5850 Video Card may be at the Root of Problem...

[jd16739]

Hey all, I am new to the forums since this has been my first XFX product. About a month ago, I just built my first computer with brand new parts all from newegg. Here are my parts that I feel may be causing the issue:

Video Card: XFX HD-585X-ZNFC HD5850 1G
Processor: AMD Phenom II x4 955 BE
Motherboard: GA-870A-UD3 AM3
RAM: G.Skill Ripjaw DDR3 1600
PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W


The problem that has found me has been happening for about 3 weeks, or pretty much the entire time since I’ve put together the parts. When I turn on the power button, the computer always starts up fine, with all fans and all drives making quiet sounds of a working system. The monitor however will only sometimes respond with the start up. What happens here is varied; sometimes my monitor will not recognize my system has started up immediately, and my display remains idle. I should mention here that I checked to see if it was a bad monitor, but it works with my laptop and TV. I don’t think it is the monitor.

What happens most times I try starting up my system is that it will ‘freeze’ sometime during either the initial BIOS screen, the “Loading Operation System…” screen, the Windows startup screen, the login screen, or IMMEDIATELY after I log onto my system and then the monitor, keyboard, and mouse will go blank, but the system itself will still be running normally. What happens the other 15% of the time is that my computer will start up just fine, and run normally with no problems anywhere.

So basically, I do eventually get my computer running after a few attempts, which isn’t horrible, but it is inconvenient for me putting $1100 into this build. The kicker is this—for the first time during running the computer during normal gaming usage, my monitor, keyboard, mouse all went blank and after about 10 seconds, I saw the computer restart. I CANNOT have this happening, so I’ve finally decided to do something about it.

My monitor is plugged into DVI port in the back of my XFX video card. There are no DVI or VGA plugs into my motherboard. In my video card, there are 2 slots for DVI cables, but plugging the monitor into either one of them gives me unresponsive problems in the monitor. One of the slots doesn't respond to the monitor at all or hardly (I'd say 35% success rate). Therefore I don’t know if it is the video card, but I can still play games at awesome speeds (Crysis at 35fps no problems).

So what I’ve done so far to check and see what is causing this problem.
Memtest86+ (4.0) and Prime95 have all passed with 0 errors and I’ve run them both multiple times, so my RAM is good. I’ve tried unplugging the power cord and holding in on/off button for 45 seconds, I’ve tried taking an eraser to the RAM (this provided temporary relief as I was able to start everything up fine 5 times in a row), and I’ve even tried messing with the timings and voltages in the BIOS. I can provide pictures if needed…

I've posted on a few other forums and they've suggested it to be something wrong with the video card. Since my 30 days to return to newegg have come to pass, would I still be able to mail it back to XFX for a replacement? If so, I want to know if this is actually the problem. If anyone could please respond with some advice or more questions for me, I would be very appreciative. Thanks!

[Ket]

Try another graphics card in the system. If all works as it should deffinately the 5850. Newegg should still take the 5850 back for a replacement. I don't know what things are like over there but in the UK the etailer is responsible for the 1st year of warrenty regardless of what they may say on their website.

[Baam]

Pretty sure you can still get the card replaced with the same model at newegg, Just can't get a cash refund after 30 days.