Update Bios to use a video card?

I’m new to this board so this is my first post. I was referred here for some help by some of the guys on elitecaraudio.com. What’s going on is I’m having trouble with my video card. I built my first computer today and although everything seems to be running, I don’t get a signal at all from my video card. I called BFG tech support and the guy said that the problem isn’t with my video card, it’s with the motherboard. He said that because both my video card and motherboard are so new, the motherboard doesn’t see the card. The motherboard I purchased is the ASUS P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe NF4SLI and the video card is a BFG 7900GT. His advice was to go out and buy an older cheap video card that my motherboard would be able to see, update the bios, and then put the new card back in. Some of the other people said it sounds like he’s brushing me off and to ask here, so does it sound about right to what he said? Or was I really getting the brush off?

It seems highly dubious to me. I'm not, however 100% certain. If you want to try it, you can get an ATI Rage XL 8MB PCI Video Card here:
http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=VCD

well in the case of the 7950gx2 alot of boards needed a bios update to work with the card. If the 7900gt card works in another rig, then update the bios.

Another thing I forgot to mention. The MB also has an 8pin ATX12v plug at the top of it, but the case (antec P180) I use has the PSU at the bottom. The 8pin cord isn’t long enough to reach so I have an extension on order. But before even trying to turn it on I asked a friend if this would affect it, he said as long as I’m not doing SLI I should be safe, is he correct? Or could that also be the reason I'm not getting a signal from the video card?

i dont see a 8pin connector for the psu on this board
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowI...Force4+SLI+X16+ATX+Intel+Motherboard+-+Retail
wait a minute...
http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?modelmenu=2&model=1280&l1=3&l2=11&l3=227

so how does newegg have a pic of one with just the "p4" connector and not the 8 pin.

Yes not having the 8pin plugged in will keep you rig from not booting. As the power for the cpu comes from that connector. Just like a video card with a 6pin power connector. With out it , it wont work.

ok so i should just wait till i get the extention cord before really jumping to conclusions? and yes, thats the correct board. The reason it looks like a 4 pin connector is because theres a black cap on the left set of 4 pins.

SamVJr said:

ok so i should just wait till i get the extention cord before really jumping to conclusions? and yes, thats the correct board. The reason it looks like a 4 pin connector is because theres a black cap on the left set of 4 pins.

Click to expand...

Yes wait or if you have a another psu you can jump start the second one first then power up the first one.

Yea, that was it, I got everything up and running. But I'm running into more problems, this time software. I can't seem to get XP to connect to the Internet for anything. And it wasnt even allowing me to look at my network connections. I ended up giving up and just playing LOTR lol. But whats wierd, is that after I closed LOTR, I noticed that in the bottom right I saw that the network icons were finally showing up but yet I couldnt do anything with them. Plus, I cant get anything installed that uses the install shield for installation. I keep getting some weird ikernel.exe error message. I'm surprised I was able to even get LOTR installed.

try a fresh windows install, did you make sure to update chipset drivers and other motherboard related drivers first before updating windows.