Bad Video Card?

R

rivacom

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 23, 2007
Messages
348
So couple months ago my pc was having these odd random reboots, crazy color'd screens, and moments where the screen would go black and the GPU fan would kick on high speed. It seemed to go away but now it's happening again.

So the crashes seem to happen within minutes of starting up my computer, but are random. Most of the time, screens mess up, go black, and I have to manually reboot the machine. However there has been a few cases where the machine reboots(1033 bluescreen). So originally not knowing what the issue was, I pulled the Graphics card out, used onboard video and haven't had an issue yet. So now I'm assuming my cards shot.

Bad news for me, I'm over my 2 year warranty, sapphire told me i'm out of luck, and not really sure when i'll be able to fund a new video card purchase. The card was a Sapphire 6950 2GB Flex edition. Ran great for the 2 years and 3 months after the warranty, it's doing this.

Is there anything else I could try? something else it might be? I would really love to keep the video card, but if it just reboots my machine, then it just became a paper weight. Below is a picture of one of the screens that appears when I have to manually reboot the machine.

g4lreHml.jpg
 
Definitely a bad card. VRAM most likely with those patterns. If its out of warranty you might be screwed, unfortunately. You could always talk to Sapphire and see what they say.
 
absolutely agreed. Bad memory. maybe you should think in a "cook time, cake boss" ;) that has helped many people.
 
Araxie said:
absolutely agreed. Bad memory. maybe you should think in a "cook time, cake boss" ;) that has helped many people.
Click to expand...

??

Anyway, Sapphire told me i'm SOL due to the warranty. First card i've ever owned that hasn't lastest at least 4-5 years. Guess I'm on the hunt for a new one. However the issue is, do I upgrade or replace..
 
rivacom said:
??

Anyway, Sapphire told me i'm SOL due to the warranty. First card i've ever owned that hasn't lastest at least 4-5 years. Guess I'm on the hunt for a new one. However the issue is, do I upgrade or replace..
Click to expand...

some people are being able to solve problems with memory "baking" the card in a oven or applying high heat with a heat pistol.. thats what i mean....

on another hand.. at this points not worth replace that oldie 6950 I guess the path its upgrade for a much newer powerful card depending on your budget.
 
Araxie said:
some people are being able to solve problems with memory "baking" the card in a oven or applying high heat with a heat pistol.. thats what i mean....

on another hand.. at this points not worth replace that oldie 6950 I guess the path its upgrade for a much newer powerful card depending on your budget.
Click to expand...

My issue is I pretty much have no quick budget for this. But I don't really want to spend a ton either. I can get something like a 270x for 200, but I'm still on the 2GB/256 bit train. Where as if I jumped up to 300-400 i'd be truely upgrading to 3-4GB and 384 bit. I just don't know if I want to spend that right now.
 
If it's garbage anyway, BAKE IT!...in the oven of course. It may help! I did this with my bros 9800gtx and worked again... Artifacts came back, so I put it back in the oven for longer time at higher heat and no issues stressed tested. Or send it to me :D
 
Remember you freeze dead hard drives to fix them and bake dead graphics cards to fix them.
 
Take off the fan/heatsink and see if the fins are clogged with dirt/dust. Mine was but after cleaning it wouldnt boot. Worked fine before I did it. lol
 
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