5870 = black screen.. Need advice..?

[Wayen]

Hello,

I tried to find a way to use an old rig with bitcoin. So I bought an ATI 5870 card.

I replaced the 8800 gtx by the ati card. I set correctly the pci-e cables (6 & 8 pins, the 8 pins with an adaptator 2x6 pins to 1*8 pins) + 1x6 pins.

I boot: black screen, the lcd screen (DVI) doesn't detect a signal.  If I come back to the 8800 gtx it work again. I tried with another power supply (Seasonic x 850) but it's the same.

Maybe that card doesn't work with that motherboard?

What do you suggest? Thanks for your help

Old Rig:
AMD 64 4800+
GA-K8N-Ultra 9
Nvidia 8800 Gtx
Seasonic M12-700
Corsair TwinX 2x1024 Mo DDR PC3200
Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 SATA - 300
Antec P180

[BinaryMage]

The card should be compatible, I think PCIe 2.0 is backwards-compatible. And 850W should definitely be enough. Can you test the 5870 in another computer to see if it is fully functional?

[computerparts]

In most cases, PCI-E 2.0 is NOT backwards compatible with PCI-E 1.0. You'll probably need a new motherboard if you want to use that 5870.

[BinaryMage]

In most cases, PCI-E 2.0 is NOT backwards compatible with PCI-E 1.0. You'll probably need a new motherboard if you want to use that 5870.

No, they are usually backwards compatible, at least according to Wikipedia, but maybe this particular card doesn't work with this particular motherboard. I still would advocate testing the card on another computer first before giving up, though.

[Wayen]

Thanks for your advices.. I tried with my main computer, replacing the nvidia gtx 470 by the 5870... No problem, it worked, I saw the bios settings and I was able to boot windows 7...

The problems seems to be related to the motherboard despite I though, like BinaryMage, that was backwards compatible accordingly to wikipedia...

Next step is probably to get a new motherboard, that mean to build a rig for bitcoin... I'm not sure it's very interesting to do since the quick increase of difficulty?

So unlucky !

If you see something other that I can try please tell me

[computerparts]

In most cases, PCI-E 2.0 is NOT backwards compatible with PCI-E 1.0. You'll probably need a new motherboard if you want to use that 5870.

No, they are usually backwards compatible, at least according to Wikipedia, but maybe this particular card doesn't work with this particular motherboard. I still would advocate testing the card on another computer first before giving up, though.

The stuff on Wikipedia is not always 100% true. Those older PCI-E 1.0 boards mostly have older nvidia and VIA chipsets that are not compatible with newer PCI-E 2.0 cards.

[BinaryMage]

The stuff on Wikipedia is not always 100% true. Those older PCI-E 1.0 boards mostly have older nvidia and VIA chipsets that are not compatible with newer PCI-E 2.0 cards.

Yeah, but Wikipedia is nearly as accurate as the Encyclopedia Britannica, so I generally trust it, especially on fairly common topics. Wikipedia did specifically state "most", so I think you're probably correct.