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HD 6870 dead?

Toilet_pepper

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Hi! I'm stumped if my Sapphire HD 6870 is dead. A week ago I tried booting it up and the fans were running at a 100% and the I heard 5 beeps with no video on the display. I tried forcing it on and off and the same thing happened and thought I'd just give it a rest for a day. The day after I tried it again and since I had more time to fiddle with it I was looking for the problem. I found out that the North and South bridge are heating up beyond normal. 5 beeps pointed out that it was a processor problem which I thought was near impossible `coz I didn't OC it that high and I have this big cooler to support it.

So what I did was borrowed a mobo and tried using my hardware there. The system booted the 6870 fans were not trying to fly and no beeps. It even went to windows so I thought it was my mobo and hurriedly went to the shop and have it replaced thru warranty. They tested my mobo at the shop and nothing was wrong with it. And they said it that my 500w power supply (cooler master silent pro) was not enough to power the my system. Which kind of made sense at the time. Since I don't know anybody here who has a more powerful "80 plus" PSU, I bought an FSP Aurum 750w Gold with the money I had left. (It was the cheapest modular 750w with a gold rating I could find.)

I went home benchtested my hardware and tried the new PSU. Just my luck! Same thing while booting up.Tried the old PSU and same problem vid card fan too loud, no video and 5 beeps. I facepalmed for 5 mins and left the system on. Turned it on and off again and it worked! I got inside Windows. So I checked temps for the procie and it was normal at 22C degrees idle. So I ran Catzilla and pulled up hwmonitor, gpu-z and afterburner. All components were at stock speeds. Midway thru the benchmark, display went dark I heard a beep but the system was still running. I forced the comp to shut down, unplug the power cord and touched the vid card. The vid card was uber hot to the touch especially the part where you plug the 2 6 pin power cords. I tried re-seating and reapplying the thermal compound and nothing happened.

Is it really dead? Can I do something to revive it? Is it time for an upgrade. I was thinking of waiting for the 8000 series for an upgrade but I guess I'm out of luck.
 
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Well first off that 500w CM PSU was perfect for your system. You can check my speccs and im running a pretty top of the range config with only a 450W PSU. And to anwser the question about your graphics card... yeah its pretty much dead or going to die. It seems to have been defective from the start and removing the heatsink pretty much voided your warranty if it had any.
 

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Card is dead. Buy a new one. Sounds like the card was overheating
 

Toilet_pepper

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Thank you! When I tried the reseating the fan on it and tried to run it again the gpu portion aint getting hot but the capacitors?? or VRM burns to the touch.

Guess it's time for an upgrade. I'm thinking of 3 models so far that ware within my price range which could work inside my price range.

Powercolor 7870 Vortex 2, Powercolor 7870 Myst (tahiti LE) or EVGA gtx 660 supercloked (non-ti) all of them are the same price which do you think would be a better deal?

Thanks again!
 

de.das.dude

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only 500Ws? boo

its definitely overheating.

TBH, doesnt matter what you buy. but try to go for evga as their stuff is solid.
gigabyte also makes nice cards. for amd try HIS, XFX
 
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I wouldnt use that shop anymore
 
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Powercolor 7870 Vortex 2, Powercolor 7870 Myst (tahiti LE) or EVGA gtx 660 supercloked (non-ti) all of them are the same price which do you think would be a better deal?

Go for the PC 7870 Vortex 2 if your looking for silence or better "overclocking" because of the custom fan design, the Myst for performce because its newer gpu core or the 660 GTX for driver stability with a turbine cooler.
 

Toilet_pepper

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only 500Ws? boo

its definitely overheating.

TBH, doesnt matter what you buy. but try to go for evga as their stuff is solid.
gigabyte also makes nice cards. for amd try HIS, XFX

I kept the Aurum FSP 750w and replaced the 500w. What's wierd about it is that the Aurum is considerably light than the Cooler Master.??

I'm not in the US and prices here are pretty steep for those brands. Brands that are available here are XFX, Powercolor, HIS and Sapphire only for AMD for Nvidia Inno3d, Palit, EVGA and Zotac. While MSI and Gigabyte has some few for both brands.

I'm opting to get the superclocked EVGA 660 as I have read that EVGA is pretty solid and reliable but the 192 bit bus just scares me. Though most benchmarks are not affected by the bus I could see when it gets affected it really gets hit bad.

The Powercolor 7870 Myst really caught my eye as it is the same price of the EVGA 660 and a little faster.

Here's a link where I get my stuff:

http://www.tipidpc.com/useritems.php?username=PCHub

I have roughly a month to decide as I have to save up for it.

Thank you!
 

Toilet_pepper

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I wouldnt use that shop anymore

Yeah. The tech guys there are pretty arrogant and think that their customers don't know anything about the wares they bought. I just go there because the deals are pretty good and i have a place where I could physically go and have items warrantied.
 
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the 750W PSU is lighter because it has smaller heat sinks, beeing a 80 plus gold means is does not generate so much heat.

As for what GPU to get, check what games you play and find the one that preforms best there
 

Toilet_pepper

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the 750W PSU is lighter because it has smaller heat sinks, beeing a 80 plus gold means is does not generate so much heat.

I didn't know that.:banghead:

As for what GPU to get, check what games you play and find the one that preforms best there

I was hoping to play the upcoming games with decent eyecandy like Crysis 3 or Dragon Age 3. Crysis 3 would most likely be another TWIMTBP game but Radeons would work better on it w/o the physx as far as the history of Cryengine tells and Dragon Age 3 afaik will use Frosbite engine in which Radeons would have a little bit of problem.

The only thing that really holds me from deciding with the 7870 MYST is the cooling solution. It has one tiny fan and no sinks or anything to cool the memory and other components. I think my 6870 died because of that. I barely ran it at extreme OC just 940 core and 1150 mem for 4 hours of play.

Do you think I could resurrect my 6870 if i buy an aftermarket cooler for it? Or is it just dead?
 
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Do you think I could resurrect my 6870 if i buy an aftermarket cooler for it? Or is it just dead?

Well you can't really unmelt something thats already been at a boiling point.

E: On second thought try having the case open, a fan on blowing air directly over the gpu, see if boots and is stable.
 
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Toilet_pepper

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E: On second thought try having the case open, a fan on blowing air directly over the gpu, see if boots and is stable.

Done that. I even benchtested it with a large industrial fan pointing to it. There was a time when the system booted up and I was able to run Catzilla. The Gpu itself is not heating up. Might the VRM or memory that heating up.
 

AlienIsGOD

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one of the best 7870s (non LE) is the Sapphire 2GB OC version. Mine idles at 31C and runs at full load at 57C. Clocks are 1100/1275. The Dual X cooling solution is one of the best out there.
 
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