Recommended AMD Graphics Upgrade for his Computer

BrokenDaily · 26 Jan 2020

Alright, I got a response from the re-seller, and he says

Yes, it was used for mining for a few months. I bought it new from CDW. I then reflashed it back to the factory VBIOS and used it for gaming, and it worked fine. I checked it again before I sent it to you with Furmark as I mentioned, and it was working without any issue.

he's telling me to try and switch to the integrated graphics port of my computer to see what it says in the device manager, but I think last time I tried I got nothing, or maybe it was my father's computer, I forget; ill try going off my mothermoard's integrated graphics, see if it works (never used it before)

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yeah, I just tried plugging my HDMI cable into the HDMI port on my motherboard, expecting an instant transition to the motherboard's graphics, no dice, and despite my father's hardware being slightly different than mine, it should relatively be the same in terms of available BIOS settings

Superfly · 27 Jan 2020

Hmm... not good.

If it was used for mining it probably has been through some sustained (over)heating - HDMI port may have gone bad - vbios flash is not going to bring that back - I would check each port individually (if you have the cables and monitor support)

Obviously if the HDMI port is bust send it back - in fact I would anyway.

BrokenDaily · 27 Jan 2020

can't test it myself, dont have the needed cables or adapters

luckily, despite the re-seller marking the video card as No Return, he's willing to reconsider if I can't get it working no matter what I do, nice dude to do that for me

Superfly · 27 Jan 2020

BrokenDaily said:

can't test it myself, dont have the needed cables or adapters

luckily, despite the re-seller marking the video card as No Return, he's willing to reconsider if I can't get it working no matter what I do, nice dude to do that for me

Yep, with 'used' it's always a good idea to check the hardware - pop off the fans and heatsink and check the capacitors (for bulging etc) - also gives the opportunity to clean the fans and renew the paste which always helps with an oldish GPU - but better just send it back IHMO.

BrokenDaily · 27 Jan 2020

so somewhat good news: while the local computer tech doesnt have any displayport cables/adapters or dvi cables/dvi adapters to HDMI, the pawn shop in town (surprised we had one, never saw it before) may have some dvi cables or dvi adapters, so tomorrow ill be able to pick one up, and ill also buy a displayport adapter just in-case

as for the capacitors, I'm including a picture of the insides in the following attachment; I used some cotton pads with isopropyl alcohol to wipe off the old thermal compound on the GPU here along with the compound stuck on the heatsink, and used some thermal compound I had bought back when I cleaned/replaced the old thermal compound off of my computer's CPU and my old 650 Ti's GPU. I then put everything back together

personally, at first glance, I don't see any bulging capacitors or any sort of corrosion on its insides, so ill just test out the other ports, see how it works; and if neither the DVI or the DisplayPorts truly work at all, ill concede the matter and ask for a refund from the reseller

besides, the adapters (depending on what retailer I buy them from) will be cheaper to get than the cables most likely

sygnus21 · 27 Jan 2020

If you need to return this card back to the seller for fraudulent misrepresentation then you're asking for trouble by disassembling and trying to repair it. Now they have the upper hand of saying there was nothing wrong with the card and that you took it apart before sending it back.

As Superfly noted, I would have just contacted eBay and sent it back.

My two cents.

BrokenDaily · 27 Jan 2020

So I know this post mentioned that I'd wait until the adapters came in and stuff, but I don't think I need to anymore; Before I did what follows, I made sure to proper power down the computer, unplug the power cord from the computer, pressed and held the power button until the lights on the motherboard dimmed out completely, and for extra measure I turned off the power strip that the computer is hooked onto

after I un-screwed the radiator portion of the amd video card to the card's motherboard and wiped off the old thermal compound and put new stuff on, I made sure to wiggle the 2 cables attached to the motherboard (making sure they're seated right) and then put everything back together

I then put the amd card into my computer with the power cable attached and such and the card seated properly in the pci-e slot, put everything back together right, plugged the power cord back into my computer and back onto the power strip and turned the strip back on; I then pressed the power button and waited for the same blank screen problem I had before, but to my surprise, I got video; I think that despite it being packaged right, as it was being transported, one of the cables to the video card's motherboard got unseated just a tiny bit enough to mess with the video or something else unrelated to cabling

well after I did what I did and tested it, its working just fine, and I have no doubts it will work in my father's computer if he so wishes it

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Yep, took a while, but I think I figured out what was causing the no signal problem; it seems the 6-pin plug I was using my 6-pin to 8-pin adapter on for my gtx 960 card, is a little....messed up apparently; not to the point where it causes BSOD's or any crashing, but switching the 6-to-8 pin adapter to the other 6-pin power plug and using that is making the video card, and LG Monitor

And it still works as im using the rx 570 and the LG monitor right now with the HDMI port, so I do think this is a good success; the only downside, is this LG Monitor seems to not want to boot up a video signal until at the windows sign-in screen, so unless it still catches the signal if I need to get into the boot menu to boot to a USB or the BIOS menu, I might need a secondary monitor for that single purpose

Superfly · 28 Jan 2020

Hmm.. Good.

Those headers on the PCB are not necessary for the card to function at idle temps (unless they are shorting)
They are just for fans and rgb I suspect and the card will run without fans spinning as you know. I assume you also checked the HDMI soldered connection to the PCB was not loose etc.

Anyhow, at least it's working with the change in PSU cable? You can stress it now to make sure it's properly functional (maybe do some mining .. LOL)

BrokenDaily · 28 Jan 2020

frankly, I never believed in mining rigs, too expensive, also hated the reason thats why most of the higher tier graphics cards had their prices jumped up even on ebay; and no, I didnt check the HDMI soldiered connection, but I could check later on, although I doubt its any bad, just a small psu power cable mess up

maybe I should get a new PSU for my system, maybe my father's as well, nothing too big, just...maybe somewhere in the 600+ watt range, maybe 700. that could solve some of the other problems we may get in the future

either way, looks like the amd card problem I had is truly solved, ill make a separate thread for psu recommendations for my computer and my father's computer

BrokenDaily · 31 Jan 2020

Sort of related to my AMD RX 570 (I think), but a couple of hours ago, I installed a recommended update to the amd drivers and stuff, it said it went fine, but after I shutdown after playing some Darksiders II Dethinitive Edition for a bit, and booted back up, the OS wouldn't load, kept saying inaccessable boot device

wouldn't even go into safemode (minimal) after setting the C: drive (or F: drive with the install disc) via bcdedit command "bcdedit /set {default} safeboot minimal". After a while, thing wouldn't load, so I had to reinstall the OS. I'd make a topic on this, but ill be busy reinstalling everything I lost, damn boot device error