6990 artifacts on one bios

Bowen · February 6, 2013

Hi guys.

I have an MSI branded 6990.

It plays games just fine and runs video perfect. However when I flip the infamous switch; it seems to be the cause of some artifacts. Yellow dots that run vertically along the screen and also show up in screendumps. When I flip the switch back to the second bios (the overclocked one) the card works fine and has no artifacts whatsoever. Careful scutiny of a 47'' 3D TV shows me there are no artifacts.

What are the possible faults i'm looking at here?

A corrupt bios or maybe even a bad bios chip? It is not a new card and was purchased from ebay last october. Would the RMA process be an option? I believe its less than 3 years old.

Thanks

hiyayhi · February 6, 2013

First of all you should check what the temps on the card are. if they are over 85-90, that is probably your problem. Another thing is that AMD actually states that they do not guarantee "The Switch" to work with all 6990's so the RMA process would just be a wate of time (but maybe not). This is precisely why I have not dared to touch the switch on my XFX 6990 especially since before I got my 650D I had practically no airflow in my case.

Definitely make sure the card is getting enough air though, that is my number one piece of advice.

Bowen · February 6, 2013

Should have had this in the first post.

Temps are below 80C, VRM temps are also fine. Motherboard temp is around 28C with excellent airflow inside my case. Hand modified fractal R3, they stole my idea about removing the HDD cages for the R4 haha.

Also to note: the switch never changed any setting the first time I threw it. I had to flick it down and then back again. Only then did the clocks change. Such a weird issue, I think its time to sell it on to a bitcoin miner and let them run it into the ground.