Weird Problem With Graphics Card [please help]

[SkyKast]

Hey so I have a problem that i haven't been able to find any information on anywhere. I took a screenshot of what happens after 10-30 minutes of playing any game (experience from it happening in Crysis and Borderlands).

Let me know if anyone has seen it knows how to fix it. Thanks.

P.S. - Not even sure if it's GPU related but I cant think of anything else that might be causing it.

[erocker]

GPU and possibly even the vram are artifacting pretty good. You could try different drivers but it's quite possible the card is broke.

[Frick]

I'd say it's on it's way to greenes pastures as well. Try drivers first though, and it that fails I'd suggest you can try baking it. I've had some cards that was like that and a turn in the oven gave them a couple of more months.

[Darkleoco]

This one does not look pretty :/ I don't think drivers would cause that much artifacting.

[95Viper]

Try disabling Catalyst A.I. and/or turn off the Morphological filtering.

[AsRock]

get a house hold fan. Like a 12" one and having it blowing into the system and see if it still does it.

thinking the same as erocker being a ram issue on the card were it just had enough of working correctly or maybe the ram chips are a little to hot.

Use GPU-z too that will all so include other temps of the GPU and tamps of the VRMs as well.

[SkyKast]

Thanks for all your help! Here is what I tried:

First I tried adding a big fan to the side for super cooling...no go.

Then I tried uninstalling reinstalling/updating drivers...same problem.

Decided to take it apart and clean it out to hopefully get better airflow and noticed that the thermal goop was black and burnt near the middle:



I cleaned all the dust out, removed the old goop and reapplied new stuff, put it all back together and had the same problem.

I tried baking it as a last resort, following the instructions posted and when I put it in to test it, it wouldn't even display video. So this is officially goodbye to my 4870. It served for 2.5 years.

Good thing I have my old HD 4650 because my mobo has no onboard GPU.



What do you guys think about the XFX Radeon HD 6770 1GB? It's only $95 with the rebate and looks like a good buy.

I was wondering if anyone knew of any interesting things to do with these? I can probably salvage some parts like the fan motor and such.

[Chevalr1c]

Originally Posted by AsRock

get a house hold fan. Like a 12" one and having it blowing into the system and see if it still does it.

Sorry but I don't see how that could possibly work. Such a fan blows much more air onto the pc components than the exhaust fans can blow out.

@SkyKast: bummer, those HD 48xx cards were/are pretty little beasts. Maybe somewhat power hungry according to current standards, but hey they are from 2008. Performance wise they still kick ass sufficiently (I have a HD 4850 myself since August 2008).

But back on topic, things you could salvage are:
- CrossFireX connector
- cooler parts you mentioned already
- DVI/HDMI adapter, DVI/D-sub adapter and such

Oh, wait... I am only mentioning the obvious stuff...