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Short version: My computer doesn't turn on most of the time with my new graphics card installed. But when it does turn on, it works fine. What's up with that?

I just got myself a nice new graphics card (a Gigabyte GeForce GT740) for my desktop. I plugged it in, turned on my computer, installed the drivers, restarted a few times to install some updates, and played Dark Souls for a while. Then I turned the computer off, and couldn't turn it back on again.

When I pushed the power button once, the cpu and case fans twitched a moment, and the HDD light flashed on. Subsequent pushes didn't even do that, although if I turned off the power supply for a moment, I could get another twitch and blink.

I disconnected and reconnected some cables and components for a while, and I somehow managed to get it to turn on again once. As far as I can tell, it was the same configuration as before. Again, it ran for several hours without any problems. Then I turned it off again, and it went back to fan twitch mode.

If I put the old graphics card back in, everything works normally.

I understand that these symptoms are indicative of a power supply problem. But it seems strange that it would cause problems at startup, but run fine under load. Or that it would start up once, but not again. What do you think, Internet?

Addendum:
I put the new graphics card back in yesterday, and it worked again, for several hard boots over the course of a few hours. Maybe it had something to do with being warmed up? But I tried turning it on again this morning, and it had stopped again. I unplugged what I could afford to unplug (a DVD drive, a HDD, and a USB add-on card), but that wasn't enough to make it work again.

Addendum II: The Specs
Here, in gory detail, is what's in my computer right at this moment:

ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard Galaxy GeForce 8400 GS Thermaltake TR2 430W PSU, W0070 AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+
2 x 2GB G.Skill DDR2 RAM
ASUS DRW-2014L1T IDE DVD-RW drive
Seagate Barracuda 250GB IDE HDD
Syba SY-PEX20140 PCI USB card
2 IDE-to-SATA adapters (Rosewill RC-204 and SYBA SY-ADA40011)

The new graphics card I'm trying to install is a
Gigabyte GeForce GT 740.

Incidentally, that new card has a PCIE2.0 interface, but I've only got a PCIE1.0 slot to put it in on the motherboard. They're supposed to be compatible, but could that be a problem?

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  • @SeanClt, cuu508's problem seems to be something different - he got as far as the windows loading screen, but I can't even get to bios. And my card doesn't seem to be fried, since it works some of the time.
    – Obliterax Scourge of Nations
    Commented Mar 24, 2016 at 1:22

1 Answer 1

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Chances are that you aren't supplying enough power for all of your devices to power on simultaneously. If sometimes it comes on, sometimes it doesn't, it means that the order in which things are powered on is not always the same. Sometimes you may be missing a disk, other times, the video card.

Replace your existing power supply with that of a higher output. To test this (if possible) remove another device (could be a disk, sound card, etc.) temporarily and see if the graphics card works for several boots in a row. If so, it's definitely a lack of power. I've run into this several times over the years, and always with graphics cards because they require a hell of a lot of power to run (which is why most of them have an extra power connector on them, because it needs more power than the slot can provide.)

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    I'd love to know why this was downvoted - I believe this to be a very likely explanation.
    – davidgo
    Commented Mar 23, 2016 at 2:30
  • Unplugging stuff didn't seem to do the trick, but it did boot with everything plugged in again, several times in a row. Is your diagnosis still the same? (Also thanks!)
    – Obliterax Scourge of Nations
    Commented Mar 24, 2016 at 1:41
  • I can't say for sure, but I believe its still a possibility that the power supply is inadequate. Can you provide the details of the power supply, CPU, GPU and any other major components ? That might help us work out the power consumption of the system and come up with a better guess.
    – davidgo
    Commented Mar 24, 2016 at 1:49
  • Might be over heating too. Try leaving the case lid off and make sure all of your fans and heat sinks are dust free.
    – Tim S.
    Commented Mar 24, 2016 at 2:54
  • I would test it with another PSU if you could borrow one from a friend see if it could be faulty maybe pulling more wattage then it did and its faulting out but only when its trying to load once its gets passed the boot point the power is fine. Just an Idea I had because its sounds like the problem to me.
    – NetworkKingPin
    Commented Mar 25, 2016 at 5:07

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