Broken 7870?

Resolved.

Just got a 7870, brand new still sealed from a guy who lives in my town. Cant get it to work, there are these thick vertical lines that go through my screen. I will have a pic. Does anyone have any idea what might be causing this and how to fix it?

 I did switch it with my old video card and can confirm it is something wrong with the 7870 itself. Is it just broken? Can I fix it? Its not a driver issue because the streaks are always there, even in the UEFI and at the boot logos. Its gotta be a hardware problem. 

Its also probably worth noting that the colors are not always the same, the first time I booted up with this card they were yellow and red. I tried to reseat it and trouble shoot, and every time since then they have been either purple and blue or just white. When I install the AMD drivers, the screen goes blank and never returns, forcing me to reset my pc.

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B0bwQHiFmORFT1lZaUFpMUQ5cHc&usp=sharing

Yeah it is broken. 

If it really was brand new and sealed then you may be able to RMA it. 

After a quick look on saphires website, they handle their warranties through the reseller. I could ask the guy where he bought it originally, but I wouldnt have a proof of purchase so it still wouldnt get me anywhere. Is there some DIY way to fix this, or am I just boned?

So ,

sapphire doens't do RMA's , so you have to make him RMA it .

It's completely fucked , the problem will get worse until it just freezes on start up .

I have a cheeky way of getting it to work , but it's an F****d up , so I would avoid .

Well now you have gotten me intrigued, what is this method?

He cant RMA it, or he would've. I would be interested to know this method, its better than having a 120 dollar blue coaster.

Yep its buggered all right. Was it resealed after some heaving mining perhaps? Since its borked, try giving it some more core voltage and lowering the core clock and memory speed a little.

How would I do that if I cant even install catalyst? Could I do it from the bios somehow?

Since you have nothing to lose...

Maybe run another amd gpu (old one that works) as the primary display, install ccc. then install gpu-z - save the 7870's bios file.  then use RBE (http://www.techpowerup.com/rbe/) to edit that saved bios file's voltage values etc. Even use another 7870 bios thats on the techpowerup database. flash that file to the card using winflash. pray to the silicon gods. maybe you'll end up with a usable card.

Chances are that its fubar. You could try mining with it i guess in a mining rig, just dont run it as the primary display. 

It pretty f*cked that you've bought a 'new' card 2nd hand that is nerfed though. I'd be hassling the seller to give you back your money.

Old card is a nvidia, and I dont have any AMD cards. Would getting something like afterburner (Since installing it wouldn't require installing the drivers.) to modify the clock speeds and voltages work? I don't have any experience messing with GPU bios files. 

 

I've already tried to get my money back, he's stopped answering my texts/calls.

wow that sucks. If  you have his cell phone number theres a good chance you can find his name and show up to his/her house. Bring some big men and ask for your money back.

If you want to reduce the chance of talking to the police your best bet would to be to buy an identical card, use its box/ serial number sticker for retailers rma.

It was sealed, I don't think I have a case. Sapphire doesn't do RMA's either.

Bumping. A friend of mine who knows more than me about PCBs is going to look at it this weekend, he thinks there may be bad soldering or something. Anyone else with suggestions?

uh oh, he isn't going to throw it in the oven is he? The buyer backing out would have me spooked. 7870 is still a strong card for the price, hopefully you can get this one working. I would also check the bios since sapphire had some odd shit happen with a batch of their cards. Something about bios not applying enough voltage to vcore to my understanding. But that also should have allowed you to boot up no problem.

No he's not putting it in the oven. He's going to take the heat sink off and loot at it. He thinks there might be a bad capacitor or something, I wouldn't have any idea if I were to take a look. It boots up fine, there's just those huge artifacts there, and installing the drivers fucks everything. 

The guy spilt coffee or cola on it, once we took the heatsink off the blue pcb was stained brown. Not sure if it can be fixed at this point, not after having booted up with it and running electricity through it. Thanks for all the suggestions guys. Might get a new 290x now they they are selling for almost $300. 

Yeah ,

Just try to get refunded , and PLEASE DON'T BUY MINING CARDS , ESPECIALLY REFERENCE !

Do yourself a favor , just look for a 290 / 290x tri X .

 

Not gonna buy used again unless the site has some sort of buyer protection. There's no way he's going to give me a refund, he clearly intentionally ripped me off.

Well, the dude you bought it from needs to be dealt with. One way or another.

At least with things like paypal/ebay shit like this gets sorted out quickly.

If you saw the advertisement via local classifieds, contact them. They would have certain clauses for sellers to abide by.

There's not really anything I can do. the guy posted it on craigslist and I don't have any of his personal information. He had the ad taken down before I even got back to my house. I don't see anything I can do, I don't even know the guys name. I saw factory sealed and got all stary eyed, just a mistake I'll never make again now.