I recently bought a EVGA GTX 960 SSC 2 GB for my HP Pavilion HPE computer. I have an intel i7 3770 and use Windows 7. My motherboard says IPMMB-FM on it. I also just bought a Thermaltake 500W power supply because I thought my old one may have been the problem. Everything runs fine with an old GTX 550 ti, but when I swap in the GTX 960 I get stuck on the HP boot screen. My motherboard does have a PCI Express x16 slot that I am using and I thought it would be compatible with the card.
 
Why won't it work? What can I do to make it work?
Thanks

Bios 101

Go to HP and input your model number of your computer and see if they have an update,if not best to get another mb which can be updated easier.

bsmegreg
HP's website is a mess, somewhere on the PC it should be more specific like HP Pavilion HPE h9-1180, you wanna use yours in the search for drivers on HP's website in their costumer service and hopefully you can find the drivers. Download the most upto date one and then its kind of like installing windows updates once you click ok a bunch. Whatever you do, don't turn off or mess with the PC, even if it's frozen LEAVE IT BE. If you turn it off or mess with it wrong, The motherboard will be without a brain and basically a dead board. As long as you don't go down the road and your careful, it will all run fine. If you have trouble finding a BIOS, give me your full model name and I can try to help you.

Good luck :)

Thank you so much! I found the exact computer on the HP site. My model number is h8-1240t.
 
Unfortunately, I see no section for BIOS. I think that means there is no update, at least none officially backed by HP. Looking around the internet I found many reports of similar cases, but I haven't really found a definite solution. Also, I'm not sure if updating the BIOS is the right thing to do. I found a method of getting past the HP splash screen at the start by spamming escape immediately after turning on the PC (a message on the splash screen says press escape for the startup menu). It then appears to freeze on a black screen with white text saying my PC specs, but if I ignore my PC for several minutes one blinking underscore will appear. Then if I press enter, the startup menu will appear for a split second and then the computer will start like normal with the GTX 960 graphics card working.
 
It's a very painful process to have to do each time I restart my computer, so I would still appreciate any ideas you have. Is a BIOS update still possible, and would that make any difference?
Thanks again!

H10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwaredownloadindex?softwareitem=cp-142621-1&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&os=4063&productoid=5193500&sw_lang=&product=5193499

UEFI = new type of BIOS

I hope it will fix your issue.