Wanted: Vega 64 experts

Brokennails

2[H]4U
Joined
Apr 29, 2006
Messages
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Have a reference Vega 64. Tossed a water block on and ran fine but temps were high. Pulled block, reapplied paste and now does not power on. I was very carefully but shit happens.... Saw a video of some one repairing a card with the same issue and am hoping there is a master here capable of repairing this paper weight. Sucks as I don't have the funds to replace it and now am without a PC.
 
Do you have any idea what’s actually wrong with it? Removing a block and re applying paste would not kill a card.
 
That's what I thought. Unless something happened to a surface mount chip during assembly... Board does not power up, no light and no fan. Removed block and replaced stock heatsink and still nothing. Switch bios too.
 
do you remember seeing resin filled between the GPU die and HBM dies, or were there gaps?

the interposer between the dies and the package is more fragile than the usual substrate and there have been reports of Vegas dying after being repasted due to accidental damage to the connections btwn the dies/board
 
Take a photo of it and see if you can spot something once you zoomed in well enough to spot if there is something wrong in that area..
 
There was resin. Went over board with a magnifying glass and don't see anything suspect... Case is a Phanteks Shift X so have to use the pcie riser card. If that is damaged somehow will that keep the GPU from powering up?
 
a damaged riser can definitely do that. i've even had weird issues where a damaged extender on one card prevented other PCIe devices from working. try with the card directly in board
 
the only thing i could think of is that if you over tightened the block you may of potentially cracked one or more of the HBM modules which you won't be able to see looking at the gpu but even then should still turn on just with tons of display corruption. i'd go with the riser being an issue first since it's usually a cheap item to test and just remove that variable if it ends up not being the reason.
 
Will put the card back together after work and see if I can try it on a friend's PC.

Thanks everyone!
 
the only thing i could think of is that if you over tightened the block you may of potentially cracked one or more of the HBM modules which you won't be able to see looking at the gpu but even then should still turn on just with tons of display corruption. i'd go with the riser being an issue first since it's usually a cheap item to test and just remove that variable if it ends up not being the reason.

hate to say this but I think this is the issue.
 
hate to say this but I think this is the issue.
Most blocks should not let you over tighten to the point damage occurs.

I’d vote the riser has an issue. I ended up removing my riser and going back directly to the board because of weird random issues.

Never had a problem since.
 
Nope, still dead. $300 paper weight. Not sure what I am going to do now. Used the last of my funds getting all my water cooling parts and finishing this PC...


Is there a market for borked cards?
 
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Most blocks should not let you over tighten to the point damage occurs.

I’d vote the riser has an issue. I ended up removing my riser and going back directly to the board because of weird random issues.

Never had a problem since.


It's EXTREMELY easy to over tighten, especially if you do not properly torque the 4 screws around the GPU/HBM so one side is tighter and it cracks the HBM substrate.

A couple of the bigger review outlets have done it as well.
 
I'd imagine if NOTHING happens when you turn it on, then either the connection to the board is bad, or something catastrophic has happened. Given that it stopped working after you installed a waterblock, my best guess is that you overtightened it after thinking it wasnt making contact and cracked something, possibly silicon, or possible you just knocked something off the board... In my experience usually when my card's GPU is failing it'll boot but major artifacts will show up, or it won't get any picture but the fans and lights will turn on, or if you had it pluged in with no power cables, again, fans spin but no picture.
 
Yes, there is a market for broken electronics on ebay. I sold an Android watch for about half of it's worth not working.

Also, if you need a cheapo spare card, I have some extras laying around. PM me if you're interested.
 
I had this issue, pretty sure it was the insanely fragile interposer

You could try RMAing but sort of your fault, but then again the vega die is imo unreasonably fragile
 
if it doesn't power up, then its a power issue (duh).

its possible that something is shorted.

remove the block, clean the card and see if it powers up and turn off inmmediatly if it does, the gpu has thermal protection but better safe than sorry.
 
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