No Signal from ASUS GeForce GT 1030

Question

Background

I recently updated my PC from Windows 7 Pro to Windows 10 Pro using the Windows Medial Creation Tool, retaining my existing programs & files.

Following this update, I found that when scrolling through webpages or viewing YouTube videos (using Google Chrome), my display would randomly freeze for a second, go black, and then recover.

Inspecting the Event Viewer, I found the following was reported for these events:

Display driver igfx stopped responding and has successfully recovered.

At this point, my monitor was connected to the DisplayPort of my onboard Intel HD Graphics 4600.

In an effort to resolve this, I tried the following:

• Checked that the display adaptor driver was up-to-date through Device Manager.
• Uninstalled & reinstalled the display adaptor driver.
• Downloaded the latest Windows 10 display adaptor drivers from the Intel website.
• Reinstalled the Windows 10 OS using the 'Reset this PC' option (retaining personal files).

Since none of the above solved the problem, I figured that I could bypass the problem by purchasing & installing a dedicated graphics card, and so I opted for the ASUS GeForce GT 1030 as it looked to offer reasonably good performance for the price.

The Problem

I performed the following steps to install the graphics card:

• Powered off PC.
• Inserted the graphics card into the available PCIe 16x slot on the motherboard (image below).
• Connected my monitor to the HDMI output on the card.
• Powered on PC.

At this point, the monitor detected that it was connected via a HDMI cable, but was not receiving a signal from the graphics card.

I waited a little while because I figured that the PC would need to install an appropriate driver for the card, but after some time, the monitor was still not receiving a signal from the card.

With the PC still powered on, I connected the monitor to the DisplayPort output of the onboard Intel HD Graphics 4600, but still received no signal.

I then powered off the PC (hard shutdown), removed the GT 1030 card, and then powered on the PC with the monitor connected to the DisplayPort output of the Intel HD Graphics 4600 onboard, and the monitor does receive a signal.

Connected to the Intel HD 4600 and with the GT 1030 disconnected, I then manually installed the display drivers for the GT 1030 using the disc provided with the card.

I then reconnected the GT 1030 card and connected the monitor to the HDMI output on the card. But the monitor still reported no signal from the HDMI output on the card, nor the DisplayPort output on the onboard.

PC Specification

• Lenovo ThinkCentre M83 SFF
• Intel i7-4790 @3.60GHz
• 16GB (2 x 8GB) RAM
• 500GB 2.5" Seagate SSHD
• Intel Q85 motherboard

Monitor: Dell U2417H

Here are the specs for my PSU:

Here is the PCIe 16x slot that I'm using for the graphics card:

And with the graphics card installed:

TL;DR

• With the GT 1030 graphics card installed, I receive no signal from either the graphics card ports nor the ports for my Intel HD 4600 onboard.

• With the GT 1030 removed, I receive a signal from the Intel HD 4600 onboard.

Have any of you experienced this before and could offer any advice on how I can solve this?

Many thanks for your time reading this.

Answer 1

With the GT 1030 graphics card installed, I receive no signal from either the graphics card ports nor the ports for my Intel HD 4600 onboard.

Not receiving a signal from the motherboard port is normal when a GPU is plugged in - this is usually a BIOS setting.

Did you try plugging the gpu into the other pcie slot (if possible)?

Answer 2

Following @John's suggestion in the comments recommending that I update the BIOS, I used the Lenovo Vantage application to successfully update the BIOS to the latest version (and also update the driver for the Intel Chipset at the same time).

However, following this update, the original driver error was still consistently reproducible:

Display driver igfx stopped responding and has successfully recovered.

And I still received no signal from the ASUS GeForce GT 1030 graphics card.

---

At this point I was on the brink of giving up and continuing to suffer the intermittent display driver error, but as a last resort, I removed a working NVIDIA GT 730 from another Lenovo PC in my possession and tried it in the PCIe slot of the Lenovo M83 PC in question.

The GT 730 outputted a (low resolution) display immediately on booting the PC (as expected), with the PC then automatically downloading & installing the appropriate display drivers to then yield a HD display.

Using the NVIDIA GT 730 (which, according to the PassMark benchmark, offers only marginally better performance to the onboard Intel HD 4600 GPU), I now no longer appear to suffer the display driver error.

And, coincidentally, based on the PassMark Video Card benchmark score, the Intel HD 630 onboard GPU in my other PC actually scores higher than the NVIDIA GT 730 that it was shipped with!

Having tried different HDMI cables to eliminate as many variables as possible, I can only assume that the ASUS GeForce GT 1030 graphics card was perhaps faulty (I can't test it in my other PC, as there isn't sufficient space to accommodate the heatsink).

It also remains a mystery as to what was causing the display driver error in the first place.