Killed my HD 5870/upgrading DC Rig #3 (my work PC lol)

[Sunny129]

Last night i tried to make my HD 5870 run a bit cooler by removing an Accelero Twin Turbo II cooler and replacing it with an Accelero Xtreme PLUS II. right away it wouldn't fit due to the fact that i had previously glued some RAM & VRM heatsinks from the Twin Turbo II kit onto the card. it was then that i had realized that i had already tried this once...i wish i would have remembered that it wasn't going to fit, or i obviously wouldn't have attempted it again...especially b/c this time around i got brave and decided to try to remove the interfering RAM heatsink, which was glued on w/ some permanent adhesive. i thought maybe if i was careful everything would be ok, but unfortunately when the heatsink came off, it took 2 of 4 RAM chips with it LOL.

now i suppose i could reinstall the Twin Turbo II (or install the Xtreme PLUS II now that the interfering heatsink is gone) and see if the card will function w/ the top halves of 2 RAM chips missing...but i have my doubts, and i have a feeling i'll be in the market for a replacement cruncher real soon. the 5870 was a 2GB card, and i think i only ruined ~500MB worth of RAM...so if it still works, theoretically it should still be able to run the POEM@Home project, whose memory bandwidth requirements are minimal. if not, i'd like to replace it with either a shader-unlocked 6950, a 6970, or a 79xx series card (so that double-precision/FP64 isn't butchered...just in case i run Milkyway@Home on it too). in a way i'm kind of excited by the possibility of moving to something newer, more powerful, and possibly more power efficient (a la the 79xx series). but at the same time i'm kind of hoping that the 5870 will continue to function without throwing errors b/c i'd rather not spend the money right now. anyways i'll probably test the butchered 5870 tonight to see if it still works...i'll keep you all posted.

Eric

[ZipSpeed]

Fingers crossed and hoping it will still work. I still have my Vapor-X 5870. One of my favorite cards in my arsenal - quiet and still a decent performer.

[Sunny129]

tell me about it...my 5870 was one of my favorite crunchers too. its actually the rare and highly sought after Sapphire Eyefinity6 Edition (which would have been ideal for resale to gamers or multi-display folks...probably still could have fetched ~$160 for it ). it was averaging ~330,000 PPD crunching POEM@Home...

in the mean time i've replaced it with an HD 5570 i had laying around, whose production is only approx. 28% that of the HD 5870's .

[Rudy Toody]

You are not having a good day of modding until you smell smoke!

[Rvenger]

Any pics of the damage on the card?

[Sunny129]

Originally Posted by Rvenger

Any pics of the damage on the card?

no, but i suppose that would be easy enough to do...i'll snap some pics and post them up this evening before i put the cooler back on the card to see if it still works. there appear to be a number of traces (or perhaps solder points, i don't know) that were severed when the plastic cover of the memory chip was pulled away from the PCB.

[Sunny129]

ok, so i reinstalled the Twin Turbo II on the 5870 and tried to run it, but no go . my system will POST just fine, but hangs while Windows is loading (after POST, but before the Welcome screen and the desktop appear). now this machine has a tendency to hang like that approx. once every several restarts anyways, so i reset the system multiple times just to make sure, but it would hang at the same spot every time. so i removed it again and put the HD 5570 back in - the first time, my system hung while Windows was loading again, but booted all the way to Windows after the first reset. to be honest, i know i can't blame the system hangups specifically on the damaged GPU since it occasionally happens even when the 5870 isn't installed. but the system only hung once in a while w/ the 5870 installed before it was damaged...and now it hangs before getting to Windows every time with the damaged 5870 installed. so even if the card is in working order, i can't do any further testing/troubleshooting on this machine due to whatever hardware conflicts are going on...and at this point i really don't think i have the patience to start removing stuff from one of my other machines and using it to test the 5870 instead...so unless anyone else has a miracle suggestion or pulls a rabbit out of his hat for me, i think i'll start the search for a replacement...my wallet is yelling obscenities at me right now lol.

btw, here's what the damage looks like:

[somethingsketchy]

At this point a replacement is your own hope. Once that VRAM got ripped out, the contacts might now be shorting out or the underlying circuitry is too badly damaged to continue the loading cycle.

Perhaps a new 7870 will be a nice step towards a more energy efficient crunching card

[Sunny129]

Originally Posted by somethingsketchy

At this point a replacement is your own hope. Once that VRAM got ripped out, the contacts might now be shorting out or the underlying circuitry is too badly damaged to continue the loading cycle.

Perhaps a new 7870 will be a nice step towards a more energy efficient crunching card

it most certainly would...except that the 7870's double-precision performance is terrible. if i go with a 7000 series GPU it'll probably be a 79xx.

[ZipSpeed]

Poor card. Died before its time.

[Sunny129]

ok, so i've been thinking about a replacement GPU for the last 24 hours. ideally i'd like to get an HD 7950 (since the 7970 is still a bit too expensive for me). specifically, i like the GIGABYTE GV-R795WF3-3GD simply b/c i've had extremely positive experiences w/ the Windforce series of coolers their GPUs utilize - they simply outperform all the other non-reference coolers when it comes to getting the best mix of cooling and silence. its $330 ($310 AR) right now...can i live with that price? sure...but i'm having trouble pulling the trigger when i know that i can have a lightly used shader-unlocked HD 6950 for about $150 less. sure, the 7950's FP32 and FP64 performance is a 27% improvement over the 6950. but the 7950 doesn't draw any less power under a full (or at the very least heavy) load than the 6950. and even if it draws less power under idle, that doesn't matter to me b/c my GPUs don't ever idle. so if i'm never going to make back that $150 in the long run via better power consumption, then i have to figure out whether the 27% improvement in compute performance alone is worth the extra $150. oh yeah, i guess i have to acknowledge the extra 1GB of VRAM and the wider 384-bit memory bus...even though that's part of the reason for the improvement in compute performance in the first place...

regardless, i'm still very much on the fence, and i'm still very much considering the 6950. i guess i already know what i need to know about the cards, and just need to mull it over a bit more before i make a decision...

[VirtualLarry]

I'm a little bit disillusioned with Gigabyte's WindForce coolers. They are effective, when they work. But they seem to fail quickly. I've had a pair of GTX460 1GB OC WF cards since they were first released, and on both of them, one of the fans is failing. As long as the other fan holds out, cooling isn't affected too badly. (63-68C, to 71-73C) But I wonder how long they will last. The warranty is about up. I should have mailed them out in May. But I was worried that I would get 192-bit GF114 cards in replacement. Then again, those would be better than nothing, if both fans fail completely.

[Sunny129]

Originally Posted by VirtualLarry

I'm a little bit disillusioned with Gigabyte's WindForce coolers. They are effective, when they work. But they seem to fail quickly. I've had a pair of GTX460 1GB OC WF cards since they were first released, and on both of them, one of the fans is failing. As long as the other fan holds out, cooling isn't affected too badly. (63-68C, to 71-73C) But I wonder how long they will last. The warranty is about up. I should have mailed them out in May. But I was worried that I would get 192-bit GF114 cards in replacement. Then again, those would be better than nothing, if both fans fail completely.

hmm...i wonder if its just bad luck or something more. when i mentioned my experience w/ Windforce coolers, i was specifically referring to my dual GTX 560 Ti machine (both are the GIGABYTE GV-N560OC-1GI model w/ a dual-fan Windforce cooler like your GTX 460's). granted, they haven't been with me very long, but i'm the 2nd owner of one and the 3rd owner of the other, and they're in great shape. in fact i've had such a good experience w/ both cards that i had to hold myself back from picking up 1 or 2 more for the same rig (in a rare event, 3 of these cards went up for sale within a week of each other, and were sold just as fast). at any rate, given all the other HD 7950's available on newegg right now, the GIGABYTE looks the most promising with respect to cooling ability, silence, and possibly the best combination thereof.

[Sunny129]

OMG...just my luck :

WTB Eyefinity 6 5870 2gb Card

Looking for an eyefinity 6 5870 2gb card.

Please PM me with what you have.

Id like to spend around $200.

...i could kill myself right now

[blckgrffn]

Ouch, poor 5870

A 7950 is going to be sweet though Do you have it yet?

I've basically given up on aftermarket coolers unless I get a good/great deal on a GPU with a dead fan - that way I can talk myself into the risk/reward. Don't worry about it too much, I think many of us have killed a few GPUs...

I had a sweet Ti4400 back when the 4600 was top dog that I fubar'd trying to pry off the HS. Sigh.

[Sunny129]

Originally Posted by blckgrffn

Ouch, poor 5870

A 7950 is going to be sweet though Do you have it yet?


I've basically given up on aftermarket coolers unless I get a good/great deal on a GPU with a dead fan - that way I can talk myself into the risk/reward. Don't worry about it too much, I think many of us have killed a few GPUs...

I had a sweet Ti4400 back when the 4600 was top dog that I fubar'd trying to pry off the HS. Sigh.

actually i got a great deal on a shader-unlocked XFX HD 6950 that i couldn't pass up. if heat weren't as much of an issue, and if i didn't already have an extremely capable 6950-compatible aftermarket cooler, i probably would have dropped the extra $150-$180 for the HD 7950...never fear though - already i have the itch to build yet another cruncher, and it very well may include an HD 79xx card or two. but actually i'm probably going to convert my work PC instead of starting from scratch. i plan on installing a Crucial M4 64GB SSD (on which i've already installed Win7 x64), and then i'll probably start by adding a single GPU...unfortunately i don't have the $$$ to do it all at once.

as far as aftermarket coolers go, i've had nothing but excellent experiences w/ Arctic Cooling products. i'm a quiet freak, so my GPUs must stay cool and stay whisper quiet.

[Leros]

Originally Posted by ZipSpeed

Poor card. Died before its time.

It was murdered.

[Sunny129]

i think it was more like involuntary GPU slaughter LOL. i was performing surgery, and she flat-lined b/c i'm apparently not very good with a scalpel (read: flat-head screwdriver)...

[Sunny129]

Originally Posted by Sunny129

never fear though - already i have the itch to build yet another cruncher, and it very well may include an HD 79xx card or two. but actually i'm probably going to convert my work PC instead of starting from scratch. i plan on installing a Crucial M4 64GB SSD (on which i've already installed Win7 x64), and then i'll probably start by adding a single GPU...unfortunately i don't have the $$$ to do it all at once.

ok, i got the SSD w/ Win7 x64 installed in my work machine over the weekend. now i just need to get our server/networking guy to tie me into the network and map all the server drives to my machine (i don't know all the passwords and protocols to set myself up). once that's all set up and i have access to everything i need for work purposes, i can get BOINC set up and let the CPU and puny GPUs (an HD 5670 and a fanless HD 5450 ) start crunching while i hunt for a better GPU to add to the mix. as i've stated previously, i'd really like to get an HD 79xx series GPU, but i may get urge to purchase another HD 6950/6970 before i can afford a 79xx series GPU..

[RussianSensation]

Originally Posted by Sunny129

tell me about it...my 5870 was one of my favorite crunchers too. its actually the rare and highly sought after Sapphire Eyefinity6 Edition (which would have been ideal for resale to gamers or multi-display folks...probably still could have fetched ~$160 for it ). it was averaging ~330,000 PPD crunching POEM@Home...

in the mean time i've replaced it with an HD 5570 i had laying around, whose production is only approx. 28% that of the HD 5870's .

Sorry to hear about your card!

~330k PPD? Wow! That sounds like the highest earning project on BOINC for a 5870 style card, no? Even my unlocked 6950 only made about 235k in Milkyway@Home.

How much does a 5870/6950 unlocked card now produce in Seti@Home with the OpenCL acceleration that is supported as of August 2012 iirc?

[Sunny129]

Originally Posted by RussianSensation

Sorry to hear about your card!

~330k PPD? Wow! That sounds like the highest earning project on BOINC for a 5870 style card, no? Even my unlocked 6950 only made about 235k in Milkyway@Home.

How much does a 5870/6950 unlocked card now produce in Seti@Home with the OpenCL acceleration that is supported as of August 2012 iirc?

i believe POEM is probably the 2nd highest PPD earning BOINC project for AMD/ATI GPUs right now. the highest PPD earning BOINC project for AMD/ATI GPUs right now is probably DistrRTgen, whose tasks net an ungodly ~8,600 points and only take ~8 minutes to complete on some of the newer, faster HD 7xxx series GPUs.

your MW@H numbers for a shader-unlocked 6950 sound about right. i run MW@H on a Sapphire Toxic 6950 (shader-unlocked and factory OC'ed to 6970 clocks), and i average ~250K PPD. this is in the same machine that crunches POEM too (on a shader-unlocked XFX 6950 that replaced the 5870). if running two different ATI GPU project applications didn't uncontrollably invoke the "drain my cache completely before restocking" work buffer bug, my PPDs for both MW@H and POEM would probably be slightly better than what they are currently.

unfortunately i don't have any SETI@Home figures for you. i did participate in the SETI@Home Wow! Event several weeks back, but i was using my dual GTX 560 Ti's...so i don't know how much of a PPD improvement an AMD/ATI GPU will see with the new Astropulse OpenCL binary.

[RussianSensation]

I am curious to see how many shaders 8970 will have. If it only has 2304 shaders and costs $550, HD7970 will become the go to card for double precision DC projects as gamers will want the more modern GPUs and 7970 goes on a nice sale. Could be a good bargain at $250 on a fire sale in 6 months.

[Sunny129]

excellent point...i'm thinking then i might just buy a shader-unlocked 6950 to hold me over for the next ~6 months until the 8970 debuts and the 7970 comes down in price.

[Sunny129]

well i spent more $ than i had anticipated on my short weekend vacation, so i'm putting off any sort of GPU purchase for my work host. in the mean time, i've put these two bad boys (LOL) to work since they were just collecting dust:

a PowerColor HD 5570:



...and an ASUS HD 5450:



...i guess something's better than nothing, eh?

[Sunny129]

*UPDATE*

well i'm glad i decided to put off the purchase of a more powerful GPU. after running the HD 5570 and the HD 5450 in my work machine for about a week, i decided to replace the HD 5450 w/ my unused GTX 560 Ti (the one in my for sale thread). while my production went up significantly, unfortunately so did my thermal output...not that the Arctic Cooling Accelero Twin Turbo II isn't sufficient, but rather the office ventilation isn't sufficient. first of all, i'm in a corner of the office that stays a bit warmer than other areas due to A/C inefficiencies. and secondly, the A/C get turned off every night. so while the TTII keeps the card from overheating, the dissipated heat makes my part of the office too hot to work in - even during the day when the A/C is on. based on such limitations, it looks like i'm going to have to stick with the HD 5570 and the HD 5450...or perhaps i'll replace the HD 5450 w/ another HD 5570, or perhaps an HD 6670.