Hear windows 7 boot chime but get no display from GTX 780

Hello, Tek Syndicate geniuses. I need your assistance. It seems my GTX 780 Lightning Edition card will not display; however, if left alone, the Windows 7 boot chime does occur. It is also important to note that I cannot even see the POST screen when the system powers on.

System Specs:
AMD Phenom II 965
As-Rock 880gm Le-FX motherboard
8gb Team Elite RAM @ 1600mhz
Current GPU (which displays fine): Radeon HD 7850 1 gb card
PSU: Alienware 750w PSU, it can be found at the following link: http://www.amazon.com/Alienware-NPS-750AB-1-Certified-Desktop-Supply/dp/B00QR4WRHM

I have tried the following techniques:
+Disable on board video
+boot with only one stick of RAM
+Unplugging all drives
+Resetting CMOS
+The power supply works. I have tested all 4 PCI-e cables in the working AMD card.

I can only assume either the card is bad or the PSU is not supplying enough power to the card. However, another fellow told me that the PSU is more than enough for my GPU. I really want to believe that the PSU is the culprit. Someone please shed some light on this situation.

I take it you removed the HD 7850 and put the GTX 780 in? Or are you trying to run both at the same time?

  • Terrible psu - low amperage quad rail design. Regardless of the matter. 780's especially those cherry picked Lightning cards want a good strong power supply - single 12v rail w/ >48 amps. Something like this >> http://pcpartpicker.com/part/xfx-power-supply-pro750wp1750snlb9
  • Are you certain the 780 works? ie. tested in another machine?
  • correct monitor input source?
  • BIOS up to date? There could be a known bug that was fixed. After all the board is quite old.
    ...and this is on the assumption that just the 1 gpu is being run in the system.

It is not a PSU problem or it would have not have powered on at all

@JCat I take one out and put the other in, yes. I remove the 7850 and put in the 780.

It is really strange. I believe that the card is not recognized: even when the card is in slot and power cables are plugged in the motherboard will still boot with onboard video(if I enable it, anyway. Other times I have it disabled.) Does that mean that the motherboard is actually not reading the GPU? I feel like the card is working fine; the seller of the card assured me that it worked right before he shipped it. Therefore, it makes me feel like there is something really rare or strange going on. Do you think a bios update might fix the issue?

UPDATE: The BIOS update did nothing to fix the issue. I am going to assume I was sold a faulty GPU.

Okay, so get this! The motherboard was the culprit: for some reason the motherboard would not read the GPU. However, once I put the GPU into another board it worked. I am having one minor issue, however. The current system is as follows:
AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE
4GB DDR2 RAM(suspect this is the cause of the issue)
GTX 780 Lightning Edition
The issue here is simple: I cannot get above 30 FPS on The Elder Scrolls Online, and after examining GPU usage it only goes up to 56% usage. However, it should be known that the ram maxes out at like 3.75 GB and the CPU sticks at 75%-85% usage, too. I assume that my CPU and RAM are bottlenecking my GPU at the moment? This hardware setup is temporary!

You need to replace the CPU, RAM and Motherboard, those parts are a bit of a bottleneck.

I suggest something like this or better with that card...

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/wkTDMp

How does an Intel i5 2500k, MSI MPower Z77 motherboard, and 8GB DDR3 at 1600mhz sound? I am waiting for the motherboard to come in and the system will be ready.

In the BIOS of the mother board is the PCIE enabled?

It has to be because my Radeon HD 7850 boots while in the motherboard PCI-E slot.

The issue may be something to do with your mobo only have PCIE gen 2 however the 780 should support that.

It is all strange, but I have my new intel motherboard coming in soon. Therefore, I will just deal with the bottlenecks for the next few days. Thank you for the help, however. I currently have the card running on a different motherboard, so I am mostly happy.

Good to hear @quantumducksquark

I do have one question, however. Do you think my current hardware setup is what is causing me to have low FPS in ESO?

Specs:
AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE
4GB DDR2 RAM(suspect this is the cause of the issue)
GTX 780 Lightning Edition

That will work nicely.