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I have managed to secure a broken 4870 for free, cost me £3 for delivery. I dont have a cooler for it or anything, its a bare card with a waterblock, the guy says the card has blown up, i dont believe this and want to try and get it working, any advice apart from probing it with a multimeter or looking to see if there is any physical damage?
In the end i can always ebay it as hardly used :P (i joke!)
Visual inspection first, make sure there are no obvious signs of damaged components (burnt or broken) or physically missing components, its not unheard of for people to break components off the pcb being too heavy handed and careless when removing graphics cards.
Once you are happy there is nothing damaged or missing then its time to get the multimeter out, though without something to compare it against, i.e. another working identical card, it could be difficult to know what measurements are good or bad unless they are blindingly obvious. Shorts to ground and such like.
Helpful stuff, any more?
I'm guessing that if it's watercooled and has "blown up" then it's using an EK waterblock which caused many problems with cards due to the lack of spacers, shorting the card. Maybe if you try it on air (stock or aftermarket) then it could still be working...
Or you could Ebay the waterblock for more than £3, ebay the card as faulty. Profit. Other than what Mac said though, there isnt much else you can do, apart from maybe put it in your system as a second card and see if it's recognised, or re-flash the BIOS?
If the gpu is bare on the 4870 (ie doesn't have a heat spreader, then clean off the gpu and carefully check than for damage too, esp around the edges.
Misshandleing the cooler can crack the gpu or chip a bit off the edge, while it may not look too bad that will effectively kill it.
Hunt around on fleabay for a stock cooler or some other replacement that will fit it and not cost too much.