Really wierd stuff going on with my new 6950

[SpeedZealot369]

Hey forum. I've been troubleshooting this issue for the past 6 hours and want some other opinions on what's going on.

So I got a new 6950 card. I did the bios switch to unlock it, and it was working fine. I decided to put my accelero twin turbo from my 5850 onto the 6950 after learning that it's unofficially compatible.

after I switched I fired up my pc and turned furmark on to stress test it. the temps after 3-4 minutes got to 90 degrees. So I took the card out and tried tightening the screws behind the card maybe the heatsink wasn't making good enough contact.

after doing that the temps still got up to 90 degrees. so I was going to try something else when the power in my room went out. I don't if this was directly because of my pc or not.

after I put the power back on my monitor was saying that there is no signal and went straight to power save mode. I tried tightening the dvi cable on both ends, as well as I put the card in the second pci-e slot. no luck.

I then took the card out and took the twin turbo off. I put my 5850 back in and the pc booted up fine. I then put the 6950 back in without any coolers on it, and it booted and I saw the asus screen, but then after that it said no signal. after switching things around back and forth , I decided to put my 5850 back in permanently.

so now I have the 5850 in, and the pc boots fine into windows. but when I put furmark on or starcraft 2, 3 seconds later the screen goes black while the pc is running fine I can hear the music of starcraft from the speakers.

So I'm thinking the is a psu issue? any takes on this?

thanks

-josh

 

[Tempered81]

PSU sounds messed up now. The 6950 should be okay, but never know cranking down the screws and all. My reference 6950 2gb fan and HS does a great job of keeping the thing cool, was yours hot to begin with?

 

[SpeedZealot369]

no it wasn't over hot, but it was just really louuuud.

the thing is my 5850 which was fine before is now also going black screen when I pull up furmark or starcraft2. I can watch vlc hd video's fine though... I tried a fresh install of 11.5 catalyst, maybe I'll try putting in 11.2 see if that changes anything.

 

[Athadeus]

Why did you try running the 6950 at one point with no cooler on it? You probably seriously overheated it just trying to boot up. It is highly unlikely that you are having a driver issue either. Your troubleshooting method is so bad you should just get help from a friend immediately.

 

[SpeedZealot369]

I'm not sure why you are freaking out, when I had no cooler on it at one point it booted into windows and it had a 72c read on it. far from dangerous if you ask me.

 

[SpeedZealot369]

I can get this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817371031 where I live at a decent price, should I go for it?

 

[MangoX]

I avoid Antec, but that's just me. Had most of the units die on me. Last one being a True Power Neo 650.

 

[Muyoso]

Why did you try running the 6950 at one point with no cooler on it? You probably seriously overheated it just trying to boot up. It is highly unlikely that you are having a driver issue either. Your troubleshooting method is so bad you should just get help from a friend immediately.

Seems like fine troubleshooting to me. He put the 5850 cooler on it and it was too hot, so to troubleshoot that he tried booting it without the 5850 cooler.

 

[notty22]

Its not good to run a gpu/cpu without the heatsink on top.

Its similar , but not the same as running your car engine without coolant running through the cylinder heads.

Certain areas get super hotter than others, almost instantly, that the copper heatsink instantly evens out and starts to dissipate. Hot spots.

With a pentium 1, I remember starting my computer without the hsf on top, with my finger on the cold/off surface of the cpu. Within seconds, I burnt my finger from hitting the power, lol

 

[SpeedZealot369]

so this does sound like a psu issue right? what else can it possibly be?

 

[notty22]

so this does sound like a psu issue right? what else can it possibly be?

Probably. I would take a break, deep breath, and re-think everything you have done. Once you start physically changing things in the computer you introduce variables. That might have only been software originally. I know you changed the HSF, which is another factor. But you said yourself, your uninstalling , testing various drivers. So your troubleshooting/thinking in that directon also.
Maybe one of the pci-e cables is damaged from connecting and reconnecting. Or like you said, the psu itself is dying.
Why both cards are acting up.

 

[Arkadrel]

Hey forum. I've been troubleshooting this issue for the past 6 hours and want some other opinions on what's going on.

So I got a new 6950 card. I did the bios switch to unlock it, and it was working fine. I decided to put my accelero twin turbo from my 5850 onto the 6950 after learning that it's unofficially compatible.

after I switched I fired up my pc and turned furmark on to stress test it. the temps after 3-4 minutes got to 90 degrees. So I took the card out and tried tightening the screws behind the card maybe the heatsink wasn't making good enough contact.

after doing that the temps still got up to 90 degrees. so I was going to try something else when the power in my room went out. I don't if this was directly because of my pc or not.

after I put the power back on my monitor was saying that there is no signal and went straight to power save mode. I tried tightening the dvi cable on both ends, as well as I put the card in the second pci-e slot. no luck.

I then took the card out and took the twin turbo off. I put my 5850 back in and the pc booted up fine. I then put the 6950 back in without any coolers on it, and it booted and I saw the asus screen, but then after that it said no signal. after switching things around back and forth , I decided to put my 5850 back in permanently.

so now I have the 5850 in, and the pc boots fine into windows. but when I put furmark on or starcraft 2, 3 seconds later the screen goes black while the pc is running fine I can hear the music of starcraft from the speakers.

So I'm thinking the is a psu issue? any takes on this?

thanks

-josh

Sounds like

1) your cooler short circuted something by makeing contact with something it shouldnt. Power in your room went out (you blew a fuse?). You get 90+ degree's <.<

2) you took off the custom cooler, put it back on the 5850, your pc boots.

3) you boot put your pc again with the 6950, without any cooler on (it gets 90 degrees hot with a cooler on, how fast do you think it reaches 150 degrees withou it? and that kills the card.

=

you most likely killed your own card, voity wont cover you short circuteing it (via cooler change), you frying it by powering it on without a cooler on.



try this:
1) start by putting the cooler that came with the 6950 back on properly.
2) borrow a PSU from a friend (a big one) and test things with the new psu.
3) prey it wasnt fried from you turning it on without a heatsink on.

 

[Spikesoldier]

I would say that you did some damage by running with no HSF on the VGA card.

When I used to repair notebook PC's, sometimes other people would boot with no HSF just to see if it POSTs real quick. I frowned upon this, but I have never witnessed or heard of a notebook CPU die from less than 10 seconds POSTing with no cooler. Remember notebook CPU TDPs usually run from 10-30W.

Remember you are messing with a 200W TDP part with the 6950. By flashing to 6970, the expected TDP would rise to 250W. I strongly believe a part with that high of a TDP being run without a cooler would die very quickly.

cliffs notes: dead from user negligence.

edit: grammers

 

[mosox]

What are the temperatures on idle?
http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Info/PC-Wizard-Release.shtml

Did you rub the chips with with an eraser before putting in the passive heatsinks? Did you try any of the cards with the stock heatsink?

Can you test your monitor on some other PC and your PC with some other monitor? Can you borrow a video card?

 

[Meghan54]

so this does sound like a psu issue right? what else can it possibly be?

No, not a power supply issue.

Why? Let's examine the sequence of events you described:

1. I got a new 6950 card. I did the bios switch to unlock it, and it was working fine.

So, it was working fine at one point. Power wasn't an issue at all at this point, nor a question.


2. ...put my accelero twin turbo from my 5850 onto the 6950 after learning that it's unofficially compatible.

Then you put a cooler onto the card that's not guaranteed to fit nor work. Just because a cooler can fit the holes and pcb doesn't mean the cooler will clear all the solder points, hit all the relevant parts on the card properly (memory, VRM's, etc.)


3. ...turned furmark on to stress test it. the temps after 3-4 minutes got to 90 degrees. So I took the card out and tried tightening the screws behind the card maybe the heatsink wasn't making good enough contact.


First, why were you worried about Furmark raising the temps that high? Furmark always does that. But then you tightened the cooler even more, essentially bending the card more....despite making "better contact" with the gpu. I see this happening all the time with water cooling blocks on video cards....people overtightening the block, bending the pcb of the card which bends all the solder points of the gpu, VRM's, memory, etc. And then all hell breaks loose.......as in:


4. after I put the power back on my monitor was saying that there is no signal and went straight to power save mode.

Sign of a reboot problem related to the cooler being too tight on the card. Again, have seen this set of symptoms time and again from people tightening down coolers on video cards too much......esp. with coolers not intended to be installed on the card in question.


The sign it was the cooler and not the power supply or video card is from this set of sentences:


5. I put my 5850 back in and the pc booted up fine. I then put the 6950 back in without any coolers on it, and it booted and I saw the asus screen, but then after that it said no signal.


So, the computer is fine, the 5850 is running OK, and the 6950 even booted with video out when you removed the cooler.....until it essentially got too hot.


So what was the only variable in all this? The aftermarket "unofficially compatible" cooler. That's what screwed up your card. It's NOT a power supply issue.......

 

[Jacky60]

I incinerated a 4890 by attaching an accelero revision 2 as the ramsinks overheated in about 45 seconds when i tried running it. If you think its ok running graphics cards without their coolers attached good luck but I'd imagine thats what caused your problem. You wouldn't try running your car without a radiator -or perhaps you would but the result is fairly predictable. I can't see what possible influence the psu has on this. You attached an incompatible cooler, possibly overtightened it then to top it all you try running the card with no cooling whatsoever.

 

[lavaheadache]

running an open die chip without a heatsink is an almost instant death upon powering on. Nvidia chip have that IHS most of the time and can handle brief periods without a heatsink at idle, but certainly not loaded. You sir, just sent you card to GPU heaven. Sorry

 

[VirtualLarry]

running an open die chip without a heatsink is an almost instant death upon powering on. Nvidia chip have that IHS most of the time and can handle brief periods without a heatsink at idle, but certainly not loaded. You sir, just sent you card to GPU heaven. Sorry

This.

 

[Arkadrel]

I find it almost comical that the title of the tread is "really weird stuff going on with my new card"

Is it really that weird? you (most likely) bent it, short circuted it, burnt it.
Its really weird its not working right?

It must be the PSU right?

next card dont try to put on a non supported cooling solution, esp if you dont know what your doing.
Besides it sounds like the cooling solution that came with the card worked better in temps too.

 

[SpeedZealot369]

Thank you everyone for your input and ridicule, much appreciated ;p

Right now the 5850 is in, with the twin turbo on it. The pc works fine until I run sc2, then 5 seconds later the monitor turns off with the pc still running.

I do hear a whisper/whistle sound which i think comes from the psu right when I turn sc2 on, the menu of sc2 uses real time graphics, after 4-5 seconds of rendering the planet in the background it does this.

Any takes on this? if the card is fried would it be doing this?

 

[Zap]

This.

Seconded, fourth'd or whatever'd. Running a card like that with zero cooling on it even just to power it on for a second is a bad idea. If it is sold with big dual slot coolers, what kind of convoluted thinking process led to the idea that it was okay to run it with that big cooler removed? Maybe we don't want to know. :hmm:

I thought people learned their lesson back with the socket A Athlons.

Consider this an expensive lesson.

 

[Seero]

Drop 50 bucks at futureshop and have them repair your PC for you. After that never remove a screw from anything that connects to the wall again. It is really for your own good.

 

[lavaheadache]

Seconded, fourth'd or whatever'd. Running a card like that with zero cooling on it even just to power it on for a second is a bad idea. If it is sold with big dual slot coolers, what kind of convoluted thinking process led to the idea that it was okay to run it with that big cooler removed? Maybe we don't want to know. :hmm:

I thought people learned their lesson back with the socket A Athlons.

Consider this an expensive lesson.

Zap, funny you mention the socket A athlon as this was the incident I had in my mind when writing my response. I cant remember exacty what chip it was (thunderbird 1.4 i think) but I was testing a few processors and had to walk away for a minute. When I came back to the pc and pressed the power button and nothing came up on the screen I was confused until i realized i only put on the thermal compound and no HSF. DOH ! This was a known working cpu that didn't even make it to the post screen with no HSF. Lessoned learned the hard way

 

[SpeedZealot369]

can anyone tell me what they think this means (that the 5850 loses signal to the monitor after I power up a game) but lasts forever until then.

 

[Jacky60]

Seems like fine troubleshooting to me. He put the 5850 cooler on it and it was too hot, so to troubleshoot that he tried booting it without the 5850 cooler.

That is utterly bizarre troubleshooting. Card gets too hot with a heatsink so remove the heatsink? wtf is supposed to keep it cool-magic moonbeams??