5970 strange behaviour (artifacts/undervolt)

[pintycar]

So here is the thing. I have my fair share of experience with 5970s for mining. Today I tried my 8th one that I received a few days ago and as soon as I booted into windows and installed the drivers some artifacts appeared and the display driver crashed. Temperatures were cold and there was no activity on the desktop. So I opened cgminer and set the usual 0.95v 680 core 180 memory and it crashed. So I thought, ok even though it is a xfx black edition it may not be as good as my other ones so I set a very conservative 1.00v/650core/300mem. And the same thing happened within seconds.

Before you suggest this, I tried the card in a different rig with 1200w silent pro gold and same thing happened. And also, I tried a different 5970 in this rig and everything is perfect.

Now here comes the puzzling bit:

Furmark runs without problem with temperatures of 80-82ºC and no artifacts/crashes.

cgminer runs (so far) without problems at 1.05v (stock voltage)/800core/300mem.

Could it be that I have a sadist card? It almost seems like it says if you don't punish me enough I will not work properly.

I would appreciate any help regarding why this could happen.

Thank you very much.

[50BTC.com]

You bought the card used? If so then maybe the previous owner was not careful with overclocking and chip degraded. In addition, not each chip can perform well at a reduced voltage.

[pintycar]

You bought the card used? If so then maybe the previous owner was not careful with overclocking and chip degraded. In addition, not each chip can perform well at a reduced voltage.

Hi 50BTC. Yes, it's a 5970 I mean I doubt there are many unused ones left.. I've already asked him to take it back and hopefully eBay will agree with me. What shocks me is that his post said:

"Replaced my system with a new card.  I used to run these at under-clocked speeds for stability as I am not confident to overclock or cooling my case.
Maintenance/cleaning of the fans are advised before use as I have just taken them out of my system."

What do you think I should do? I bought two and one works perfectly.. maybe I should send both back? Dunno..

[ssateneth]

You're pretty much fucked. Almost no 5970 are under warranty anymore, and if you manage to get one to send in, you'll likely get a 7970 back. Either mine the card into the ground at whatever settings you can get it stable at or resell on ebay and pass it on to the next poor sap.

[50BTC.com]

Think you should try to set 0.95v and 600Mhz core and check how it will work, if it will be stable - set 610Mhz, 620Mhz, etc. before it will crash. Perhaps the result would be a good. Also, how much you paid for it?

[AndrewBUD]

Sounds like the exact same problem I had on a 5850 with a burnt out cap...

It would boot in to windows fine but die after trying to mine with the card.... sometimes it would mine for hours.... sometimes seconds...

[pintycar]

You're pretty much fucked. Almost no 5970 are under warranty anymore, and if you manage to get one to send in, you'll likely get a 7970 back. Either mine the card into the ground at whatever settings you can get it stable at or resell on ebay and pass it on to the next poor sap.

Haha, a 7970 would be a blessing! Anyone knows how many years of warranty do xfx offer on their GPUs?

I think at this point, that GPU mining is still profitable but is not going to last too long, maybe cheeky-selling it would be best

Think you should try to set 0.95v and 600Mhz core and check how it will work, if it will be stable - set 610Mhz, 620Mhz, etc. before it will crash. Perhaps the result would be a good. Also, how much you paid for it?

I have tried that and it will not do anything at 0.95. Nada. Has to be 1 or 1.0375 to bring it to life. Also it doesn't like low memory clocks :S

At the moment is happy with 1.05/800/600 but the fan sounds like a rocket to keep it at 70ºC. (Sisters are mining at either 0.95/680/180 or 1/780/180).

I paid £200 for the thing! That's why I'm so pissed off.

Sounds like the exact same problem I had on a 5850 with a burnt out cap...

It would boot in to windows fine but die after trying to mine with the card.... sometimes it would mine for hours.... sometimes seconds...

Andrew, I had that with an Asus 5870 v2 (which I managed to RMA) but it was never artifacting. Just dying/hard reset/100%fan. This is slightly different. Could be electromigration? ¿? (he, he making use of the spanish "¿" makes it even more confusing)

Thank you guys by the way for answering

[AndrewBUD]

I think all my questions should end with a ¿


I guess it would depend on which cap is burnt out..... Have you tried opening the card and looking around to see if anything looks/smells burnt?

[AndrewK]

If you decide to get rid of it I buy broken cards ... PM me if interested.