obvious to seasoned miners.  Hope you are hashing away shortly...

Most MB bios have basic vga support through the graphics card in your pciex slot, especially ones that supports 3 cards. In fact, having a graphics card in the pciex slot could possibly be toggling off the MB's onboard gpu. If we are understanding you correctly, and you are going from VGA to your motherboard with your graphics cards in, this is wrong. DVI out from your slot 1 graphics card to the monitor is what you need to be doing.

[Viceroy]

You mentioned windows... windows requires either a VGA dummy plug or an active monitor.  start with only one card and make it work, then add the second.  every video card requires a dummy plug or monitor.

could be driver problems, it is not uncommon to find that new video cards do not report to the os or they may come up driver not found.   I'd start with a $5 video card.  get the system running.  once running try the high end cards.

in my signature I have nstructions for building a centos Linux rig, but frankly windows is easier so if you can't get the cards working in windows I wouldn't start in Linux.

I agree with previos poster... turn off any built in video in bios.  having onboard video and trying to add video cards can cause nightmares.

stills stuck?
bring everything, including the cards, back tot the computer shop... I'm sure he'll help you.

[dobatron81]

he's got to be saying a vga is an hdmi, i totally forgot about that... who uses a 7970w  a vga or even buys a vga from a store? that mobo doesnt have a vga does it? ill have to google the model #(im not going to actually google it) if he posted it... but most likely if it has newer pci slots like a couple 16x or even one that's 2.0 it has an hdmi, i mean my laptop from 2006 has an hdmi (its a macBook pro though .  its gotta be a driver issue as he gets the tower home and puts the cards in expecting it to work but took the cards out and it worked in the store (ie he's not telling the store what the actual problem is)...a little detective work goes a long way.  don't over think anything here.  do what they did in the store then do what needs to be done to make the cards work w your system like upload drivers bc win7 doesn't have em pre installed i bet.  ::facePalm:: 

or just take everything to the store and have them do it--and they will say... Happy Mining

[squall1066]

Sounds to me like the output worked on the mobo because there was no GPU's in, So the on-board is used by default, The on-board will not work with GPU's unless instructed to do so in the bios, Are you using any video converters? I would try all the output on all the cards, And I mean all, I had one system that would only display on a HDMI port on a second card in a four card system, I had to go into windows multi-monitor setup to choose what screen output I wanted.

Also to do this I had to put a monitor in the port I wanted, And use another to cycle through the ports, One more tip, Always start the system with the main monitor plugged in! Some configurations disable ports that are not used.

[Viceroy]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131837&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-_-pla-_-Intel+Motherboards-_-N82E16813131837&gclid=CIuZhpW50bYCFVSVMgodmBoADQ

Your problem is....

Your new motherboard has built in video.  You need to disable the onboard video in bios.  (hit delete or f2 during boot up when you see the manufacturers logo, then disable onboard video/vga/hdmi).  Then install ONE card in the PCI-X slot nearest the CPU.  Your number 0 port should work... the video port nearest the CPU. 

After that shutdown and install the second card.  As I said you will need a VGA DUMMY PLUG or second monitor connected to the second video card during boot up to make it initialize.

Best of luck.