Is this XFX HD 5770 1GB card bad?

[balane]

This has been going on for a while now. First off, this card has been running fine for a couple of years. It's Win 7 64 bit.

It started off one day when I booted into Windows and the Generic VGA driver was present and not the AMD driver, I think I was on the latest beta at the time. (Which was working fine.)

I tried multiple times to reinstall an AMD driver, multiple different drivers, and the install program did not see an ATI card present and would not install the video driver.

Finally I got it to install a driver, I don't know why, but it took several tries.

I've taken the card out, cleaned the contacts, reinserted it firmly, ran Driver Sweeper in safe mode, etc. I've tried all the usual things.

Even after I got a driver to install on occasion it will still boot into 640x480 and then automatically install the AMD driver and then it would be fine after a reboot.

This morning it booted back into the Standard VGA adapter driver and I can not install the correct driver no matter how many times I try. Windows simply will not see the video card even though it works fine in Standard VGA driver mode.

As a last ditch effort I downloaded a factory BIOS and tried flashing it with ATIFLASh in a DOS boot. I tried the -unlock command, -f command and nothing. It gives the error stating ADAPTER NOT PRESENT.

I doubt that it matters but the fan is running at full speed all the time, likely because no AMD driver is installed.

Do you have any other suggestions? This is a back-up to a back-up computer that I don't use much but I would still like it to work.

I have not tried the card in another computer, would that be advisable? What would that tell me if the card worked fine in another computer? Bad PCIe slot in the back up computer? I don't believe it's Windows because it doesn't work in a pure DOS boot either.

I believe it's either a bad video card or a bad motherboard, something hardware related. I'll buy a replacement card if I need to but I don't really want to if I can fix this one. Thanks.

.

 

[thestrangebrew1]

I had two of these x-fired about 2 yrs ago and they ran fine. I did have some driver issues back when it was 10.x but I don't have them in my rig anymore. My stepson does have 1 of them and he hasn't had any problems. I don't know if the x-fire config were the cause of my driver issues, but I remember them being pain everyonce in awhile.

Have you tried older driver versions to see which one worked best? That was my solution (again when they were x-fired). Might want to try that first.

EDIT: Missed this part:
"I tried multiple times to reinstall an AMD driver, multiple different drivers, and the install program did not see an ATI card present and would not install the video driver"

You could try it in another PC but I doubt it's the issue. Do you have another gpu to put in that slot?

 

[balane]

I went back to 11.2 I think but because ATIFLASH can't even see them in DOS I don't believe it to be a Windows driver issue.

I'm currently typing on the computer with a GTX 680 installed in it. Downloading the nVidia driver as I type, I'll let you know if Windows sees the nVidia card ASAP.

 

[balane]

OK, the nVidia driver installed just fine and the GTX 680 card is working perfectly.

I can't think of anything else other than the XFX 5770 is failing hardware wise.

I'll order a 7850 for it I suppose. Sometimes the grandkids will play games on this machine so I want it to be capable.

I'll wait to see if there's any other suggestions for getting this card running before I do though so please post if you have any advice.

Thanks.

 

[KompuKare]

Re-installing Windows is always an option. Or do some partitioning and install either a second copy of Windows or Linux. The 2nd Windows is more work but will give you a better idea in that if in a new install of Windows, the card doesn't work there's something else wrong.

Installing Linux is easier (but you have to get the AMD drivers since the binary drivers aren't on any distro I think - although there are open source Radeon drivers too). If the card works fine in Linux (including in at least some OpenGL stuff) then something is most likely wrong with your Windows install.

 

[balane]

Thanks for your reply. I'm not against doing a fresh Windows install, I likely will before it's all over but I'm curious how the Windows install, regardless of outcome, could explain that ATIFLASH sees no ATI video card in a DOS boot from a flash drive.

Edit: Starting a fresh Windows install now, just to cover my bases. I have a blank HDD I can use so it doesn't affect my OS. I'll report back soon.

 

[KompuKare]

DOS boot is a bit of black art at this stage though isn't it? Modern mobo's don't exactly provide good DOS support... Did ATIFlash work before? Or have you tried clear CMOS since there could be some BIOS setting involved.

 

[balane]

Oh, I didn't know that. I've never heard of ATIFlash not being able to see a card in a DOS boot before. This is a LGA775 computer so it's not cutting edge or anything.

I did reset the motherboard's BIOS since this problem arose. The nVidia card installed just fine too. The computer is out there going through the Windows install process right now. I'll know soon if that helped.

If that doesn't work I'm going to give the GPU BIOS flash another attempt on a separate computer (That I really didn't want to dig into.) and see how that goes.

After that I'm just going to wash my hands of it.

 

[balane]

No go on the Windows re-installation. It just loaded the Standard VGA driver and I'm back in the same boat. Unless there's any other ideas I'm just going to be done with it. It's a good time to upgrade anyway I guess.

 

[thestrangebrew1]

That is kinda weird that even with a fresh install it's not working. I suppose I'd chalk it up to a failing gpu at this point. At least it's a good excuse to upgrade lol GL