Help with new video card

[Crash Orange]

No joy on the power button and the CMOS reset (I took the battery out).

[Brooke]

Arg!

There is the possibility that the card is bad (unless you tried it in another system, and it works fine).

Every once in a while, I do order new stuff that doesn't work upon delivery.  I send it back for a replacement, and that works.

Did you try the card in another machine?

[Bizman]

Brooke, I appreciate your efforts, they're sound advice and good troubleshooting practice in "normal" cases. However it's pretty much confirmed that this one is a HP bios issue. 

Thanks again for the help. So, where does this leave me? New motherboard or whole new system?

A new motherboard should be enough. Just get one that makes use of your other components i.e. same type of memory and same processor slot. And of course fits into your case. Even a second hand would do fine, they don't wear out in a couple of years. Just don't get another HP labeled

You'll have to reinstall your Win7 after that, using the license code on the sticker on the case. If you got an installation disk it won't necessarily work since it can't verify your computer being a HP. In such case download the 64 bit Win7 from Microsoft:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows7. Actually you should do it before you tear your computer apart! You'll also need motherboard drivers which you can download from the manufacturer's site.

[mikev]

Brooke, I appreciate your efforts, they're sound advice and good troubleshooting practice in "normal" cases. However it's pretty much confirmed that this one is a HP bios issue. 

A new motherboard should be enough. Just get one that makes use of your other components i.e. same type of memory and same processor slot. And of course fits into your case. Even a second hand would do fine, they don't wear out in a couple of years. Just don't get another HP labeled

You'll have to reinstall your Win7 after that, using the license code on the sticker on the case. If you got an installation disk it won't necessarily work since it can't verify your computer being a HP. In such case download the 64 bit Win7 from Microsoft:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows7. Actually you should do it before you tear your computer apart! You'll also need motherboard drivers which you can download from the manufacturer's site.

yup i can confirm Bizmans need for new motherboard . having upgraded an hp myself apparently your model wont accept the video card you have . I dont know if you checked the HP site but here are the results . if you scroll down to hardware options  and check  it pretty much gives you all the current options.
 http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=c03188873#N10041
dont know why HP always seems to put the lowest grade components possible but thats why i wont buy another .
  1 thing to remember if you plan on using the same cpu processor make sure you get the correct cpu socket.
 good luck...

[38ruk]

After looking around it seems that the older motherboards like yours cant run the newer video cards without changing a setting in the bios.  Under the security tab in the HP bios there should be an option to check to allow use legacy bios, they also said to disable secure boot as well . People have done that and have been able to get their video cards to work. 
Also some video cards will have a switch on them that will change the bios from uefi bios to legacy bios, not sure if the 960 has that option or not.

It is prolly a long shot but i figured id throw it out there just in case it works for you. 

[Crash Orange]

After looking around it seems that the older motherboards like yours cant run the newer video cards without changing a setting in the bios.  Under the security tab in the HP bios there should be an option to check to allow use legacy bios, they also said to disable secure boot as well . People have done that and have been able to get their video cards to work. 
Also some video cards will have a switch on them that will change the bios from uefi bios to legacy bios, not sure if the 960 has that option or not.

It is prolly a long shot but i figured id throw it out there just in case it works for you.

I think it is already using legacy BIOS - in the boot options there are no devices listed under UEFI and my hard drive is listed under legacy, so that means it's booting using legacy, right?

After a great deal of further digging it looks like that's the problem, the card expects UEFI, the MB is legacy, and HP won't update its BIOS to make them play nice with each other.

This card does not have that switch. Apparently there are only a few that do (plus some that have a switch for two different UEFI modes which wouldn't help me) and they generally aren't listed in product specs. The only ones I've found for sure are MSI GTX 750 2GBs. Not sure how they would run AH3, any input on that would be greatly appreciated, as are all the responses so far.

[Bizman]

GTX 750 is a lower end card, weaker than the GTX 660 HiTech uses in his development system. It would run AH3 with quite a lot of features disabled.

[Crash Orange]

Hmm. apparently some of the Sapphire cards also support legacy BIOS and might work with this system. What Radeon chipset would give decent performance without breaking the bank? With an emphasis on not breaking the bank.

[Bizman]

Hmm. apparently some of the Sapphire cards also support legacy BIOS and might work with this system. What Radeon chipset would give decent performance without breaking the bank? With an emphasis on not breaking the bank.

That would be a tough one, Radeons tend to use much more power than their GeForce equivalents these days. For a well performing Radeon you should most likely get a new power supply, too. Since you already have a pretty good new video card, a suitable motherboard would be the most stable solution.

[Brooke]

Hmm. apparently some of the Sapphire cards also support legacy BIOS and might work with this system. What Radeon chipset would give decent performance without breaking the bank? With an emphasis on not breaking the bank.

I'm using $130-$150 nVidia cards (GTX 750 Ti and a GTX 950) on approx. $500 Dell machines and getting 55-60 fps in AH3 beta.  To me, that is acceptable performance for a low-budget choice.

Comparable Radeons are likely also in the $130-$150 range on Newegg, maybe these (according to Tom's hierarchy chart):
HD 7870, R9 270, R9 270X, R7 370
HD 4870 X2, 6970, 7850, R7 265
HD 4850 X2, 5870, 6950, R7 260X

[Crash Orange]

That would be a tough one, Radeons tend to use much more power than their GeForce equivalents these days. For a well performing Radeon you should most likely get a new power supply, too. Since you already have a pretty good new video card, a suitable motherboard would be the most stable solution.

I was hoping to be able to return the one I got. A new motherboard is a fair amount of additional expense and a lot of additional trouble I'd prefer to avoid if possible. An upgraded power supply is a lot less of both.

How about the R9 380? That looks to be similar to the 960 in performance and price, and Sapphire makes one that's legacy compatible.

[Pudgie]

Hi Crash Orange,

If you're really looking at a Radeon vid card to use I would not get 1 lower than the 7000 series, but especially lower than the "R" series vid cards due to the new Radeon Crimson series drivers.

These driver's features & coding are optimized to get the best out of the "R" series & up AMD GPU's, especially the R9 series GPU's due to GPU hardware design advancements.

Any GPU series less than the 7000 series GPU's (absolute floor for Radeon Crimson drivers) will be using a more or less basic AMD driver that won't have all the goodies of the full Crimson driver stack coded in them.

Check the vid card compatibility charts on AMD's web site for these Crimson drivers & you will see this.

Hope this helps you out.

 

[Bizman]

I was hoping to be able to return the one I got. A new motherboard is a fair amount of additional expense and a lot of additional trouble I'd prefer to avoid if possible. An upgraded power supply is a lot less of both.

How about the R9 380? That looks to be similar to the 960 in performance and price, and Sapphire makes one that's legacy compatible.

I wouldn't trust anything that is not on the HP approved list posted already a couple of times. At least I'd let someone else (=the local repair shop) do the the testing at their expense in case something goes wrong.

[Crash Orange]

I wouldn't trust anything that is not on the HP approved list posted already a couple of times. At least I'd let someone else (=the local repair shop) do the the testing at their expense in case something goes wrong.

This is confusing to me - that list appears to be a list of available options you could select when buying that computer from them, not a comprehensive list of aftermarket upgrades that are compatible with the system. I understand that anything on the list is not guaranteed to work, but not being on the list shouldn't mean it won't be compatible, just that HP didn't offer it as part of the package they sold for that computer.

[Bizman]

Truth to be said, I'm not sure if you're right or not. Anyway, I'd at least ask HP as that list has been referred to as the only compatible ones by people who give the expression of knowing.

HP has done such things before, putting a white list into bios for a certain component. The last time I saw this was with an older laptop I installed Linux Mint to. Everything else was fine but I couldn't get the wifi working because there were no Linux drivers for that brand/model. So? I have a bunch of laptop wifi cards lying around... But: The laptop wouldn't boot, it just said there's an incompatible part and asked to remove it. Fortunately I could find a hacked version of the latest bios where the white list had been removed. I've seen the same with processors, too. Can't remember other components, but then again I haven't modified too many HP computers.

As for the costs, getting a second hand motherboard and selling your current one might only cost you the effort. Plus the reinstalling of Windows.