Sapphire Tech 5850: dead?

[luiz.fernando01]

Hi everyone!!

I'm from Brazil, and have been using a SapphireTech HD 5850 for a year now, running all sorts of heavy stuff with it, no problems so far (until yesterday...) Maybe you guys can help me with this one...

I was on the net doing some research for school and suddenly my screen turned black; at the same time, my 5850 took off to its full fan speed for as long as my PC was on until I manually reseted the system through the case RESET button. Sadly, at the very beginning of boot phase the card was still at full speed and my monitor flashed in sleep mode, showing no video signal from the machine. I could hear Windows 7 x64 Ultimate initializing through my speakers, so as Skype and my other programs on startup. No images at all, and card running at full power.

I went to a friend's house yesterday (he has the exact same 5850), and tried the board on his machine. Same issue. We reinstalled his board and everything worked fine, as it should be.

Looks like I've lost my card. Warranty from the store expired only three months after buying it, and I don't think SapphireTech offers support for Brazillian users.

I was wondering if there's any way to revert this situation. I was using ATI Catalyst 11.1, if I remember right, since I had been having fan speed problems while trying the latest drivers. Is my problem driver related? Is there any way I can save my board and also save a big load of cash in the process?

PC specs: Mobo: Gigabyte 890FXA-UD5 Rev. 2.0
Memory: 2x2GB Kingston 1333 DDR3
PSU: Corsair 750TX
OS: Windows 7 x64 Ultimate Edition
CPU: Amd Phenom II X6 1090T

P.S.: All parts running on stock configs, no OC at all...

[_dangtx_]

howdy and welcome aboard.

best case scenario the card's bios got corrupted. look up the stock one and try a blind flash, unless you have another non
ati card or pci one.

worst case a chip on the pcb went south(died) or the core died. although the fan going 100% could be that something crucial

to operation is not getting cooled(maybe a thermal pad fell off/moved?)

can be anything. as long as you dont have warranty left, you can play with it,take it apart.

gl man

[JJThomp]

Like dang said only way to know is to open her up, just make sure you have some thermal paste so you can put it back together.

Also you can try baking it, pretty much you heat your card up and hope something was just lose and gets re-soldered it works sometimes. Look up directions online as I have never had to do this myself and can't ofer any first hand experience.

[luiz.fernando01]

Thx very much!! Will add some cheese on top of it and go on with the baking!! Hope it works!!

[luiz.fernando01]

Anyway, dangtx, how does this blind bios flash procedure on the video card goes??

[_dangtx_]

first of all,insert it in another system,get the bios,and check it. if it turns out its not corrupted,then try
to mod it to lowest clocks it allows you to(i.e. 2d mode) and try again

if not,then : search google :)

[Coffaholic]

Originally Posted by luiz.fernando01

I went to a friend's house yesterday (he has the exact same 5850), and tried the board on his machine. Same issue. We reinstalled his board and everything worked fine, as it should be.

Are you able to try his 5850 in your motherboard?

[luiz.fernando01]

No, I can't try it in my own motherboard... Also, I've tried it on a friend's PC and the same problem occurred... I think I've lost it...

[_dangtx_]

yes,if you tried it in at least another pc that can handle it,bus and power wise,then it is gone

also,you did try all the ports in the back right? i have one that has a single one functional,the rest
are gone to pasture

[luiz.fernando01]

Yeah, I've tried both DVI ports in the back of the card, no signal at all. Thought it'd probably be a monitor or a cable issue, so I tried my dad's screen and there was still no signal from the card...