Used GPU that is known to work sat on shelf for 5 months and now won't turn on. Edit: Solved. Mobo had old BIOS that didn't support CPU. Updated BIOS.

[sethiroth95]

Hello,

I am building my first PC. Every component is new except for the used Radeon RX 5700 XT GPU that my brother gave to me when he upgraded last September. 

• Problem description: GPU is not turning on. I used a digital multimeter to test the PSU under no-load and load conditions and confirmed that the PSU is working. However, when checking the pins on the cable plugged into my GPU I get no voltage at the GPU. I do get 12v when checking the pins on the other end of the cable at the PSU. I suppose that I would only get 12v at the GPU if it turned on and was working correctly. I also tried a different cable and it still did not work.
  My main questions are the following:
  Why would a GPU that is known to have worked in September stop working after sitting on the shelf for 4 to 5 months? Is this because of dust? Can I clean it to get it working again?
  Is there another way to get it working again?
• OS: none
• GPU: Used Radeon RX 5700 XT
  CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
  Mobo: Asus X570-P
  RAM: 16 GB DDR4 (G.SKILL Aegis)
  PSU: EVGA 650GQ (650 watts)

Thanks,
Seth

[Michael2]

7 minutes ago, sethiroth95 said:

Hello,

I am building my first PC. Every component is new except for the used Radeon RX 5700 XT GPU that my brother gave to me when he upgraded last September. 

• Problem description: GPU is not turning on. I used a digital multimeter to test the PSU under no-load and load conditions and confirmed that the PSU is working. However, when checking the pins on the cable plugged into my GPU I get no voltage at the GPU. I do get 12v when checking the pins on the other end of the cable at the PSU. I suppose that I would only get 12v at the GPU if it turned on and was working correctly. I also tried a different cable and it still did not work.
  My main questions are the following:
  Why would a GPU that is known to have worked in September stop working after sitting on the shelf for 4 to 5 months? Is this because of dust? Can I clean it to get it working again?
  Is there another way to get it working again?
• OS: none
• GPU: Used Radeon RX 5700 XT
  CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
  Mobo: Asus X570-P
  RAM: 16 GB DDR4 (G.SKILL Aegis)
  PSU: EVGA 650GQ (650 watts)

Thanks,
Seth

maybe the pcie slot is broken, try a different one

edit:  have heard people have had gpus that would not work with generic drivers, to get it to work they needed to use on-board graphics to go download the actual drivers, reboot and only then it would feed video and all...

[bmx6454]

sitting on a shelf wouldn't break it afaik, unless water was leaking on it or something.

17 minutes ago, sethiroth95 said:

. I used a digital multimeter to test the PSU under no-load and load conditions and confirmed that the PSU is working. However, when checking the pins on the cable plugged into my GPU I get no voltage at the GPU. I do get 12v when checking the pins on the other end of the cable at the PSU. I suppose that I would only get 12v at the GPU if it turned on and was working correctly. I also tried a different cable and it still did not work.

could you clarify this? where exactly are you checking for voltage, in the end of the pci cable that plugs into the gpu while it isn't plugged in? from the pins on the pcb of the gpu while it is plugged in? is the pc turned on while checking?

[sethiroth95]

42 minutes ago, Michael2 said:

maybe the pcie slot is broken, try a different one

Okay, just tried the other slot. No luck. No GPU fans spinning and no display on monitor.

31 minutes ago, bmx6454 said:

sitting on a shelf wouldn't break it afaik, unless water was leaking on it or something.

could you clarify this? where exactly are you checking for voltage, in the end of the pci cable that plugs into the gpu while it isn't plugged in? from the pins on the pcb of the gpu while it is plugged in? is the pc turned on while checking?

With the cables unplugged, I shorted the pins using a paper clip to get it to turn on. I then stuck my probes down inside the end to make contact with a ground pin and the other pins. Everything seemed to work and I was getting 3.3v, 5v, and 12v each in their respective pins as expected.

With the cables plugged in I stuck my probes in the back side of the plug on the 20+4 pin ATX attached to the Mobo and got exactly what I expected 3.3v, 5v, and 12v each in their respective pins as expected. Next I tried testing the two 6+2 pin cables plugged into the GPU expecting to get 12v. I did not get 12v on the GPU end of the cable but I did get 12v on the PSU end of the cable.
The system was turned on during this check.
I hope this clears things up. Sorry for not being clear enough the first time.

[sethiroth95]

1 hour ago, Michael2 said:

edit:  have heard people have had gpus that would not work with generic drivers, to get it to work they needed to use on-board graphics to go download the actual drivers, reboot and only then it would feed video and all...

I haven't heard that till now. Unfortunately my board doesn't have on-board graphics and neither does my CPU.

[Michael2]

40 minutes ago, sethiroth95 said:

I haven't heard that till now. Unfortunately my board doesn't have on-board graphics and neither does my CPU.

Its unlikely to be the issue anyway, it was just a couple guys on forums with older gpus

[sethiroth95]

So, considering that this is a GPU which is known to have worked in the past, should I try some other troubleshooting strategies to see if it's the Motherboard that's maybe causing the problem?
I hesitate because I'm just not sure what exactly would be wrong with the Motherboard. I assume it's rare for both PCIe slots to not work. Is it possible that the PCIe slots aren't working and this is why my GPU fans aren't spinning and it's not outputting to my monitor? It just seems unlikely.

I've re-seated the RAM several times as well and even tried booting with one stick of RAM.

Should I open up the GPU and reapply new thermal paste? That can't be the reason the GPU's not working can it?
I just can't imagine why a GPU that was working just stopped working for no reason at all after sitting on the shelf for 5 months.

[Tech Cemetery]

Assuming there's nothing wrong with the configuration you've used to test the card, you'd likely be looking at a knocked off or dead component on your card. I would not recommend trying to fix this yourself if you've never repaired a graphics card before.

[Mattias Edeslatt]

10 hours ago, Michael2 said:

maybe the pcie slot is broken, try a different one

edit:  have heard people have had gpus that would not work with generic drivers, to get it to work they needed to use on-board graphics to go download the actual drivers, reboot and only then it would feed video and all...

 

9 hours ago, sethiroth95 said:

I haven't heard that till now. Unfortunately my board doesn't have on-board graphics and neither does my CPU.

 

That is complete BS. A GPU doesn't need drivers to get signal out and display something on a screen. It will always show a picture on a screen, the OS on the other hand needs a driver to utilize the card and all of its settings and features. But there is always a video out. How else are you going to install an OS or setup the BIOS? Or use a command prompt if you need a driver to get video out?

[Michael2]

5 hours ago, Mattias Edeslatt said:

 

 

That is complete BS. A GPU doesn't need drivers to get signal out and display something on a screen. It will always show a picture on a screen, the OS on the other hand needs a driver to utilize the card and all of its settings and features. But there is always a video out. How else are you going to install an OS or setup the BIOS? Or use a command prompt if you need a driver to get video out?

Just saw it on a couple of forums online man...

[Frizz]

6 hours ago, Mattias Edeslatt said:

 

 

That is complete BS. A GPU doesn't need drivers to get signal out and display something on a screen. It will always show a picture on a screen, the OS on the other hand needs a driver to utilize the card and all of its settings and features. But there is always a video out. How else are you going to install an OS or setup the BIOS? Or use a command prompt if you need a driver to get video out?

Actually without any driver at all, no picture would properly display. Even windows and the FW have a low level driver as this points out: https://www.quora.com/Will-a-graphics-card-work-without-drivers#:~:text=Technically not working graphic card,more related heavy graphic work.
Imagine trying to boot a system a system without a firmware chip. There are several reasons that would fail. One big one being there is no code to run the hardware. A driver is just code for hardware to run.
Sorry you may just have meant a proper driver but if you have even a corrupted windows/firmware/GPU driver the picture can not work or go haywire (I.e many people can get picture back after using another card and DDU to reinstall driver). It's just most of the time the lower level drivers built into the FW and OS don't mess up

[Frizz]

16 hours ago, sethiroth95 said:

Hello,

I am building my first PC. Every component is new except for the used Radeon RX 5700 XT GPU that my brother gave to me when he upgraded last September. 

• Problem description: GPU is not turning on. I used a digital multimeter to test the PSU under no-load and load conditions and confirmed that the PSU is working. However, when checking the pins on the cable plugged into my GPU I get no voltage at the GPU. I do get 12v when checking the pins on the other end of the cable at the PSU. I suppose that I would only get 12v at the GPU if it turned on and was working correctly. I also tried a different cable and it still did not work.
  My main questions are the following:
  Why would a GPU that is known to have worked in September stop working after sitting on the shelf for 4 to 5 months? Is this because of dust? Can I clean it to get it working again?
  Is there another way to get it working again?
• OS: none
• GPU: Used Radeon RX 5700 XT
  CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
  Mobo: Asus X570-P
  RAM: 16 GB DDR4 (G.SKILL Aegis)
  PSU: EVGA 650GQ (650 watts)

Thanks,
Seth

Are you able to put another graphics card in as the main and put this non working card in another slot?

You could then download DDU and boot into safe mode to attempt to wipe drivers out and reload one.

If that fails you could try your hand at flashing the vBIOS since it doesn't work anyway

[Mattias Edeslatt]

20 minutes ago, Frizz said:

Actually without any driver at all, no picture would properly display. Even windows and the FW have a low level driver as this points out: https://www.quora.com/Will-a-graphics-card-work-without-drivers#:~:text=Technically not working graphic card,more related heavy graphic work.
Imagine trying to boot a system a system without a firmware chip. There are several reasons that would fail. One big one being there is no code to run the hardware. A driver is just code for hardware to run.

 

If you don't get a display output before windows loads any drivers, like the POST-screen at boot then you have problems other than the GPU if the GPU is working. There will always be display output from a GPU before drivers are lodad on the OS. Either it could be a corrupt BIOS (highly unlikely) or a setting in the BIOS to only display output from the iGPU/onboard display out.

 

In this case I would say that the BIOS on the motherboard doesn't support the installed CPU and therefore there is no boot and display output. Maybe the BIOS needs an update to support the installed CPU?

 

EDIT:

In this case the BIOS needs to be revision 2606 or higher to work on that motherboard. 

Ryzen 5 5600X (Vermeer) (3.7GHz,65W,L3:32M,6C)    ALL    2606

[Frizz]

5 minutes ago, Mattias Edeslatt said:

 

If you don't get a display output before windows loads any drivers, like the POST-screen at boot then you have problems other than the GPU if the GPU is working. There will always be display output from a GPU before drivers are lodad on the OS. Either it could be a corrupt BIOS (highly unlikely) or a setting in the BIOS to only display output from the iGPU/onboard display out.

 

In this case I would say that the BIOS on the motherboard doesn't support the installed CPU and therefore there is no boot and display output. Maybe the BIOS needs an update to support the installed CPU?

 

EDIT:

In this case the BIOS needs to be revision 2606 or higher to work on that motherboard. 

Ryzen 5 5600X (Vermeer) (3.7GHz,65W,L3:32M,6C)    ALL    2606

Yes I fully agree it probably isn't , just wanted to be sure you knew how important drivers are, now back to trying to help the OP

[sethiroth95]

5 hours ago, Frizz said:

Are you able to put another graphics card in as the main and put this non working card in another slot?

You could then download DDU and boot into safe mode to attempt to wipe drivers out and reload one.

If that fails you could try your hand at flashing the vBIOS since it doesn't work anyway

Unfortunately, I do not have another graphics card available. What is flashing vBIOS? Where can I learn more about this?
I'll have to do some searching to learn more about this vBIOS that you're talking about here.

 

5 hours ago, Mattias Edeslatt said:

 

If you don't get a display output before windows loads any drivers, like the POST-screen at boot then you have problems other than the GPU if the GPU is working. There will always be display output from a GPU before drivers are lodad on the OS. Either it could be a corrupt BIOS (highly unlikely) or a setting in the BIOS to only display output from the iGPU/onboard display out.

 

In this case I would say that the BIOS on the motherboard doesn't support the installed CPU and therefore there is no boot and display output. Maybe the BIOS needs an update to support the installed CPU?

 

EDIT:

In this case the BIOS needs to be revision 2606 or higher to work on that motherboard. 

Ryzen 5 5600X (Vermeer) (3.7GHz,65W,L3:32M,6C)    ALL    2606

So is the default revision of the BIOS on my Mobo an earlier revision? An earlier revision that does not support my CPU?
Do I need another CPU to boot and update my Mobo BIOS? I only have the one CPU.
Shouldn't the Mobo be sold with the most up-to-date BIOS revision already installed?

I bought one of these Mobo speakers for $3.00 cause my Mobo didn't come with one and I think it might help just a little bit with troubleshooting. 

 

[Mattias Edeslatt]

@sethiroth95 Not 100% sure that you can flash the BIOS without it working with CPU and GPU.

 

See page 3-21

https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/SocketAM4/PRIME_X570-P/E17441_PRIME_X570-P_UM_v3_WEB.pdf

 

What beep-codes do you get when you connect the speaker and turn on the computer? See page 2-17 for error codes.

 

[sethiroth95]

@Mattias Edeslatt I took the board to the Micro Center near me and they are updating the BIOS for $30.00 which I thought was a fair price for the convenience. They told me 24-48 hours till the job is done so I'm hoping it's done by mid-day tomorrow.
 

3 hours ago, Mattias Edeslatt said:

What beep-codes do you get when you connect the speaker and turn on the computer? See page 2-17 for error codes.

If the BIOS update doesn't fix things I'll be sure to listen for beep-codes as my next troubleshooting step. 

I have a question.
My system is turning on and staying on; all the LED's, and fans were all running off the Mobo. Is it possible that the board recognized that their was a CPU installed so it didn't shut off automatically (I read that boards without CPU installed will immediately shut off) but because of an incompatible BIOS the Mobo and CPU couldn't 'talk' to each other?
And is it possible that this is what's causing the GPU to not turn on? 
I assume that the CPU needs to be installed and working properly for the PCIe slots to work properly and run the GPU; but I don't know the details and I'm looking for a confirmation (or a correction) of my theory.

[sethiroth95]

Solved!
Updating the Mobo BIOS fixed it. My PC can now boot and gets a display.
For any future readers that can't get a display out of their PC. It may not be your GPU. Your motherboard might have an old BIOS that does not support your newer CPU.

To update your Mobo BIOS you will need to use an old CPU or you can try AMD's free loaner "boot kit" found here.
Of course, if your board supports it you can use BIOS flashback; which is much more convenient than trying to get your hands on an old CPU or using AMD's "boot kit"
Taking your Mobo to your nearest Micro Center for a BIOS update may also be a convenient option for some of you out there.

Thanks to all who helped me find the solution.