I've been trying to get my old GTS250 to work on my friends computer but no matter what I do I get a "no signal" on my monitor just after I get to the login screen. It's fine when I boot to safe mode, the GTS250 works perfectly in all 3 of my PCs and I've even tried putting my power supply into his PC to no avail. So it must be a software issue. I've tried driver sweeper several times and it runs fine and boots up after I take the drivers off but as soon as I install the new drivers again I get the same issue. I've tried multiple drivers, old and new but I always get the same results. I've tried out his PC with my 9600GT and GTX460 and they both work perfectly. I'm at my wits end with this and have ran out of ideas. His specs: CPU: Intel I3 550 Mobo: Asus P7H55D-M PRO RAM: Kingston 2x2GB 1333mhz PSU: Corsair cx600 HDD: Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 OS: Windows XP Home retail version (yeah I know, and yes I've tried, he's sticking with XP) The GTS20 is the BFG OC edition. Serial number: BFGEGTS2501024OCE
Smack it a couple times. Obviously this motherboard doesn't like this card. Strange incompatibility for sure, but I doubt there's anything you can do.
It could be that his motherboard does not support the pcie spec your card runs on. Some boards/cards have incompatibilities where they can't and don't switch down to say pcie 1.1 from 2.0 etc etc. I know the HD 7770 had this issue on some boards, I can't say for certain about the GTS 250. Another thing. Have you disabled onboard video in the BIOS first? I just did some fast research and found many people having this issue fixed by disabling the onboard video. No guarantees, but worth trying if you have not.
Bet you take its welfare away it gets back to work! Seriously, my Gtx 470 did that and it ended up being a bad DVI and Hdmi connector. I would move it one way and voila! It would come on. Also, don't be a cheap bastard, you have a 760, give him the 460 or at least for $50. Real gamer friends take care of each other. 250 GTS, I would drop kick it in front of you and say "thanks F#$^er!"
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/300161-30-p7h55-mother-board-disable-internal-graphics something interesting I just found out... "So, solved.. Thanks for your help!! As it turns out you have to install the Lynfield CPU for the bios to allow the video to be recognized and configured. The MB (bios) removes the clarkdale settings completely and allow for the PCIe slot to function. Changes the entire bios settings (add and removes some settings). I put in the I7 870 and the visiontek card and everything came up." It seems there is an incompatibility with Core i3 and video cards in general. This guy threw in an i7 and everything was fine. I found multiple places with people reporting the same issue. So if he wants to use the pcie port, he has to get a cheap i7. The i3 disables the pcie port and nothing can be done about it. It's a hardware limitation/compatibility issue. BIOS update won't fix it. From what I'm finding out, it's more than one ASUS board with the limitation. I experienced similar with a buddy and an HD 7770 that would not revert to 2.0 on his board. It was an old Nforce 590 SLI. SO in this case its a cpu limitation, but for my buddy it was motherboard chipset.
Thanks for the replies everyone, looks like I'll just have to give him the GTX460 and put the GTS 250 in my 3rd pc. He's not much of a gamer really. He might play StarCraft 2 once every two weeks but that's about it.
It won't make a difference with the i3. It is a hardware limitation. Chances are the GTX 460 will not work either. He needs an i7 on that board. Core i3 cpu's disable the pcie port on that board. The only way to get it enabled is to pop a core i7 chip on the board. If anything you could sell the GTS 250 to someone, and use that money towards a cheap i7 so he can then use the GTX 460.
Thats good then, it must be only specific cards with the issue. All I know from what I've read up on is that some cards wont initialize on core i3, and it seems that the GTS 250 can be added to the list. I find it odd that they can't fix the issue, and why it disables the pcie port all together on some cards. It must be a bus issue or a video bios limitation.
