MSI AMD 7870 dying? - Now confirmed Dead

[SparksIT]

So I was playing a video game, when my screen went crazy, and showed nothing but vertical green lines, after a hard reboot, the game ran fine for about 15 minutes, before doing it again. Hard reboot again, this time everything on the screen was fine till the Windows login. There were about a dozen horizontal red lines, and parts of the screen were not rendering correctly. I was able to login but the screen issues remained, after about 15 minutes the green lines re-appeared. I removed the GPU and booted with the Intel graphics, without the lines, artifacts\tearing, but my computer would not recognize the integrated graphics even after a re-installing the Intel drivers. I was able to back up my data, and upgraded my PC from Windows 7 to Windows 10 with a fresh install, the install was without the GPU Physically installed. Installed all the drivers, then I physically re-installed the GPU and installed the drivers.

My computer ran fine for about 4 hours, with normal desktop operations, ie, youtube\browsing, while I reinstalled my game. Started the game, ran fine for about 15 minutes, then screen went black, nothing not even the green lines. However my screen was still recognizing there was input. Hard rebooted again, this time after the Motherboard screen the monitor would remain black. Removed the GPU, and the computer booted fine, so I removed the drivers, and tried placing the GPU in a different PCI-E slot, with the same results.

So I did a fresh install of Windows 10 again without the GPU physically installed, to verify with a different game. However, when I re-installed the GPU it displayed fine, till I went to install the drivers. Mid way thru the install, when it installed the drivers my screen flashed, and went black, again the monitor was recognizing some input on the DVI port. Removed the GPU, pc booted fine, cleaned the AMD drivers and retried installing the GPU, but received the same result. The screen would display up until the installer attempt to install the drivers.

I don't have access to another GPU to swap in, might be able to get one from a co-worker, and the GPU looks physically fine, some dust, but not nearly enough that would have caused the GPU to overheat. There was no overclocking done on the card either. I bought the card in July 2013, so there is some time left on its 3 year warranty. Is there anything else I can try? or other causes, maybe the PSU, motherboard? It just seams odd it would work until the drivers installed.

PSU: Corsair CX500
MB: MSI Z87-G45
CPU: i5 4670K (no overclock atm)
RAM: 8GB
OS: Issue started with Windows 7, still happening on Windows 10 fresh install.

 

[Arachnotronic]

In this case, I would shoot first and ask questions later especially since you seem to have tried just about everything. There is strong evidence to suggest that something is wrong with the card, so send it in for a replacement.

 

[Killrose]

Something is wrong obviously, could be a PSU issue too, but I've seen vertical green lines before myself on a bad GPU. Make sure your vid card fan is spooling up with temps using Gpu-z or something else to monitor fan speed.

 

[xthetenth]

If I remember right, a card without its drivers will be working in a minimum functionality that may or may not expose problems with the card, so you may very well be in the latter category.

 

[bononos]

So I was playing a video game, when my screen went crazy, and showed nothing but vertical green lines, after a hard reboot, the game ran fine for about 15 minutes, before doing it again. Hard reboot again, this time everything on the screen was fine till the Windows login.........

It sounds like your card is dying or overheating, check your card fan/temps first. Maybe all you need is to replace the thermal paste.

 

[Doom2pro]

So I was playing a video game, when my screen went crazy, and showed nothing but vertical green lines, after a hard reboot, the game ran fine for about 15 minutes, before doing it again.

Sounds temperature related... Could be a bad solder joint, a reflow could fix it.

If you have little other option after the other suggestions don't work, try and get your hands on a hot air gun, or another crude method is to put the bare PCB into Oven at like 450F...

I'd do some research beforehand before unless you have experience but I have fixed many a GPU/Laptop MOBO with this technique.

 

[SparksIT]

Thanks for the advice, a co-worker was able to loan me a Nvidia GTX 260, and that has been in my system working fine. Since my card is still under warranty I sent it into MSI, I'll see what they respond with. Has anyone dealt with MSI warranty here? The told me turn around time could be 15 days, not counting shipping and handling. I assume this is worst case scenario or a cya policy, so hopefully it won't take that long.

 

[Tweak155]

Seeing you already sent it in - I would have suggested trying a different output from the card. But all the symptoms I think point to overheating.

 

[tweakboy]

Its RMA time ?

 

[SparksIT]

So after a month, MSI confirmed my card needs to be replaced. They don't have my exact card in stock, and are willing to replace it with a R9 380 4GD5T OC, which should be the equivalent of the following card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127913. This card should be an obvious upgrade, but I'm not sure where the performance will stand compared to the 7870 OC card that I had. I haven't really paid attention to the to which cards replaced which, and Anandtech bench does not have an exact comparison. It seems that the 380 would be comparable, performance wise, to an AMD 7950? I can compare it to a 7970, which the 7970 is faster then the 380. Not sure if this is correct.

Also I assume that the MSI replacement card will be a re-certified card?

 

[Elixer]

Also I assume that the MSI replacement card will be a re-certified card?

I think that depends on stock on hand, since my last RMA with them, I got a new card back.

 

[David_k]

The 380 is usually faster than a 7950/7970, but being based on GCN 1.2 it does pull ahead in some titles.
And it is the closest replacement for you card, from the current line the options are:

R7 370 which is basically a 7850 with faster ram = downgrade = they can't give you this one
R7 370X - 7870 GHz - 270X with clock bumps but available only in China.
R9 380 - a decent upgrade, better performance for the same power consumption, better tessellation performance and better DX12 support. might as well try to OC, should give you a very descent performance boost.