Older Card, New Problems?

[EXCellR8]

I have an older graphics card, a HD5970 that I pulled from a semi-working system a couple of years ago (the things companies will throw away). I think it's the OEM reference model with 2GB RAM but since I don't have anything with it I'm just guessing.

Anyway, I used the card a little bit when I first salvaged it and it seemed alright. However I tried using it again recently but it seems something is wrong. For whatever reason it will cause the driver to crash when anything 3d is loaded up. 2d it's fine with the occasional Aero revert but never a blue screen or a full lockup. It freezes a bit but the driver always recovers and I just have to manually terminate the offending applications.

I'm using the card with a 1000w power supply and the latest driver package from AMD. Temperatures seem fine (40c-50c) and the clock speeds are correct. I was thinking of trying to flash the BIOS to see if that fixes the instability, but I'll have to find the correct version somewhere. I did notice a weird sound coming from the card when I tried firing up a game, so maybe it's just broken. That would explain why it was left in a pile of computer remains. If anything it makes a wonderful paperweight!

Thoughts?

 

[nurturedhate]

Have you tried using older drives?

 

[lavaheadache]

I would love to get take that paperweight off your hands if it ever comes down to that. I love to tinker with these things

 

[EXCellR8]

Have you tried using older drives?

i haven't tried older drivers yet but i'm certain that's not where the issue resides at this point. i did however flash both the master and slave bios earlier but nothing improved. the card seems alright with 2D/movies and whatnot but when I load 3d there is a soft audible "whine" or "hiss" which is immediately followed by a driver crash; screen freeze.

my guess is it's something power related but since the card is completely enclosed i can't really see anything. there's a green LED that is lit which i guess to be the normal input power and then toward the end of the card a pair of diagnostic LED maybe? i haven't seen any activity with those but then again the card doesn't cause any major hardware error... just crashes the driver and freezes up the screen for a bit.

Oh well, at least it's only 90% useless...

 

[SPBHM]

have you tried using it with crossfire disabled? it should use a lot less power...