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Is my card dead? - GPU artifacts/sparklies on desktop and booting to black screen?

Draeger

Draeger

Draeger

Soldato
Joined
4 Feb 2004
Posts
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Écosse
I bought a 'B' Grade MSI 7850 Twin Frozr III here in February and over the past couple of weeks it has been showing weird artifacts on the desktop and when browsing online. Also does it playing games so pretty much all the time. Started off as just a bit annoying and they would go away if you left it for about a minute or so. But a couple of days ago it got to the stage that it became more and more frequent and worse looking, sometimes causing the 'Display Driver has crashed and recovered' message. However today, it got to the point that the desktop boots but about 2 or three minutes later the sparklies are all over the place and then *BAM!!* the screen goes blank, black, white or some other colour and the only way to restart is to reboot. Then it does it again. Things I've tried so far:-

  • Swapped out the DVI cable for a new one
  • Tried a different monitor
  • Uninstalled the ATI drivers and used DDU to clean up before reinstalling the drivers
  • Tried different drivers going back over the last year
  • Reseated the card
  • Swapped the card from the PCI 16 slot to the other PCI slot
  • On the rare occasion I managed to get to the desktop for any more than 3 minutes, I used Afterburner to increase voltage a little
  • Also used Afterburner to underclock by 150mhz

None of the above have made any difference. :(

Now after the last uninstall and reinstall of different drivers, it is refusing to boot to the desktop in 'normal mode'. I can only get Safe Mode to work. If I try and boot to the desktop normally just as it should come up the screen goes black. Not off or blank, but black. No cursor or anything.

The card isn't overheating, its been sat at normal temperatures since I got it and even playing graphically intensive games it was showing usual/average temps. So I'm guessing that for some reason out of the blue the RAM on the card has gone bad? If anyone has any suggestions on what to do to try and get it working again, I'm all ears.

Failing that, I'm going to be looking at a new GPU I expect? No warranty as it was 'B Grade' - think I've learned my lesson there.
 
With all that you've tried it does sound borked..

Didn't realise B Grade doesn't come with warranty.. That's a bit crap :/

Not even manufacturers warranty?
 
Resa69 said:
Yeah, try contacting msi see what they say?
Click to expand...

I wouldn't even know where to start? I assumed B Grade had the limited warranty from OcUK and then nothing with the manufacturer? I registered on the MSI Support site but its asking me to register a product and asking questions like 'serial number' and 'proof of purchase'. I have my OcUK invoice history online but as it mentions 'B Grade' there will MSI not just say 'sorry, you aren't covered'?
 
Should still have a manufacturer warranty. B grade to OCUK can mean anything from opened box for the fun of it to customer returns found working.
 
Ok, I've successfully registered the card on the MSI website. I can't however find anywhere on there which tells me if I have any warranty on it. The only proof of purchase I have is a screenshot of my order of the card at the time which is in my order history online in my account. I was asked to upload proof of purchase during the registration of the card on the MSI website and I used that screenshot. I then submitted an RMA request explaining what the issue was with the card and I've now been issued an RMA number.

No idea if that all sounds right?
 
Draeger said:
Ok, I've successfully registered the card on the MSI website. I can't however find anywhere on there which tells me if I have any warranty on it. The only proof of purchase I have is a screenshot of my order of the card at the time which is in my order history online in my account. I was asked to upload proof of purchase during the registration of the card on the MSI website and I used that screenshot. I then submitted an RMA request explaining what the issue was with the card and I've now been issued an RMA number.

No idea if that all sounds right?
Click to expand...

If they have give you an RMA number and seen proof of purchase I would say that sounds right. Do they know its a B grade item?
 
doesnt matter whether its b grade or not if you are the only person to register it and have proof of purchase you can get generally the warranty for the card.

I bought a evga 580 b grade and got full 3 year warranty when i registered it. The risk you run is whether anyone before you registered it before it was sent back.

Sounds like MSI are honouring he warranty so good luck you might get a replacement.
 
varkanoid said:
doesnt matter whether its b grade or not if you are the only person to register it and have proof of purchase you can get generally the warranty for the card.

I bought a evga 580 b grade and got full 3 year warranty when i registered it. The risk you run is whether anyone before you registered it before it was sent back.

Sounds like MSI are honouring he warranty so good luck you might get a replacement.
Click to expand...

Hmmm. Any idea if when registering a product such as this that if its been registered before you will be informed of this during the attempt at registration? Because everything seemed to go smoothly with the registration of the card with MSI and the RMA number was sent out instantly. Of course, it could all be because its an automated process to begin with. I've just found my original invoice for the card as well so that's another form of proof of purchase. When I check the RMA process progress with the number recieved all it shows thus far is a flow chart under the RMA number/serial number and details of the card:-

36FvbtR.png
 
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