Replacing bad Radeon Video Card

I have a Dell XPS 8940 running Windows 10 Pro (64) and the Radeon RX5600 it has installed by Dell has had an intermittent problem (the driver appears to crash every once in a while). After much research and reinstalling, completely uninstalling and reinstalling the video driver, I finally called Dell and they sent me a replacement RX5600.

Today I tried installing the replacement video card and it had no output from any DP port nor from its HDMI port. So I opened the case again removed the card, inspected the connectors and reinstalled it again. Still no video from any port. So I reinstalled the original card and all video outputs work fine. The new card gets warm so I know it has to be getting power. Unless there is now some secret Windows 10 or Radeon method for swapping video cards then the "new" card has to be defective out of the box.

Does anyone think there is something I'm missing, and if yes, can you share that secret with me (and anyone else reading this thread)?

I'd expect it to work if it's an exact replacement.

A couple of things to try, before returning it:

1) Treat it as a card swap:

Uninstall the drivers.

Power down the PC. Do not let it restart.

Swap cards.

Start the PC.

Re-install the drivers.

2) Clear the CMOS.

I'm not optimistic that either of these will help, but they don't involve much effort.

"but they don't involve much effort."

You haven't seen what it takes to get the PC out the space it resides in.

Yes, everything that was connected to the original card was reconnected to the replacement card.

I tried bobkn's suggestion and uninstalled the drivers and tried reinstalling the replacement card (I used the motherboard's graphics connection so I could have a display) and the replacement card is not even recognized by the PC as being installed in Windows Device Manager and if I try and run Radeon's driver installer it says there is no Radeon Video Card installed in the PC. So reinstalled the original card and it is immediately recognized by Windows and works fine other than it's intermittent problem (that can take days to reappear).

For whatever reason Dell's tech support is being a major pain in the neck to get them to ship another card. I think I have purchased the last Dell product if they think I'm going to deal with bad customer service and defective replacement parts (I have 4 Dell PCs and 3 of their Monitors and have been using Dell PCs for over 10 years).

Have you tried Display Driver Uninstaller,which is useful for removing ALL driver components?
Does Reliability History give any information with respect to the crashes and also does dxdiag's Display page have any reports?

sewing1243 said:

Yes, everything that was connected to the original card was reconnected to the replacement card.

I tried bobkn's suggestion and uninstalled the drivers and tried reinstalling the replacement card (I used the motherboard's graphics connection so I could have a display)

(snip)

I just noticed that. You shouldn't have needed to use the onboard graphics to get a display.

Did you try clearing the CMOS? I've needed to do that in the past, although it seems unlikely when swapping in a nominally identical graphics card.

But you may be right, and the new card is DOA.

After a fight with Dell Tech support they finally shipped me another replacement card and it worked as expected.

sewing1243 said:

After a fight with Dell Tech support they finally shipped me another replacement card and it worked as expected.

Thanks for the update.

Please mark the thread as solved.

While the issue as far as the installation of a replacement card is resolved my adventures with Dell's support continues. The second replacement "refurbished" video card "crashed and burned" 24 hours after I installed it. I think I'm done with Dell and their tech support, the next PC I buy won't be from them. The original video card's issue is mostly a pain in the neck and probably a Radeon utility software problem that based on what I see on Radeon's Community Forum happens a lot with all their cards and for which Radeon has never offered an answer or fix for.