HP XW4600 Won't Boot After Video Card Upgrade

[CrownNZ]

I wanted to upgrade the old card in my desktop (NVidia Quadro FX 570) to an NVidia GT 740 I had. However after uninstalling drivers and replacing the card the PC won't boot. It turns off and on a couple of times, then repeatedly beeps 6 times with a pause in between. After that all the fans turn on to 100%.

I have tried updating the BIOS but it didn't improve the problem.

The PC will boot if both cards are in the system, but the GT 740 doesn't output any graphics.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

That graphics card is too new for the old legacy BIOS your PC has.

If you want to go with a nvidia card, you will need one of the GT 6xx models.  GT 700 and newer won't work.

AMD...I would not go newer than the Radeon HD 6xxx series.

Nowadays, you have 3 things to contend with...power supply, PCIe x 16 revision, and BIOS revision.

Yours doesn't pass the BIOS revision hurdle.  You need a PC with a recent UEFI BIOS in order for the GT 740 to work.

[shomiyato]

Not true, I'm currently running a GT 710 2gb x8 in the "graphics" PCI slot just fine. Plex server/player.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Very well then.

You can explain to this person what he needs to do to get the GT 740 to work in his PC.

[shomiyato]

Not sure. I basically just downloaded the drivers from the website, and that's all. I uninstalled the old ones first. Not sure what's the 6 beeps are an indication of however.

[CrownNZ]

Sourced from http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=emr_na-c01682505

Blinks red 6 times (once per second), then a 2-second pause, and then 6 beeps

Pre-video graphic card error

I know this isn't the exact model of my desktop, but it makes sense since i only upgraded the graphics card

[Paul_Tikkanen]

The GT 740 requires a UEFI BIOS to work, whereas the GT 710 must not, since it is an entry level video card.

There are dozens of posts on this forum where folks that installed the GT 740 in PC's without a UEFI BIOS will not work.

The xw4600 does not have a UEFI  BIOS.

[shomiyato]

Have you tried to reset the CMOS back to default?

[shomiyato]

I kind of want to install my RX 480 in it to see if it really will boot or not. Won't be home for another 2 day though. Actually, I have a 380x laying around, I'll use that.

[shomiyato]

Well, it was an r8 380 I actually had laying around. And I can confirm it does work. My only guess for why your video card didn't work is because of a faulty video card?

I'm pretty sure all current video cards come with dual BIOS for legacy support. I cant imagine how many PCs and their users are out there that aren't running current spec hardware/software.

Good luck and happy upgrading!