Should I be worried about this GPU?

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StoleMyOwnCar

2[H]4U
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Sep 30, 2013
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I recently got a used 7870 Ghz off of Ebay for my secondary computer for about 120. It's only been used a few months, and came in and looked to be in pretty solid condition; just traces of dust on the fan fins, but the rest of the card looked pretty much new. I tried running a few 3Dmark11 tests on it.
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/2914040
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/2914181

Both of them came out fine; in fact above average for this setup. Max temp during testing was 73 on the graphics card, with a max fan speed of 33%. Which sounds fine. So everything looks good so far, looks to be another one of those ATI cards like my 5850 that will last for probably 6-7 years or more. Then the weirdest thing happens. I try plugging my Mini DP to HDMI cable up to a second monitor (primary one being my Qnix for this case, since I'm doing overclocking stress tests on the main rig). The thing just randomly bluescreens on me (error code 3B). Like instantly; seems to be directly related to hooking the display up. Then I restart and it takes longer to restart, but restarts just fine. Audio seems to be working on the second display I hooked up, as is the display itself.

The drivers are the latest AMD Catalyst. Should I just treat this as a one-off due to AMD's Catalyst drivers being wonky or wait a bit longer to leave that good feedback on Ebay? Link to the auction, if relevant. So far seems to be working fine with the second display hooked up (after the BSOD anyhow).
 
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Doesn't seem to be hardware level (or related to the port itself, I guess). I tried unhooking the mini DP to HDMI cable and alternating it from port to port on the card and this time the image came up on the other screen quite quickly. I'm really not sure what's going on here. I've just never had a BSOD due to hooking a monitor up. o_O

The guy had the caps on both of the mini DP ports indicating he's never used them himself anyway.
 
Chances are good that the card was used for mining. Double check to make sure there isn't a custom bios flashed on the card I believe I have read somewhere that some are known to cause issues with the display ports.
 
MrGreg62 said:
Chances are good that the card was used for mining. Double check to make sure there isn't a custom bios flashed on the card I believe I have read somewhere that some are known to cause issues with the display ports.
Click to expand...

Oh I'm pretty sure it was used for mining. The seller has an "Bitcoin mining ASIC Block Erupter Blade 10.7GH/s w/ wired power adapter" up for sale... and his completed auctions mention mining and doge. Oy.

Stole, I'd ask the seller what's up.
 
MrGreg62 said:
Chances are good that the card was used for mining. Double check to make sure there isn't a custom bios flashed on the card I believe I have read somewhere that some are known to cause issues with the display ports.
Click to expand...

Do I check this with GPU-Z?
http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/117995/powercolor-hd7870-2048-120301.html
In GPU-Z I looked at the BIOS version and this seems to match up with what the BIOS Version and Revision of this card says. What should I be checking? I tried uploading it but it says it's a duplicate of another one they have but I can't look it up directly in their db (151154.rom... how the heck am I supposed to find this?). Do I need to do some kind of checksum or something to see if the stock of that matches up with the stock of mine?

Should I perform some other tests on it?

Foxhack said:
Oh I'm pretty sure it was used for mining. The seller has an "Bitcoin mining ASIC Block Erupter Blade 10.7GH/s w/ wired power adapter" up for sale... and his completed auctions mention mining and doge. Oy.

Stole, I'd ask the seller what's up.
Click to expand...

Well what should I ask him?

I mean on one monitor it was working fine and now it seems to work with the second one fine too. It could be a driver error or anything (perhaps related to audio device conflicts before the graphics card took over or something). I don't really mind if it was used for mining (esp for a short-ish while), as long as the thing just works; I expected this card at this price point to have been used for mining (in fact I was eying them specifically because the mining craze is dying down). Under me, this card is going to be under quite a bit less stress, so if it mined with no problems, I shouldn't have any issues under me. This is an odd issue, and doesn't seem to be related to how much I'm stressing it.

However, if there are some better tests I should run on this that would point me in a direction conclusively I wouldn't mind doing them. It should also be noted that this Windows installation isn't even fresh. It was from several years back and even from another motherboard. I just ran a driver sweep to get rid of any old video drivers on it. I might should try a fresh install at some point...
 
Small double post, for now this is the message I sent him:
me said:
Could I know if this card was used for coin mining? If so, did you flash a custom BIOS onto it? I recently had a BSOD when hooking up a mini DP to HDMI cable to one of my monitors. After rebooting it was working fine, but users on some forums are suggesting a custom mining BIOS may have been used and is causing instability with the ports. I don't care if it was used for mining, but I need some information. Thanks.
Click to expand...
 
I have a 7950 XFX that likes to freak out randomly when i plug in an hdmi cable. These kinda things just happen. I haven't RMA'ed it because I want to use it for mining. Many people never test their hdmi port.
 
I received a reply from him very promptly.
No I did not flash the bios. It was used right out of the box.

Are you having problems with the card?
Click to expand...

I notice he's still being vague about whether it was a mining card, but I did say I didn't really care about that part, so it's a fair response. We can rule out custom BIOS.

funkydmunky said:
I have a 7950 XFX that likes to freak out randomly when i plug in an hdmi cable. These kinda things just happen. I haven't RMA'ed it because I want to use it for mining. Many people never test their hdmi port.
Click to expand...

Well in this case it was a mini dp port (why almost always need a converter by default because what the heck uses mini DP?). That's interesting though. If this isn't driver related, the guy might just not have even known about this issue because he never tried the mini DP ports.

For now to clear up possible driver issues, I'm going to simply reformat the computer and put a fresher windows on it (8.1)... on the SATA drive instead. This old IDE drive has been run ragged and the Windows on it has been through various bits of malware and all kind of leftover drivers, so to just rule all of that out, it might be safer to get it going fresh. I might be able to deal with this, if this is all that's wrong (supposing it's the card's fault). I just need to make sure this isn't part of some larger issue. Do you folks have any more tests I should run?
 
Alright I moved over to Windows 8.1 on that PC. So at first I tried alternating the second display between Mini DP ports and without much happening. Tried it a few more times, got one blue screen; the blue screen was weird, the text was cut to pieces and strewn randomly so the letters didn't line up (I'm thinking the video buffer was improperly filled, as the video array pieces were in the wrong places). System restarted, display is again working just fine after the restart. Tried swapping the display between mini-DP's several more times, sometimes quickly sometimes not quickly. No bluescreening. If nothing else it seems to be very random, and doesn't happen at all during normal usage; just during display hookup. What would you folks recommend I do with this?

And also if anyone out there just happens to be on a similar card with two mini dp connections on the latest beta driver, with a mini dp to hdmi cable and another monitor that is on a DVI connection plugged in at the same time... could you do some similar tests? My DVI is a 1440p Qnix and my HDMI is an ASUS with built in sound (really cheap).

I know it's a long shot for anyone to have a comparable setup, but uh... well couldn't hurt right?

>_>
 
StoleMyOwnCar said:
System restarted, display is again working just fine after the restart. Tried swapping the display between mini-DP's several more times, sometimes quickly sometimes not quickly. No bluescreening. If nothing else it seems to be very random, and doesn't happen at all during normal usage; just during display hookup. What would you folks recommend I do with this?
Click to expand...
If I walked up to you while digging my dirty finger in my eye and asking you what I should do about all the itchiness and redness, what would you recommend I do?
 
Your implication is that I'm causing a synthetic condition on purpose and asking about what I should do about my own insistence on performing a test that's causing a problem due to its nature. On the other hand, you have to remember that this has happened during just a casual plugin. In fact that was the first time it happened, is just during a casual plugin. I'm just curious if anyone has any more insight on the issue; I'm hoping it's just driver related. My leaning is to keep the card because it seems to otherwise work quite fine and it was at a pretty good price for a secondary budget rig revitalization.
 
Well, that's based off you saying that it's now working under normal conditions.

If you want to continue diagnosing a condition that isn't going to bother you under normal conditions then go to the event viewer and take note of yellow triangles and Red Xs.

Start > Run > EventVwr.msc > Okay
 
Hmm... well let's see. It works when I'm not unplugging or plugging monitors in, and appears to be very stable in said scenario, and the 3DMark scores look great... so I would say that's going to be 99% of its expected working life. However, making sure there's nothing else wrong that is like a ticking time bomb... is also somewhat important; I also wouldn't be surprised if this was a driver issue at all, considering AMD. I remember one time I stopped updating their drivers for over a year because the next one up caused a blue screen on my 5850 HD. Then again this is just a secondary rig, and I knew I was probably getting a mining card on the cheap... so I could not give a crap and just let it go as a quirk of the graphics card. I've had quirky hardware before and this is probably on the tame side of things.

I had an LGA1156 ASUS MB (heck just my last rig) where any USB ports... frontal or directly attached... would instantly disconnect whatever hardware was connected if whatever was in the port was even wiggled around or touched. Sometimes the mere mild in-house rustling of the wind was enough. It was quite annoying. When I was reviving this CPU I specifically decided to get a new MB for it just because of this. This MSI GD65 off Ebay is soooo much better; quite worth it for 50 bucks.


Anyway I tried looking through those event views a bit and there's not much to see. Nothing that particularly links it to anything concrete. There is a message of something ATI related on startup after the event, but it could just be a startup routine. I guess the next step is downloading debugging software and digging through the memory dump, because the message of the bluescreen (that vague 3b, which is the same as it was on the Windows 7 rig) is not very telling at all; looking it up online doesn't tell me much. Either that or just leaving it alone and stop unplugging and plugging crap in. Lol.
 
StoleMyOwnCar said:
Either that or just leaving it alone and stop unplugging and plugging crap in. Lol.
Click to expand...
That's what my finger in the eye analogy was supposed to humorously suggest ;)
(was based on a true story, actually, hehehe)

anyway, when you checked event viewer you didn't find yellow triangles or red X's? or those types of marked warnings were indecipherable? The ATI event was marked as problematic or you're just telling me that there was some event, albeit normal, and that was it?

We're specifically looking for errors. In fact, you should be able to go back to the point in time when it blue screened and check the events then.
 
mope54 said:
That's what my finger in the eye analogy was supposed to humorously suggest ;)
(was based on a true story, actually, hehehe)

anyway, when you checked event viewer you didn't find yellow triangles or red X's? or those types of marked warnings were indecipherable? The ATI event was marked as problematic or you're just telling me that there was some event, albeit normal, and that was it?

We're specifically looking for errors. In fact, you should be able to go back to the point in time when it blue screened and check the events then.
Click to expand...

I might have been looking at the wrong event viewer; I found it in the administrative tools section and only looked around a bit before going to bed. I'll try opening the exact one you told me to put into the run prompt when I get home from work. Keep in mind that it's also on Win 8.1 that it's on now (most people are on 7 here, so I'm mentioning this), so I'm not sure if the viewer is different in format. Hopefully not. Thanks for the tips.
 
When you connect the monitor to the PC, was the monitor plugged in and powered on at the time? If yes, then I would think such a reaction is possible. If no, have you tested with a different mini-DP adapter?
 
StoleMyOwnCar said:
I might have been looking at the wrong event viewer; I found it in the administrative tools section and only looked around a bit before going to bed. I'll try opening the exact one you told me to put into the run prompt when I get home from work. Keep in mind that it's also on Win 8.1 that it's on now (most people are on 7 here, so I'm mentioning this), so I'm not sure if the viewer is different in format. Hopefully not. Thanks for the tips.
Click to expand...
I just double checked with 8.1 and it looks the same so check it out when you get home and let us know if you see any errors.
 
Runt. said:
When you connect the monitor to the PC, was the monitor plugged in and powered on at the time? If yes, then I would think such a reaction is possible. If no, have you tested with a different mini-DP adapter?
Click to expand...

Both times the both the Qnix and the ASUS (which is the one I'm running Mini DP to HDMI to) were on. The first time it happened on Win 7, the Qnix was on and connected to the DVI port and I just took the cord from my ASUS and plugged it straight into the computer while it was on. This most recent time, I just kept unplugging and plugging the ASUS in while it was turned on (with the Qnix also in there). I'm kind of curious if it's an issue with the way the data is sent to the Qnix monitor since it's passthrough.

mope54 said:
I just double checked with 8.1 and it looks the same so check it out when you get home and let us know if you see any errors.
Click to expand...

I was looking at the right event viewer in the first place, just not the Administrative Events where you saw the triangles, so I thought you were talking about something else. Here's what I see. I took the "General" text from each event and copy pasted it here.

Code: 
These happened about an hour before the BSOD so probably unrelated; the BSOD happened at 4:29 AM while these occured at 4:07 AM:

(Error !) The server {1B1F472E-3221-4826-97DB-2C2324D389AE} did not register with DCOM within the required timeout.

(Error !) The server {BF6C1E47-86EC-4194-9CE5-13C15DCB2001} did not register with DCOM within the required timeout.

 

Logs after the BSOD (chronological order):

(Critical X) The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.

(Error !) The previous system shutdown at 4:29:06 AM on ‎4/‎21/‎2014 was unexpected.

(Error !) The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x0000003b (0x00000000c0000005, 0xfffff80001c2e9be, 0xffffd00026762840, 0x0000000000000000). A dump was saved in: C:\Windows\MEMORY.DMP. Report Id: 042114-15312-01.

(Error !) Audit events have been dropped by the transport. 0

(! Warning)The DSM service was delayed by 20 seconds for a driver query/download/install on device 'DISPLAY\ACI23C3\5&33176859&0&UID257'

Honestly I don't think this tells me anything useful. That error code is rather arcane as well.
 
Well, for what its worth, I've had nothing but problems with my 280x and 290 cards when using display port. My nvidia cards have been flawless, but I've had everything from blue screens, to failed POSTs, flickering, failure to initialize the display after resuing from sleep, screen resolutions going haywire, driver crashes, etc with my amd cards. HDMI seems to work fine, but DP has been nothing but a headache with these damn things, and I have to use DP to get 120hz. Only reason I bought amd this time was for mining, but I'll never buy their cards again.
 
Yep, I just found a nifty little program called WhoCrashed. Unfortunately I can't do manual analysis with the free version (and I don't have the time to at the moment anyhow, I'm so sleepy...), but its free analysis... may actually be spot on. o.o This sounds somewhat probable:

Code: 
On Mon 4/21/2014 9:06:46 AM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\042114-15312-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ks.sys (ks+0x219BE)
Bugcheck code: 0x3B (0xC0000005, 0xFFFFF80001C2E9BE, 0xFFFFD00026762840, 0x0)
Error: SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION
file path: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\ks.sys
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: Kernel CSA Library
Bug check description: This indicates that an exception happened while executing a routine that transitions from non-privileged code to privileged code.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time.



On Mon 4/21/2014 9:06:46 AM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\memory.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: atihdwb6.sys (AtihdWB6+0x35E15)
Bugcheck code: 0x3B (0xC0000005, 0xFFFFF80001C2E9BE, 0xFFFFD00026762840, 0x0)
Error: SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION
file path: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\atihdwb6.sys
product: AMD HD Audio Driver
company: Advanced Micro Devices
description: AMD High Definition Audio Function Driver
Bug check description: This indicates that an exception happened while executing a routine that transitions from non-privileged code to privileged code.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
A third party driver was identified as the probable root cause of this system error. It is suggested you look for an update for the following driver: atihdwb6.sys (AMD High Definition Audio Function Driver, Advanced Micro Devices).
Google query: Advanced Micro Devices SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION

The second one is self explanatory. The first error, I looked up:
http://www.techspot.com/community/topics/bsod-ks-sys.109385/

Definitely sounds like a driver issue with AMD's True Audio thing. Not for certain until I do manual analysis with another tool, but this thing doesn't sound too far off base considering this monitor has Audio and the MB has a default sound card... hmmm... interesting.


B2BigAl said:
Well, for what its worth, I've had nothing but problems with my 280x and 290 cards when using display port. My nvidia cards have been flawless, but I've had everything from blue screens, to failed POSTs, flickering, failure to initialize the display after resuing from sleep, screen resolutions going haywire, driver crashes, etc with my amd cards. HDMI seems to work fine, but DP has been nothing but a headache with these damn things, and I have to use DP to get 120hz. Only reason I bought amd this time was for mining, but I'll never buy their cards again.
Click to expand...

Well luckily my problem isn't anywhere near that severe. It's just on the first connect. Otherwise this display has been working fine for a day or so now. So not necessarily really a big deal. Probably gonna keep this thing. It's just for a backup rig anyway.
 
funkydmunky said:
Your card doesn't have True Audio.
Click to expand...

It doesn't, but it does have audio... or else I wouldn't be getting audio through this monitor beside me while I'm playing this game. It seems like a conflict between the default sound on this Windows system and the AMD audio drivers.
 
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