How to revive a dead 7870 -- baking, perhaps?

[Red Hawk]

Back in May, I was in a car accident driving home from college. To add insult to the injury of losing my car, my PC was snugly set in the front seat of my car -- and got launched forward into the dashboard. Miraculously, most of the components in the PC were fine. The case was bashed in and unusable, of course, and the blu-ray drive was busted, but the CPU and CPU cooler, RAM, and motherboard have all functioned fine since then. My Asus 7870 seemed fine at first, too -- the top of the bracket was bent out of shape and the PCB seemed just slightly warped, but there was no other visible damage. It worked -- at first. As I kept using it over the course of a few weeks, I increasingly got screen image corruption when using my computer in things like internet browsing or playing games. My PC would still boot with the card, but by the end, corruption was becoming so frequent that my card was basically unusable. So I took it out and replaced it with my old 5770, after which the problem disappeared.

I have since bought a new 270X, which is slightly better than the 7870. But I can't help but wonder -- is there any possible way to "revive" my 7870? I still have it. Removing the cooler reveals no obvious damage. I've heard of "baking" as a way to "fix" malfunctioning GPUs. Would that potentially restore my card?

If all else fails, would it be possible to transplant the 7870's DirectCu II cooler to the 5770? The 5770 happens to be of Asus make as well, the EAH5770 model.

 

[Erenhardt]

If it is PCB damage I don't think baking can help.

Baking helps with bad solder. It is possible that warped PCB could make some tiny cracks in solder.

I guess you have nothing to lose now. Do it ROSMT style

 

[Schmide]

If it's bent there is prob bad contact with the chip. Take it apart, replace the TIM, make sure the shim is in place, etc.

Baking prob won't healp

 

[Red Hawk]

If it's bent there is prob bad contact with the chip. Take it apart, replace the TIM, make sure the shim is in place, etc.

Baking prob won't healp

Well I went ahead and baked it (8 minutes at 385 degrees Fahrenheit). Of course that meant removing the cooler, so I'll have to reapply some thermal grease to it. Is that what you mean by TIM?

 

[lukart]

From my past experience, miracles happen! After half n hour baking... and 10min chilling... Voila! its alive

 

[Bateluer]

No idea whether baking will help . . . I'm more curious why the OP replaced a 7870 with a slightly higher clocked 7870(270X). Doesn't seem like an upgrade.

 

[SlickR12345]

Throw it in pits of fire and pray. But kidding aside, I doubt baking will help.

 

[Red Hawk]

No idea whether baking will help . . . I'm more curious why the OP replaced a 7870 with a slightly higher clocked 7870(270X). Doesn't seem like an upgrade.

It didn't help. And I know it wasn't an upgrade, I didn't have the money for better.

 

[Bateluer]

It didn't help. And I know it wasn't an upgrade, I didn't have the money for better.

So did the baking help the card? Its been several hours.

 

[Red Hawk]

So did the baking help the card? Its been several hours.

No, it didn't really. The card's "alive", in that it POSTs and loads into the Windows 8.1 desktop. I can browse the internet with it without a hiccup, for a few minutes at least. But the moment I booted up Dragon Age Inquisition and ran the in-game benchmark, corruption! Corruption everywhere! D:

 

[NTMBK]

Clearly, you just need to perform the inverse of the operation which broke your card. Duct tape it to the dashboard and reverse your car into a wall.

 

[Erenhardt]

Clearly, you just need to perform the inverse of the operation which broke your card. Duct tape it to the dashboard and reverse your car into a wall.

+1:thumbsup: