Won't boot without video card

Hi,
I have a PT880 Neo-LSR and am trying to run a unix OS. This is the first time I've used a MSI board, but I've used many other boards without graphics cards since these are being used as servers.
The problem is that the OS won't boot up unless I throw a pci video card or a agp video card on the board.
Is there any way around this? I've searched in the bios but nothing looks like the culprit. Is there a jumper? Or is this a limitation of the board?
Thanks,
Bob C

I have never had a Server Board but why would you want to boot up a OS without a vidieo card...??? You should be able to post up to the point where the Beeps will let you know that no video card is present.. if a speaker is hooked up.. How you going to see what you are doing in the Bios.??? I must be Tired ....

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Mid 2007 24" imac only boots without video card installed

, do i need a new one or is it something else?
one day it decided to not boot. No chime, black screen. Can hear fans and cd/dvd spin. Diag. leds 1,2&3 lit 4 is not. Did some googling, and eventually found out that if i take the MMX ATI 2600HD video card out of the computer and turn it on, it boots up fine (still no chime however) and i am able to use screen sharing from my other mac to access it. Everything looks and works as normal, only there is no screen of its own. the keyboard wors fine, mouse, cd/dvd drive etc. I have already purchased and installed a new PSU at $120 which did not fix a thing, so i am hesitant to just assume that buying a new video card will solve my problem. so my first question is, will buying and installing a new video card fix it? and if so can i purchase an upgraded video card other than the stock ATI 2600HD? i have heard that there is an NVIDIA card that is compatible a GeForce 8800 GS 512MB i believe. and third, if it is compatible, will it work with the Heatsink for the ATI 2600HD or do i need to buy that as well??
I am trying to avoid the BS canned answer that apple loves to give as a solution, which is replace the logic Board. At nearly $1,000 I'll spend my time and effort it may take to actually find the reason it broke and attempt to fix it rather than just replace the whole thing with a new one. any suggestions or advice graetly appreciated.

so, a strange development on my imac problem. I have ordered a new video card for it, a 2600hd pro. today out of curiosity i punched the numbers i could find from the card that was in there and it comes up as a ati 2400xt card. that card was the one for the 20" model not my 24". whats up with that? does that mean that when my new 2600hd pro gets here it will not work in my system? I sure hope so or apple has some splaining to do!

Powermac g5 2.5 dual won't boot with video card

Hi all,
So the other day I came home to find my powermac g5 frozen with the fans going crazy. After a hard reset the machine would no longer boot any further than the grey apple (kernel) stage. After pulling the video card the machine would boot up and I could log in using remote desktop from my laptop.
The machine ran that way for a couple of days until I got a new video card. When I put the new video card in the machine would not boot again.(The new card is exactly the same one as the old one)(ATI Radeon X800 XT mac edition).
After pulling the card the machine still wouldn't boot (exact same behavior as with the card) until I let it sit unplugged for 20 minutes or so. Also when it's not booting I can see that a little red light comes on on the logic board behind the cpu's.
Anyways I'm thinking it may be a power supply issue but if any experts wanna help me out with some advice I'd be very grateful.
Thanks in advance,
Cory

Hi Cory,
See if it will Safe Boot from the HD, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permission.

Hp m8430f won't boot with video card

I have a HP Pavilion Media Center m8430f Desktop PC.
One day on startup my acer flat screen wont show bios or anything.
If I remove the 8500 gt and use integrated graphics, it works fine with my old crt monitor and I’m actually using it to write this.
If I insert the 8500 gt, however, my lcd monitor gets no signal and I hear no OS sounds indicating that windows is loading up or anything even though the video card works in another computer and I've replaced the motherboard.
I've tried pretty much everything I can think of, and I'd really appreciate it if you guys could give me some ideas on what to try next.
IPIBL-LB (Benicia) motherboard
Intell core 2 quad Q6600 2.4 GHz
nvidia ge force 8500 gt
Integrated graphics intell gma 3100
tv tuner card
Modem card
4 Gig DDR2 ram
Steps I've taken
Video card and monitor tested and work in another PC
Reset bios with jumper
Removed ram tried one at time .
Removed all cards and tied that.
Replaced power supply
Tried all above again.
Updated bios
Replaced motherboard and put it all back together

The 500w is definitely sufficient and this is such an odd issue. It doesn't make since. We've tested parts in other machines and even replaced parts yet the same problem holds true.
With the video card inserted does the computer boot at all? Do you hear fans turn on lights, anything or is it just dead?
I'm wondering if we should try to get the computer down to as basic as we need it.
1 stick of RAM,
video card
processor
Disconnect hard drive, CD ROM. and see if it boots with just the basics plugged in.
After that I'll admit that I'd be throwing darts in testing things to see if there is something that sticks. Something like trying something else in the PCI slot besides a video card to see if it stops the system from booting.
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Lenovo Ideacentre K410 won't boot with video card after OS crash and refresh

I purchased a Lenovo Ideacentre K410 from Fry's some time ago. It came with Windows 8. I added a GeForceGTX650. Everything ran fine until yesterday, when the system black-screened in the middle of a Windows 8 update. The update was running from the control panel. After the black screen, I finally got the system to boot again by removing the video card. Even then it said the OS was messed up and offered to refresh it. I allowed it to refresh the OS. Now Windows 8 boots, but not if I put the video card back in. Thanks!

Hi macaria,
Welcome to Lenovo Community Forums!
It might be that the Video Card is Bad that caused the Crash,
The system prompt you for a repair since it was not turned OFF properly when the computer Crashed.
Have the GPU Card tested on another computer or try a different GPU on your system.
Regards
Solid Cruver

Intel D2700DC + Arch won't boot without display

I've faced really wierd (to me) problem running Arch as mini webserver on the Intel D2700DC mini-ITX board with Atom D2700 integrated and NM10 Express chipset.
I successfully installed the system, configured network and started sshd to continue setting up other services remotely via ssh console. Then I disconnected the keyboard and display from the case and put it under the table. After that I was quiet surprised that the system was not starting up anymore.
After some investigation I've found that the system is not booting if no display is attached to the DVI port of the motherboard. If I start the system with display disconnected, I can hear one beep that notifies about successful BIOS POST, HDD led blinks 2-3 times, and then just nothing happens. System isn't booting up. If I attach the display right after that - nothing is seen on the screen, and display is immediately falling into sleep mode. Keyboard is still active though, and if I press ctrl+alt+del - the system is restarting, and, if display was just connected, it boots ok then. Also it boots fine from the cold state if the display was attached to the DVI port at the time of powering on.
As I can assume from the timings and HDD led blinking, the boot process stops right after GRUB is loaded. There's nothing in system log, cause it seems that boot hangs just before the kernel is loaded by GRUB. I'm really stuck and don't know how to work around this situation, because if the display was disconnected when system was powered on - then there's no way to see anything on the screen until next reboot, and if the display was connected - then the system boots OK.
One more thing to notice:
There was an old CentOS installation on the HDD, to which I installed Arch Linux. I've tried to boot it once or twice before installing Arch, and, as I could remember, it could boot up without display connected, on the very same hardware. So I suppose it's definitely something in Arch that is preventing the system to boot without the display.
I guess that when no display is connected at boot time, NM10 chipset completely disables onboard video, and because of this we can't see anything on the display until the system is restarted. But this somehow affects Arch, so it can't boot without any video hardware present.
Last edited by rand256 (2012-05-10 10:23:28)

I'm afraid there's no such option, but it looks like arch isn't booting just because no graphics card is detected in the system when display it disabled during powering up.
There is a couple of similar topics about some other linux distros can't boot without video card inserted ([1], [2]) with some recommendations on what to do in such a case.
I've followed them - including enabling serial console in /etc/inittab, setting nomodeset in kernel line in grub's menu.lst, checking for enabled splash-screens... but that didn't help.
Does anyone know what options should be tuned in order to boot Arch without any active graphics card present in the system hardware?

Chimes, no video, no boot when video card installed. Cause?

Dual G5 2.0 (late '04?)
Used for 5 years, then system started suddenly powering off. Eventually wouldn't boot. Tried swapping out ATI X800XT vid card for a 9600 (both AGP) & it worked again for a couple days, then wouldn't boot again. Put it aside for a while, came back to it yesterday, and came to these conclusions:
1) with X800XT installed, the system (PSU) clicks once, then nothing. no chime, no lights, no fans.
2) with 9600 installed, it chimes, power light on & steady, fans start, I hear the HDD click once, then nothing. no video out. eventually the fans go into overdrive.
3) WITHOUT a video card, it chimes, light on, fans OK, and I hear the HDD running through what I assume to be a boot sequence.
4) I have reset the PMU and replaced the battery. Also tried CMD-CNTL-O-F. Nothing.
Thinking it might be the power supply? Where do I go from here to diagnose the cause?
If it's the logic board, I'll tear out the guts & sell on ebay. If it's the PSU, I've read about someone replacing it with a standard PC ATX supply (don't want to spend the $$ for a G5 PSU.)
Thanks for any suggestions!

OK, assuming you have file sharing enabled, when you bring the machine up without video card, can you connect to it from another computer on the same LAN?
The fact that either video card blocks the boot is suggestive of maybe a power supply problem, though in my experience an overload condition perceived by the power supply will result in a click from the supply and the machine powering down completely.
That was a situation I had some time ago before replacing the supply. What would happen was that in a non-safe boot, when the kexts for the Ultra6800 loaded, the current draw would increase and the supply would trip itself off. (Puzzling mystery solution revealed just now in formulating the reply. Thanks.)
That being said, the fact that safe boot doesn't help plus the other differential symptoms between the cards really does suggest a failing power supply. A new supply around the web is on the order of $200, but there are plenty of used ones on eBay for much less, occasionally even a new one goes at a bargain.
One thing you could do is blow the probably well-stocked dust supply out of the power supply. Better to remove and do that outside, but you can make something of a dent with the power supply in the enclosure. Just be sure to do it outside, because the dust that can come out will probably be pretty nasty. (Of this I have personal experience!) Of course, under what you have reported, this has a slim chance of actually helping.

Windows 8.1 Pro won't boot without USB Stick

Please HELP! I bought a Thinkpad e555 without OS, created installation media for Windows 8.1 in a 64Gb USB stick. When the installation was finalized, I followed the instruction of removing the stick after restarting. After powered on, black screen for hours. Put the usb stick back and Windows booted, finalized the installations and configurations, and started normally. So I started with all of the drivers downloads and installation. So I removed the usb thinking that everthing was ok. But when a restarted it, it wouldn't boot until I restarted it with the usb plugged. Complained with the retailer and sent me a new one. Now I'm trying the installation all over again using a 16Gb USB stick. The same, the OS won't boot without having plugged the USB that I used for installation. What am I doing wrong? Note:NTB LENOVO TP E555 20DH000WGEAMD A8-7100, 4GBx1, 15.6" HD, Black, AMD R5 HD Grafik, 720p CAM, 500GB7200, DVD±RW, RTL bgn+BT, Numpad, No Fingerprint, Akku 6Zellen (48wh), None Preload OS

I have this problem on E455. Both in 8.1 Pro.It was after a driver update, but not sure which one.It doesn't what USB device is attached, just so long as there is one.

K9N SLI won't boot without a video card

I am trying to launch my MB without a video card. During start up it makes several beeps and seems to halt without booting. I have set the BIOS option 'Halt on' to 'No errors', but it didn't help. Is there any way to overcome this problem?

Quote from: Plus! on 17-May-10, 23:08:47
I quite often read about configurations that successfully run without video (either onboard or discrete). It is typical for the headless machines.
Those machines redirect it to something else. Typical to RS-232 or Networkcard.
They are not your normal desktop board.
I have a headless machine here, called a Cobalt Raq2, it outputs the screen via RS-232, else it's impossible to install anything on it.

MSI G31M3 V2 Motherboard - System won't boot unless Vid Card Reseated

Strange issue
MSI G31M3 V2 Motherboard Nvidia 8400gs graphics card
PC won't boot unless you reseat the video card. The box is not moving so this constant need to reseat is wierd. Is there an issue with this motherboard and Nvidia Cards?

Quote
Bios is loaded default - I haven't made any changes yet
The BIOS Version depends on the date the board left the factory. There is no default version. Please check your current Version for comparison.
Quote
480w PS Sunbeam I believe
Please check the sticker on it and write down the current limits (A) on all main voltage rails (12V, 5 V and 3.3V).
Have you tested a different video card at any point?

P6N SLI Won't boot from SCSI card

I have a P6N SLI motherboard with a SCSI card I'm trying to boot from. The BIOS sees the card (as indicated by the BIOS when "Quick Booting" is disabled), however, it doesn't run the option ROM on the card necessary for it to boot from the SCSI card. I've tried several different SCSI cards (BusLogic, LSI, QLogic, Adaptec) and using a couple different video cards, one of them PCI. The only things I have plugged into the board are the video card and the SCSI card. Nothing seems to work. Am I missing an option in the BIOS or something?
Thanks, Mark.

Quote from: Jack the Newbie on 13-October-07, 06:11:28
Did you ever try with devices attached to the SCSI card? After all, what you want to boot from in the end is a SCSI drive. Try hooking up a SCSI drive to the card, otherwise it is hard to tell if there even is a problem at all.
On the board I am using for example, the Intel ICH7DH RAID BIOS is only executed if there is more than one SATA drive hooked up to the ports hosted by the controller.
That RAID BIOS has hooks into the system BIOS so it knows whether to initialize itself or not. How a SCSI card works is by having a boot ROM which scans the SCSI chain to determine drives. My use in all this is to have my system boot from my SAN. I'm using a QLogic 2300 for this purpose - and yes, it is connected into the SAN. However, as I said, it doesn't matter what if any devices are connected. The system BIOS MUST execute the option ROM on the card before the system even KNOWS there are SCSI devices to boot from. I'm not even getting as far as that. the option ROM never executes.
Maybe I'm not explaining myself well and my use of "option ROM" needs explaining further. When you power on a system you'll see the following in order:
1. Memory detection and count.
2. IDE/SATA scan.
3. BIOS looks for external cards and option ROMs, if they exist, are executed (SCSI in this case). You see this stage when you see something like "Adaptec 2940 BIOS v xx.xx - Press Ctrl-A to enter settings" or something like that. Next you'll see a listing of devices connected to that card, SCSI devices in this case - assuming you have any plugged in.
4. After POST status screen - displays CPU, memory, any serial/parallel/USB IO configured and all devices initialized by the system BIOS and their assigned IRQs.
5. System BIOS loads and runs the boot sector on the configured boot device. If any option ROMs have hooked themselves into interrupt 0x13 (option ROM boot interrupt), i.e. SCSI, then a SCSI boot device is used.
My problem is that step 3 is skipped. My system goes straight from step 2 to step 4. Without the option ROM being called by the system BIOS, there's no chance of any SCSI device being used as a boot device.
A good explanation of what an option ROM can be found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Option_ROM
- Mark.

IMAC won't boot with USB card reader attached

My quite new 24" iMAC won't boot if I have a USB card reader attached:
I get to the white screen with the apple logo, but it gets stuck there and the little spinning gear below the apple logo never appears (I've waited several minutes). (In all my test cases, there is no card in the card reader.)
I've tried two different card readers with the same results ("iDOTconnect" brand and a brand new Apacer unit, both are USB2.0 multi-format card readers).
The 1st one I tried via a USB hub, the second one I tried via a new hub and also directly connected to the mac (both of those hubs work fine).
Anyone have any ideas?
Regards,
Strathglass
Message was edited by: strathglass

Hello strathglass
The same thing can also happen with other connected devices such as external HD's and iPods, the Startup Manager is lost and searching for a boot volume.
1. You may be able to fix it by going to: *System Preference / Startup Disk* and select the *Mac OS X 10.5.5 on Macintosh HD* then *Click the lock to prevent further changes.*
2. Leave those devices that cause boot issues disconnected until the iMac is up and running!
3. Only sleep the iMac, and be sure to disconnect those devices be for shutting down or updates that require a restart!
As a habit, I have always ejected and disconnected all mounted USB devices (flash driver, iPods, cameras, card reader, etc.) from my hub be for sleeping, restarting or shutting down...
Dennis

OS Mavericks won't boot without using safe mode

My macbook pro won't boot up when its not in safe mode. It gets to the apple screen and then freezes but I can move the mouse around. Safari also won't open even when it is booted in safe mode.

If you don't already have a current backup, back up all data before doing anything else. This procedure is a diagnostic test. It changes nothing, for better or worse, and therefore will not, in itself, solve your problem. The backup is necessary on general principle, not because of anything in this comment. There are ways to back up a computer that isn't fully functional. Ask if you need guidance.
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Make OSX SD/USB bootable lock, i.e., make Mac unable to boot without SD card.

Hello!
I'm trying to find a way to make my Macbook unable to boot without an external media to initialize the computer. Or at least a way to remove the harddrives from the listed boot options by hitting the option/alt key on bootup. I want to remove those options and force the computer to boot off the removable media. Is this possible, or has it been attempted?

The boot disk is specified in System Preferences>Startup Disk
What do you see when you boot to recovery and look at the startup disk and look at the disk(s) in disk utility?
OS X: About OS X Recovery
Try reinstalling via Recovery as stated in the above.
Do you have access to another Mac? If so can connect via FireWire bd access the Mini's disk via FW target disk mode
How to use and troubleshoot FireWire target disk mode

Windows 7 won't boot without optical drive (SSD, Dual HD)

I recently purchased an SSD and an optical drive HD caddy so I could use two HDs on my macbook pro. I installed the SSD in the normal HD slot in order to install Windows via optical drive. When I move my SSD over to the optical drive slot, Windows hangs on a black screen before the Windows logo and never boots. I tried moving the SSD back to the main HD slot but without the optical drive installed, the same symptoms occur - no boot. This leads me to believe that Windows will not boot without the optical drive (which was present during installation).
Perhaps this is a problem with primary/slave drive settings? I learned today that the intel chipsets in macbooks do not have BIOS for Windows and do not allow you to access the EFI. Not sure if that would help anyways.
Has anyone experienced this and/or have a solution?

I am suffering the same issue. Macbook pro 15 inch late 2009 with 8gig ram. I have a 256gb ssd newly installed, a dead superdrive (thanks a bunch for the drop in build quality without the drop in price apple) and an optibay caddy which i intend on having my 500gb 7200rpm previous HDD installed in. I had the normal annoying issues trying to get bootcamp working with an external optical drive. I then had the bright idea of taking my external optical drive case apart and discovered its a sata drive with a sata to usb convertor attached. Got bootcamp/win7 installed fine using the superdrives sata connector with the optical drive (essentially having a temporary internal optical drive again).
OSX and windows function fine as long as the optical drive stays connected. There does not need to be a disc in the drive, i thought windows might be getting boot info from the win disc. Osx boots fine if its just the ssd. Windows hangs with a white screen right at the beginning. Also doesnt boot using boot menu via alt key. Nor using the reEFIt boot menu (installed later now deleted).
Disk utility says it cannot repair the windows partition and says to back up the data and reformat the drive. This also happens if i use a normal sata drive. I am attempting a few more ideas but at this rate i will be virtual machining windows instead. Far from ideal but seeing as my windows pc is now officially no more and there are two pc only programs i need to use for university i dont have much choice i NEED windows. Anyone got a bright idea that may help?

Won't boot without video card

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