Ok, so being keen on experimenting I was able to kill a bunch of hardware, including these two 5970s. By kill I don't mean they are totally useless or not fixable, so read on.
On the pictures below there's an A and a B card. Don't assume the brand will match that of the cooler, as I often mixed and matched these (same goes for backplates). But all my 5970s are reference so that is not really a problem (and honestly the cooler/backplate should be correct, but I didn't do much effort to make sure of that).
Also all the BIOS are stock voltage (that doesn't mean they were never over volted, I did that back in the days to try out but decided against it) and ram is low bound to 300Mhz. All BIOS have been downloaded tweaked and flashed for each card, no reusing BIOS files across cards.
The A card is the deadest amongst the dead; it passes POST, the fans spin 100% and then down as they should and the OS (only use linux here) actually boots and sees the card BUT:
- There is no image anywhere, none of the ports work
- The card gets very, very hot, even just standing there idle
- Can't mine on it, the driver crashes immediately
- I have removed the cooler, verified everything, new paste, some pads changed, no good.
- EDIT: actually linux doesn't boot with this card anymore... assume dead: fan up and down, no beeps, no red lights and overheats immediately.
The B card is actually working, sort of; it boots and has image, and I can even mine on it:
- GPU0, if used to mine, locks computer (same for any 3D accelerated rendering, but I use it for ubuntu's desktop just fine)
- GPU1 I can mine with, but it gives hardware errors interleaved with actual hashes. It mines at ~360Mhs at 820Mhz according to cgminer
I've since replaced these cards and don't have a place for them ATM and, being crippled or dead, it really doesn't pay off to buy all the other hardware needed for a new computer. I'm selling these as broken, the Saphire cooler is almost new (used only for a week or two, card was WC'd), the ASUS cooler I bought used (well, the whole card, not just the cooler
) so I can't speak about it's health other than it works perfect.
These are being shipped from Europe and I'll entertain any bid that covers shipping in full. Of course I may choose not to sell if the bids are not worth my time to package and ship
Mandatory pictures:
