Broken GPU?

RyanMacRocks · March 14, 2016

About a month ago, my R7970 broke, it had giant blue vertical artifacts running down the screen. Today I finally decided to do something about it and tried the oven reflow solder method. After heating it in the oven I waited for it to cool and then put the heatsink and fan back on, turned on my computer and it seemed to be working fine, except for the fact that the display didn't turn on until I got to the Windows 10 lock screen (about 15 seconds from turning the PC on). Anyways, once I got to the desktop I still had no artifacting or any problems, so I fired up Furmark. It ran fine for about 2 minutes until the display shut off. It came back on again about 10 seconds later, then 10 seconds after it came back on it turned off again, this time for 15 seconds. The display kept cutting out for longer and longer periods of time until eventually it never turned on again. I powered off the computer, waited 15 minutes, and am now typing this post from this exact computer with no problems. However, if I fire up anything stressful, the display will start cutting out again. Any suggestions?

I highly doubt this is a monitor or cable problem.

KezzaMcFezza · March 14, 2016

3 minutes ago, RyanMacRocks said:

About a month ago, my R7970 broke, it had giant blue vertical artifacts running down the screen. Today I finally decided to do something about it and tried the oven reflow solder method. After heating it in the oven I waited for it to cool and then put the heatsink and fan back on, turned on my computer and it seemed to be working fine, except for the fact that the display didn't turn on until I got to the Windows 10 lock screen (about 15 seconds from turning the PC on). Anyways, once I got to the desktop I still had no artifacting or any problems, so I fired up Furmark. It ran fine for about 2 minutes until the display shut off. It came back on again about 10 seconds later, then 10 seconds after it came back on it turned off again, this time for 15 seconds. The display kept cutting out for longer and longer periods of time until eventually it never turned on again. I powered off the computer, waited 15 minutes, and am now typing this post from this exact computer with no problems. However, if I fire up anything stressful, the display will start cutting out again. Any suggestions?

I highly doubt this is a monitor or cable problem.

Maybe it's a dead card. you maybe have damage some power delivery traces or something in the bake though don't quote me on that.

Hope this helps

RyanMacRocks · March 14, 2016

Just now, ProKeero said:

Maybe it's a dead card. you maybe have damage some power delivery traces or something in the bake though don't quote me on that.

Hope this helps

Might be true, however it's certainly strange that it works fine for non-stressful tasks such as browsing the forums and right now it even seems to be playing video perfectly fine. Maybe the card can only handle a certain amount of power draw and beyond that its dead? I have a 600W EVGA Bronze PSU, so it certainly has all the power it needs on that end.

zMeul · March 14, 2016

it's dead jim, and putting it in the oven didn't help

March 14, 2016

24 minutes ago, RyanMacRocks said:

About a month ago, my R7970 broke, it had giant blue vertical artifacts running down the screen. Today I finally decided to do something about it and tried the oven reflow solder method. After heating it in the oven I waited for it to cool and then put the heatsink and fan back on, turned on my computer and it seemed to be working fine, except for the fact that the display didn't turn on until I got to the Windows 10 lock screen (about 15 seconds from turning the PC on). Anyways, once I got to the desktop I still had no artifacting or any problems, so I fired up Furmark. It ran fine for about 2 minutes until the display shut off. It came back on again about 10 seconds later, then 10 seconds after it came back on it turned off again, this time for 15 seconds. The display kept cutting out for longer and longer periods of time until eventually it never turned on again. I powered off the computer, waited 15 minutes, and am now typing this post from this exact computer with no problems. However, if I fire up anything stressful, the display will start cutting out again. Any suggestions?

I highly doubt this is a monitor or cable problem.

For some reason putting my GPU in an oven just hits me right in the logic, hard. But, I am a noob so perhaps that's standard procedure. Anyway, I'd cut my losses on this one; seems to me that your card is on its way out the door. Is it sentimental? Or you just short on cash for a replacement? Seems to me to be a bit much to try and bake your card back to life but again, I am quite the novice.

RyanMacRocks · March 14, 2016

17 hours ago, Stylized_Violence said:

For some reason putting my GPU in an oven just hits me right in the logic, hard. But, I am a noob so perhaps that's standard procedure. Anyway, I'd cut my losses on this one; seems to me that your card is on its way out the door. Is it sentimental? Or you just short on cash for a replacement? Seems to me to be a bit much to try and bake your card back to life but again, I am quite the novice.

Sorry for the late reply, I thought putting it in the oven was pretty illogical too, but after I saw Linus' video on it I did some research and found that it actually has a high success rate. Apparently heating the oven to 385 F is enough to melt the solder and allow it to reconnect and fix any loose connections.

As for it being dead, I wasn't really expecting much more to come out of it, but it has been a really good card for the time I've had it. Bought it off of Craigslist for $85 a few months ago (pretty good deal considering a new 280x costs about $200) and it worked great until about a month ago. I'm a little short on cash, but I'm thinking I might replace it for a R9 370 or 380 or maybe even save up for a 390 or 970.

March 15, 2016

2 hours ago, RyanMacRocks said:

Sorry for the late reply, I thought putting it in the oven was pretty illogical too, but after I saw Linus' video on it I did some research and found that it actually has a high success rate. Apparently heating the oven to 385 F is enough to melt the solder and allow it to reconnect and fix any loose connections.

As for it being dead, I wasn't really expecting much more to come out of it, but it has been a really good card for the time I've had it. Bought it off of Craigslist for $85 a few months ago (pretty good deal considering a new 280x costs about $200) and it worked great until about a month ago. I'm a little short on cash, but I'm thinking I might replace it for a R9 370 or 380 or maybe even save up for a 390 or 970.

Well in that case it was worth a try to get everything out of it, so can't really ding ya on the whole oven thing. But I guess time to save up for a new one eh? Good luck in your endeavors.