Sapphire R9 270x 4GB kind of working

[notJustMichael]

Happy Wednesday everyone!

So I have this GPU, bought it 2nd hand, worked perfectly for 2 years (just after the warranty ended) and then it started flickering and PC just randomly started shutting down and restarting by itself. Eventually just didn't boot into Windows (or any other OS).
Turns out that when any AMD drivers are installed (even when I'm on onboard graphics but with the card plugged in), CRASH. Without drivers, it works, but there's artifacts on the screen.

ANY idea what this might be? Google isn't helping because people just suggest to RMA it

 

[Star_22]

Replace the thermal paste and possibly undervolt/overvolt it if you can. I had similiar issues with an HD 7870LE that was solved by the above.

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[notJustMichael]

Thanks man! I will take it apart in just a moment and try that.
I unfortunately can't undervolt it because I cant get into the software in Windows, any other way to do it?

 

[notJustMichael]

Replace the thermal paste and possibly undervolt/overvolt it if you can. I had similiar issues with an HD 7870LE that was solved by the above.

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New drop of thermal paste and it still has artifacts. I'll try to install some drivers and see what happens

 

[Star_22]

Whats your pc specs psu incl ?

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[notJustMichael]

Whats your pc specs psu incl ?

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MSI H170 Gaming Pro, i5 6600, Hyper X Fury 8GB DDR4, Samsung 256GB SSD, Cooler Master B500

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[Star_22]

Possibly the PSU is on its way out as it's low quality psu according to an online source. Do you have another gpu or another PSU to test with?

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[Toxxyc]

PSU on it's way out won't cause artifacts on the screen. Artifacts is usually a sign of the GPU memory on it's way out. The restarting and shutting down can be the PSU yes, so it's not possible to say what came first - PSU issues breaking the GPU or the GPU simply being on it's way out. You'll have to test.

 

[notJustMichael]

Possibly the PSU is on its way out as it's low quality psu according to an online source. Do you have another gpu or another PSU to test with?

Yeah. Tested with different PSU and it still did the same thing (650W Cooler Master, Almost brand new) and 2 other GPUs with my current PSU. PSU is in great shape actually, been running fine for a couple years now. Personal experience wouldn't agree that it's low quality lol. Was super cheap though Budget build.

PSU on it's way out won't cause artifacts on the screen. Artifacts is usually a sign of the GPU memory on it's way out. The restarting and shutting down can be the PSU yes, so it's not possible to say what came first - PSU issues breaking the GPU or the GPU simply being on it's way out. You'll have to test.

The screen would sometimes just go off after flickering, give a "No Signal" message and go back on again so yeah, GPU was dying before the restarts and crashes. The shutting down and restarting happened shortly after the flickering and stuff. I trust this PSU lol. My multi-meter tells me good things.

Very likely that its the GPU memory then because all the contacts, connections and capacitors looks fine, so it's gotta be something I cant see.
What could I do with it if there's a memory problem though? Super expensive paperweight? Headphone stand? Lol

 

[Toxxyc]

You can try baking it for the artifacts, but if it's restarting and black screening it may not help.

 

[SCHUMI4EVER]

What could I do with it if there's a memory problem though? Super expensive paperweight? Headphone stand? Lol

Isn't that was a R9 270 always was?

 

[notJustMichael]

You can try baking it for the artifacts, but if it's restarting and black screening it may not help.

I would try that but there's risks with the chemicals on the board evaporating into the oven essentially rendering it unfit for food. If you know of someone who's willing to bake it for me I'll try it.

Isn't that was a R9 270 always was?

Lmao[emoji23][emoji23][emoji23] they were essentially recycled HD7700 series cards so yeah, built to fail unfortunately. Probably just a handful of people still running a R9 270 successfully

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