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HP Recommended
HP Z800
Linux

How easy is it to kill a graphics card?  More appropriately, how easy is it to kill the graphics card's x16 PCIe slot?

 

I removed my Quadro 3800 to make installation of my new SSD on a PCIe adapter easier.  However, after re-installing the Quadro, I have no output to my monitor.  Nada.  I even moved the card down to the lower x16 slot.  I checked the seating of the card multiple times, fwiw.  Also, the card is receiving power - it is plugged in and the green power light comes on when I turn on the computer. 

 

I could buy another card if necessary, but I'd rather avoid it if I can.

 

Any guidance?  

15 REPLIES 15
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The power is supposed to be fully disconnected from the workstation before you get inside...... and you hopefully only blew a card and not a PCIe x16 slot.  Many of the components on the motherboard are still powered up when you shut down the workstation, and I have forgotten to unplug power fully also.  It is pretty easy to blow parts or even the motherboard.

 

If you have an alternative PCIe video card you can try that.  If you don't and want another FX3800 they are cheap on eBay.  May I suggest a better faster lower power draw card for you?  A Quadro 2000.  Even nicerand faster is a Quadro K2000.  Check the prices on eBay, used, for those three.

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The machine was unplugged, so at least I can rule that out as the cause of the problem.  I don't have another graphics card sitting around, but something off of ebay, like you mentioned, should work fine.  If I killed the slot, maybe I can use the other x16 slot. The machine still boots into the OS completely, because I can SSH into it.  I just can't send any of the output to the screen.  

 

I suppose I'll have the 'opportunity' to build my first computer if I can't sort this out.

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So, what type of "SSD" are you talking about, exactly.  What PCIe interface card?

 

This is getting a bit tricky..... good news to hear that you had the power fully off because the chance of disaster from what you did is low with that info.  The ZX00 workstation series has been tricky to get up and running with M.2 SSD drives in a PCIe interface card.  Can you just go back to what you had running before and see if you get video back?

 

Regarding the second (lower) PCIe x16 video slot.  The top one is the "primary" slot where your boot screen should show up from.  For the FX3800 and all the other Quadro cards we use the bottom of the card's ports is the "primary" port.  So, if you run a DVI cable off the single (bottom) DVI port on that FX3800 and have a second cable plugged in (at the next-up port, the lower of the two Display Port ports) the BIOS screen should always come from that bottom DVI port on the card.

 

HP Z Turbo Drives in the Z Turbo Drive PCIe card don't work in the ZX00 series workstations .  I did get the Kingston Predator M.2 card in its PCIe interface card up and running but only by use of a very specific storage controller driver I posted about in here.  For all that, however, you'd need to get things back up and running on a regular SSD with a clean install and then load on that specific storage controller driver, and then capture an image of that build (I used Acronis), and then clone that image onto the PCIe card-mounted M.2 drive by booting from the Acronis thumb drive and navigating to that drive.

 

I never fully lost my video however.... just blue screened until I figured it out.

 

 

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The monitor was plugged into the DVI port; I didn't / don't use the display ports at all.  The screen just says "check your connection".  I did reset the configuration to the last known working setup, but it didn't help the situation.  I still had no output to the screen.

 

As for the SSD, I started a thread about it here.  In summary, I bought a 2.5" form factor 850 Evo and mated it with a PCIe carrier card from Sedna.  I took a bit of flyer on the carrier card b/c the mfgr advertises it with a built-in power circuit so the user doesn't need a SATA power connector. The alternative was one from ?Excelsior?, I think, that someone else on this forum used successfully. 

 

I'm pretty sure the SSD rec'd power,  too.  During a reboot when I had the USB boot stick in place and I had the SSD installed (and the graphics card wasn't working) I heard the beep I've heard when I forgot to plug in the stick, or when the iso image wasn't usable.  That is, it sounded like the system tried to boot from the new SSD.  

 

Obviously, I never made it far enough along in the process to figure out if I could actually boot from it.

HP Recommended

Eurosm3,

 

SDH always has good comments and I agree that there is a good possibility that the PCIe drive adapter may be upsetting the PCIe input.

 

To establish that possibility, consider removing the drive adapter card  and moving the 850 EVO to an ordinary SATA internal drive bay. 

 

The Quadro FX series GPU's are tough as can be and from my experience since 2004, think it's semi-unlikely that the FX 3800 has failed.  I had 2X FX 550, 3X FX 580, FX 1700 FX 1800, and used an FX 4800 for three or four years.  I still keep a 2004 FX 580 to set up systems and use another to monitor my ancient server.  In the FX series, the X800 model was the top of the series. The FX4800 new was over$1,300 and I think the FX5800 for $3,500 may have been the first or certainly among the first 4GB GPU's- and made for video editing.

 

If the goal is to have faster drive speed, consider an LSI 9240-8i RAID controller that will run the 850 EVO at SATAIII speed.

 

https://www.cnet.com/products/lsi-megaraid-sas-9240-8i-storage-controller-raid-sata-6gb-s-sas-pcie-2...

 

I used a PERC H310 in a Dell Precision T5500 and that alone changed the Passmark Disk score for my first SDD, a Samsung 840 from 2212 to 2949. Those RAID cards will also allow more drives- and add SAS capability.  I think the 9240 can daisy chain up to125 SAS drives!

 

There is an HP z800 baseline on Passmark using an LSI 9240-8i having a Disk score of 10777. Passmark can not see the drives behind a RAID controller; that could be a RAID 0 or 0+1 variant of SSD's or whatever, but that is firmly in M.2 territory. 

 

BambiBoomZ

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Thanks for the advice.  I agree that breaking the card seems like a fairly remote possibility, but something isn't working now.  I did try reverting to the last known-good configuration as a troubleshooting step, but it didn't resolve the issue.  At least the computer will boot successfully to the OS - I just can't see anything on the monitor.  Really glad I set up SSH beforehand.  

 

I ordered an inexpensive ebay fx4800 as a replacement.  If it works, great.  If not, I'm not really sure about the next step. 

HP Recommended

When you say "last known good configuration" do you mean both hardware and software?  Or, just the OS software?

 

Do you have a spare HDD you can use to test with?  For me that is a 80GB WD Velociraptor.

 

Can you get into BIOS and use the option to set to factory default BIOS settings?  I'd have the HDD ready with a blank MBR partitioned NTFS long type formatted HDD, and boot off a HP or MS W7 installer disc and install from scratch... detached from the internet.  I'd only have the optical drive, the HDD (attached to the SATA port 0) and the card in the upper PCIe slot with montor attached via its bottom (primary) port.  I'd first have done a proper job of resetting CMOS using all the steps that have been posted about here and listed in the manual to get back to basics.  You have to pull the MB battery and fully disconnect all items and power sources, plus push the on/off power button to bleed the capacitors down, and cycle this process a few times.  I even bridge the 3 pins on the power supply rear end with my fingers to drain residual power.

 

There even are PCI video cards from nVidia that have been proven here in the forum to work on these workstations.  For my really tough cases I have a spare set of PS2 keyboard/PS2 mouse to get down to basics.  I can get you the model number of that PCI (not PCIe) video card for a quick eBay purchase.

HP Recommended

When you say "last known good configuration" do you mean both hardware and software?  Or, just the OS software?

 

Do you have a spare HDD you can use to test with?  For me that is a 80GB WD Velociraptor in its IcePack black holder.

 

I'd first do a proper job of resetting CMOS using all the steps that have been posted about here and listed in the manual to get back to basics.  You have to pull the MB battery and fully disconnect all items and power sources, plus push the on/off power button to bleed the capacitors down, and cycle this process a few times.  I even bridge the 3 pins on the power supply rear end with my fingers to drain residual power at that end.

 

Can you get into BIOS any way to use the option to set to factory default BIOS settings?  Remember to do the step to Save those changes on the way out of BIOS.  Probably not... the step above may be as close as you can get to that right now. 

 

I'd have the HDD ready as a blank MBR partitioned NTFS long type formatted HDD, and I'd boot off a HP or MS W7 installer disc and install from scratch... detached from the internet.  I'd only have the optical drive, the HDD (attached to the SATA port 0) and the video card in the upper PCIe slot with montor attached via its bottom (primary) port.  If that did not work I'd try using the lower of the two PCIe x16 slots.

 

There even are PCI (not PCIe) video cards from nVidia that have been proven here in the forum to work on these workstations.  For my really tough cases like this I use a spare set of PS2 keyboard/PS2 mouse to get down to basics.  I can get you the model number of that PCI video card if you want it .

HP Recommended

@SDH wrote:

When you say "last known good configuration" do you mean both hardware and software?  Or, just the OS software?


I meant the setup I've been using for a couple of years - Linux-on-a-stick, no HDD for the OS and no SSD PCIe card.  So, both the software and hardware were put back to their prior configurations.

 


@SDH wrote:

 

Can you get into BIOS any way to use the option to set to factory default BIOS settings?  Remember to do the step to Save those changes on the way out of BIOS.  Probably not... the step above may be as close as you can get to that right now. 


I could access the BIOS settings *if* I could see the screen when it was time to hit F11 or whatever it key is.  

 


@SDH wrote:

I'd first do a proper job of resetting CMOS using all the steps that have been posted about here and listed in the manual to get back to basics.  You have to pull the MB battery and fully disconnect all items and power sources, plus push the on/off power button to bleed the capacitors down, and cycle this process a few times.  I even bridge the 3 pins on the power supply rear end with my fingers to drain residual power at that end.


I'll save this as my last-ditch effort.  I'd like to try the new graphics card first.

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