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Frustrated with new 5870

Y

yumosis

n00b
Joined
Dec 13, 2010
Messages
4
So its been awhile since I've come upon a tech issue I've really struggled with. I recent decided to upgrade from an Geforce 260 to a Sapphire 100281-3SR Radeon HD 5870 (Cypress XT) that was on sale on newegg.

Since I've had this card, I've had one major issue. At completely random times the screen on my monitor goes blank. The only way to fix it seems to be turning my monitor on and off. So far I've tried 3 different sets of drivers, 10.10, 10.11 and 10.12. None of them seem to have an impact on it. I can switch from an HDMI to DVI and it becomes flickering instead of random black screens. Yes, I also uninstalled the old nvidia drivers.

Specs:
Antec 1200 case, all fans on high.
ASUS VE278Q Black 27" (About a month old)
Core i7 @ 4.2 (Competely stable before the card change, never had an issue.)
P6X58D Premium (Latest bios)
CORSAIR 850 Watt PSU. (Never had a problem before now)
Windows 7 Pro, fully updated.
Its HDMI to HDMI, slot to slot, no conversion.

One thing I noticed that might be a bad sign is it happens while in the bios selection sometimes, meaning its probably not driver related. So, is there just something wrong with the card? Should I just return it and try another brand? Has anyone had any issue like this they were able to solve?

Oh yeah, I checked the HDMI cable as well, I swapped it out and still have the same issue :/ This is just killing me trying to fix this. I've been buying from newegg for years and this would be the first thing I've ever had to return.

One thing that crossed my mind is, perhaps its overheating at stock temps? There's no overclocking(On the card itself, its less than a week old) and its on default voltages, even though I've tried playing with them a bit.
 
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"I can switch from an HDMI to DVI and it becomes flickering instead of random black screens."
When I say flickering, like bad flickering. The image twists and flips for about a second before coming back. Sometimes it goes black as well but always comes back. Tried it for about a day.
 
If it's also in the BIOS... did you try putting it in a different slot? Resetting the BIOS?

If that doesn't work, then yeah, I agree it's a dud card :(
 
Its in the first PCI-E slot but yeah I try the second slot. Thanks for the suggestion. I'll try swapping the 8pin power cables out too.
 
Is there a bios update for the video card? My Gigabyte did almost the same thing. Just updated to the new bios and all was well.
 
I've never actually updated a bios for a card or seen one that needed it. Are they usually listed on the manufacturer's website?

I looked over Sapphire's site and couldn't find anything :/
 
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Get a hold of the manufacturer and ask them if there is a newer bios that may fix the issue, they'll usually email you the bios and walk you thorough it. Otherwise if they dont get back to you or help you to your satisfaction exchange it. Sounds like a card issue, and it very well could be bios related.
 
yumosis said:
"I can switch from an HDMI to DVI and it becomes flickering instead of random black screens."
When I say flickering, like bad flickering. The image twists and flips for about a second before coming back. Sometimes it goes black as well but always comes back. Tried it for about a day.
Click to expand...

Sorry when I read that I was apparently half asleep, I was thinking you were switching the input from HDMI to DVI back to HDMI on your monitor, not actually switching the cables. :confused:

Thats pretty odd.
 
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