26 replies to this topic

[Catamount]

I've re-registered more OEM copies of Windows to new motherboards than I care to count. MS's phone support really doesn't care. They'll spit out activation codes on demand pretty much. If MS wants to be a pain about it, which they won't, you can acquire the type of Windows copy that doesn't require activation, as long as you have no problem sticking with Windows 7.

As I said, if a 760 doesn't work, a 660 won't. They're both Kepler cards, and they're both standard PCIE VGA devices.

Unfortunately, your options pretty much seem to be: dump the quirky board, or stick with integrated graphics permanently :/

Edited by Catamount, 13 April 2014 - 02:46 PM.

[ThatBum42]

Seconded about the HP BIOS possibly being locked to only work with HP authorized components. Said components have some flag in their firmware that the BIOS needs to pass its checks. I've seen it on a few machines I've worked on. It's insidious.

There was a guy on youtube ranting about such proprietary computer parts. For example, a stupid skinny rectangular power supply that's only shaped like that to make a pleasing case aesthetic, and it can only be bought from HP for three times the cost of a standard ATX PSU of the same wattage. Can't be arsed to find it now, though.

There's also a small possibility of some misconfiguration, such as not having enough PCI lanes assigned to the slot the card is in or some crap. That should be automatic, but hell, the system might not have enough available, it's not a high performance chipset. Even if it did, I bet the locked down BIOS wouldn't allow you to change anything like that.

This is why I haven't bought a pre-built computer since the 20th century...

Edited by ThatBum42, 14 April 2014 - 03:39 AM.

[Odins Fist]

Evildude42, on 13 April 2014 - 12:21 PM, said:

Also the new cards are PCI 3. They might work on a pci 2 Mboard, but probably won't.

Nope PCI-e 3.0 cards (externally powered) work just fine in PCI-e 2.0 slot..
I have recently just seen a post where PCI-e 3.0 card is running in a PCI-e 1.0 slot as well.
You just can't get the Maximum performance out of the card in an old PCI-e 1.0 slot.
And you won't reach quite the max potential in a PCI-e 2.0 slot either.

PanzerFurrry, on 12 April 2014 - 02:22 AM, said:

Greetings, dear pilots,

I have quite an out-dated PC at my home and I tend to upgrade later this year. In the mean time, I managed to obtain a new graphic card Radeon R7 260X OC 2GB GDDR5, which should be about 2-3 times faster in synthetic tests compared to my old one Radeon 5670 1GB.
However after installation and updating of drivers, I see no improvement in framerate at all in MWO. I actually think that framerate has slightly regressed during heavy engagements, since it falls below 20 FPS during combats more often.

I know my CPU is severely outdated and is the biggest bottleneck, my question is, will my performance stay the same or even regress, regardless of how fast GPU I put in? In other games and benchmarks I see a noticeable improvement in performance, but not in MWO.

My specs:
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3GHz (stock),
4 GB RAM DDR2 800 MHz,
GA-EP35-DS3R motherboard,
Windows 7 SP1 x64 (up to date, clean, no bloatware)
Graphic settings: DX11, 1920x1080, everything LOW/OFF except for Object Details and Texturing (MEDIUM).
AMD Catalyst 14.3 beta (latest).

The Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R motherboard has a PCI-e 1.0 slot... FYI

Edited by Odins Fist, 14 April 2014 - 01:31 PM.

[Chain Fire]

I must be a masochist.

On my way home from work Tuesday I stopped by my local mom and pop
pc store and bought a Gigabyte GT 610, figured I could always stick
it in a my old Gateway P4 box since the 610 would do low profile.

But first I had to torture myself and see if I could get it to work
in the accursed HP p7-1240.

Ok, disable onboard graphics in windows, check.
Uninstall drivers, check.
Powered it down and took it into the lab/attic/man cave.
Pulled the cmos battery to make sure the bios was on defaults.
Loaded the card, fired it up and nothing....stuck at post/splash screen.

Shut it down, pulled the card, switched bios to legacy boot, put the card
back in fired it up, same result. Shut it down, changed bios rinse and repeat....

After I tweaked the bios every which way I could think of I said enough of this...
Put the low profile brackets on the card, stuck it in the gateway fired it up and
it worked fine (jeeesh!!)

But don't give up hope yet that's only 3 cards, surely there's a card with some magic
in it that will make my pc world complete.

So I pulled the cmos battery again to undo the mess I had made and went to bed.....

Get to work and my asus fan co-worker had brought me a EVGA GTX 260 to try. What the hell!
I got nothing to lose, and still didn't know if the slot was bad. But the card is older
so maybe it will work, at least that was the thinking.

Plugged it in fired it up and it worked!!! WTF!!! Windows detected it loaded drivers
the whole bit...ugh!! Computers!!

I know someone said if a 760 wouldn't run neither would a 660, but I had a thought, I knew HP
sold video cards on their website so I looked at what they had and ordered the exact same
model. Happened to be a PNY. I thought maybe the cards HP sold knew the secret handshake to
get past the bios.

I had the GTX 660 sitting next to the GT 610 last night, but I was disappointed the 610 test
was a failure and was debating opening the 660. But after the GTX 260 fired up and I knew it
wasn't the slot itself I opened the 660 up and stuck it in and it worked!!!! Don't you just love
computers.

I still can't figure out the difference maker. Was it the vintage of the 260? The secret handshake
of the 660? I wish I could say I learned something from all this (other than not buy an HP).

Thanks again for the help Mechwarriors! I'll see you on the battlefield.....

[ThatBum42]

Man...Pentium 4. That's gonna be a hell of a bottleneck.

At least you have a bunch of spare cards in case one blows.

Also running a 660 with a 500 watt PSU is pushing it. Nvidia recommends a 450W in their specsheet, the card is 140W. I'd get a Kill A Watt to make sure you're not overdrawing the power supply (I love my Kill A Watt). Its not fun to have a PSU literally explode right next to you, firsthand experience. Corsair PSUs are good though, it should perform to the rating. Will probably be fine.

Edited by ThatBum42, 17 April 2014 - 02:55 AM.

[Catamount]

Pentium 4? O_o I see no Pentium 4s mentioned (Edit: I see it; I doubt he's playing MWO on that )

Also, a 500W PSU is more than adequate for a 660. Nvidia and AMD specsheets overstate power requirements because most PSUs are crap, and can't deliver their stated wattage. Half the "450W" PSUs out there would have trouble outputting more than 300W, so Nvidia's really recommending a 300W PSU, and accounting for bad brand claims.

His APU has a TDP of 65W, almost certainly including the GPU, so maybe really 45W for the CPU portion, his GPU consumes 140W on a bad day, the rest of his machine probably won't consume 100W combined, so even in an artificial stress test, he would be very hard pressed to exceed 300W draw. Even if he had a more typical CPU, he'd be hard pressed to draw more than 350 or 400W.

Edited by Catamount, 17 April 2014 - 06:46 AM.

[GWBlack]

Hi,

I have the same exact machine (p7-1240) and mobo (Jasmine MSI MS 7778) running Windows 7 64-bit. I've tried 4 different graphics cards and cannot get any to work. I cannot get past the HP splash screen. Are you still running the GTX 260? Have you found any more modern graphics cards that will work in thus machine?

Thanks, Gary