17 R1, GTX 1060m upgrade, 8 beeps

Question

G'day All,

I recently purchased a Nvidia GTX 1060m graphics card which I installed yesterday in this 2014 17 R1, but all did not work out well. After installing I restarted my laptop and all I got was a blank screen and 8 beeps. Now I have done some research, and this error code is for a faulty LCD, but may also indicate a faulty graphics card. Reinstalled my previous graphics card and screen working fine.

Now I have done some reading on this site and if the graphics card is working fine then it may require a PSU upgrade due to the extra power requirements of the graphics card. Of course the card may be faulty, but no way of testing it at my disposal.

Any thoughts or help you can provide would be most appreciated.

TIA,

Mark

mattyb3 · Accepted Answer

If you have the 120hz display then the 8 beep error usually indicates an issue with the graphics card. If you have the 60Hz display then it usually means the display is having an issue.

Did you unplug the display from the motherboard at any stage during the card installation? There would be no reason to do so but you never know. If you did, just make sure that it's plugged into the correct connector on the board (there are two to choose from).

If you have the 120hz display then you must have an Nvidia card installed as the display runs directly from the card and does not go through the CPU integrated graphics. If the display does not detect an Nvidia card then you will get the 8 beep error.

If you have the 60hz display then you can run the system without a dedicated card. If this is what you have then remove the 1060 and see if the display works.

If you still have the old card then I would try that again to see what happens. If the system works then it's a safe bet that the 1060 is probably faulty. There's a slim chance that the vBIOS on the card isn't compatible but you'd usually get it to boot.

EDIT: I had a 980M sent over from the US this week and I'm having a similar issue in one of my 17's. I tried it first with a 120hz panel and then a 60hz panel. I'm getting the 8 beep error with both which is strange. Usually it will boot in the 60hz machine using the integrated graphics but the bad card won't be detected in the BIOS. I haven't had time to do any more testing in other laptops yet

m_fry · Answer

G'day Mattb3,

Thanks for the reply. Yes, as stated, I reinstalled my previous card and my laptop is working fine, so the card is probably faulty. Yes, I do have the 120Hz screen. Fortunately, the seller has refunded my money.

mattyb3 · Answer

@m_fry  Well it's good that you got your money back, not so good that it didn't work as you'd hoped though.

sala7blade · Answer

@m_fry​ hi, can you please update me with what did u do after ? Did u try other gpu ?i have the same laptop with the same issue could ir be from that the gpu is faulty?

Alienware

17 R1, GTX 1060m upgrade, 8 beeps

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