Possible broken GPU

Hey,

I have a ATI 5970 running under Win7 x64.
A few months back, I discovered some noise on my displays.
At first it was not much, but it got more and more over time.
Up to now, when I had to reboot my sys atleast 2-3 times a day.
When I was lucky, Win had detected a prob with the graphics system, and reset the drivers.
It normaly goes ok for the first few minutes after a reboot.
But as soon as you do some work which could involve 2D/3D usage of the card, it starts to go crazy.
Here is a pic of it just 2 minutes after the reboot:

http://twitpic.com/8td03e

At first I thought it was the OS, as I had several problems with ATI drivers in the past.
So today I ended up reinstalling the OS.
But the above image is actually from after the OS install.

So at the moment I would say the card is broken.
Got another one of the same model which I will soon test.

But looking at the age of the card, what should I go for now.
TBH, I would like to go back to Nvidia after all the problems I had with the ATIs.

The only requirment I have is that it needs to be able to connect 3x Displays, preferably 2x DVI, 1x Mini DVI like I have at the moment.
But I can change cables if required.

What would you recommend at this point?

Thanks,
derchris

yep, looks like faulty (temperature-related) gpu to me.

Do you game or is this just a productivity machine?

Budget ?

Test the other card and report.

If its okay then look into warranty.

The 3d bit would say temps or volts as these are the biggest things that change. The drivers resetting themselves sounds like a bad OC from my experience. Run GPUz in the back ground and set logging to on to see if temps go mental.

Force the card to run in a lower power state if possible. Not entirely sure how to do this on ATI but was able to do it on an NV card. You should be able to do it in trixx (low volts and clock down to requird specs) but whether you can get low enough for low power state I'm not sure.

At this point you could try reseatig the HS.

I have a temp monitoring tool running, and with auto setting GPUs are at about 60-70.
Most of the time I use a manual setting of 40-50%, then they are at 30.

The possible new card is also for gaming, like BF3.
Otherwise I wouldn't need a card like I have at the moment.

Could be the VRAM, which (depending on which exact card you have) might not be properly cooled by the heatsink, and wouldn't report its temperature.

if you need to run 3 screens then you're still pretty much stuck with AMD - unless the new nvidia Kepler cards have enhanced multidisplay tehcnology, but then you'll have to sit and wait for them to be launched. Also, if you're playing BF3 a few sites have started reporting frame latency spikes in BF3 with nvidia cards, which means that whilst their average frame rates look good, the game play feels "choppier" than on AMD cards.

Recommendation at this point will depend heavily on your budget - anything from a 6950 / 7870 upwards should do you, but given the 5970 was ultra-high end you might want to spend more than that...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by scaryjim

given the 5970 was ultra-high end you might want to spend more than that...

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Hence my budget question.

It is a Sapphire HD5970, I actually got 2x of them.
Will try the other one sometime today.

[OMG]
For that sort of money we're talking two of these.
http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphi...gv-r797oc-3gd/

Does anyone know how to open a Sapphire HD5970?
Would like to check fan and stuff.

Ok, got it sorted.
Used the other card, but had to transfer the fan from my current card, as it was not working anymore.
Was also the reason why I only had one of the two cards in my PC.

No more errors since then.
So there is either a total failure of the card, or if I can somehow get a replacement fan, can get it back into working order.

I am afraid, you may face difficulties while looking for after-market cooling solution that would fit this particular graphic card.Even though, the original fan looks very 'Arctic Cooling'ish' , this manufacturer does not seems to sell compatible fan (at least officially) , same about akasa, thermalright, zalman which would be another first choices for me to visit If I had similar problem to yours.

Maybe water cooling would be a solution ?

TBH, I was planning on doing a full system upgrade after my holidays next month.
So will most likely also upgrade the GPUs.