Vidio card nightmare.

[zaster]

Before I push the big red button and reinstall Windows 10 I thought I had better try to see if I could get some expert advice.

 

I started with a Win 10/Gigabyte H270-Gaming 3/ROG GTX1080 combo. One day I rebooted the system and nothing happened. Not even the BIOS screen.

Lots of debugging and poor advice led me to believe the CPU, memory, or main board could be the issue. So I go the dumb route and throw parts at it.

 

Now I have the same Win 10 in M2 install (important to note this), Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Pro, ROG RTX2080Ti OC, and new memory. Still looked like a not boot situation. Not even BIOS.

More debugging and I find it is booting but the RTX2080 is not working. Swap back to the last know good GXT1080 still no joy but at least the onboard Intel GPU works.

I look in device manager and there is the RTX2080 all fat dumb and happy.

 

I ran ASUS GPU Tweak and it is all happy. Remove and reinstall the Nvidia drivers several time and still no joy.

The Nvidia control panel says no display detected. I try several display ports and display port cables. Still no joy. I would hate to think I am dealing with two failed ROG cards.

 

So, bottom line I think the Win 10 install is at fault. I hate to reinstall Win 10 and then have to reinstall all my other software. In effect starting all over again. But it may came down to that. I just don't know what else to look at in Win 10 to get any add graphic cards to work.

Any thoughts before I pull the trigger on a total reinstall?

[.Apex.]

41 minutes ago, zaster said:

So, bottom line I think the Win 10 install is at fault. I hate to reinstall Win 10 and then have to reinstall all my other software. In effect starting all over again. But it may came down to that. I just don't know what else to look at in Win 10 to get any add graphic cards to work.

Any thoughts before I pull the trigger on a total reinstall?

If you're not getting a BIOS screen but you do get one when using the iGPU (Integrated) then Windows has nothing to do with this, have you tried swapping out the PSU? It's very unlikely that 2 GPUs are somehow dead.

[zaster]

Good thought but I have tried both a 1200watt PSU and a 750watt PSU with no joy. So far the only common link I can think of is the Win 10 image on the M2 device. I would think that if HDMI worked on the iGPU then it should work on the add in GPU but it does not.

[Haro]

1 hour ago, zaster said:

Good thought but I have tried both a 1200watt PSU and a 750watt PSU with no joy. So far the only common link I can think of is the Win 10 image on the M2 device. I would think that if HDMI worked on the iGPU then it should work on the add in GPU but it does not.

I know this is very unlikely but have you checkedor test the boot drive  it could faulty drive 

[zaster]

1 hour ago, TofuHaroto said:

I know this is very unlikely but have you checkedor test the boot drive  it could faulty drive 

Nothing is unlikely at this point. The boot drive is a Samsung SSD 970 Evo Plus which has less than 2TB of host reads and less than 2TB of host writes on it. Crystal Disk Info Reports a 100% health status. Keep the suggestions coming as I would hate to think I have overlooked something before I drop the big hammer on it and wipe out everything.

[Haro]

1 hour ago, zaster said:

Nothing is unlikely at this point. The boot drive is a Samsung SSD 970 Evo Plus which has less than 2TB of host reads and less than 2TB of host writes on it. Crystal Disk Info Reports a 100% health status. Keep the suggestions coming as I would hate to think I have overlooked something before I drop the big hammer on it and wipe out everything.

Do you have like an extra mother board of something because it could be bad power delivery and I think that's possible maybe

Maybe try getting that boot drive with like a getto mb and try booting, if it works then it's probably the mother board

[AbysmalCraig]

Best option would be to do a fresh install of windows. but looking at what you have written, it might be the m.2 drive being faulty but i doubt it. Its a weird one considering you have changed everything apart from the drive. 

[zaster]

19 hours ago, AbysmalCraig said:

Best option would be to do a fresh install of windows. but looking at what you have written, it might be the m.2 drive being faulty but i doubt it. Its a weird one considering you have changed everything apart from the drive. 

It is a long shot at this point but as a last resort I am going to see if I can order a micro HDMI to display port adapter and try to use my laptop to rule out a bad display port my monitor. I am pretty much resigned to the idea that I will have to reload Windows to resolve this issue. I just wish I had a better idea of what went wrong in the first place. That would at least give me some level of confidence that a reload will be worth the effort.

 

After all these years it still comes down to the same old fix for Windows, reinstall. You would think by now Micro$oft would have better recovery tools available aside from the nuclear option. This is nothing like my UNIX V days. Then we could fix almost anything without a reinstall. SIGH.

[zaster]

To add insult to injury sfc and DISM run clean. So based on that the Win image is fine. Crazy.

[zaster]

Let's put this topic to bed.

 

I am not 100% sure what I really did as I was poking around in desperation. Using the on board graphics via HDMI I was able to set up a "second" display. I then assigned that display to display port. I then found the display port went active for the first time on the RTX2080. As near as I could tell the add in card was directing output to something I could not see and until I just started poking and prodding Windows from the direction of multi displays it would not output on the add in card.

 

I know this is not a great explanation but I was just poking and trying anything I could do avoid reloading Windows. I did not keep good track of what I was doing.

 

Thanks to all who offered suggestions.