Hello. I bought a Diamond HD7970 back in 2012 and it has given me nothing but bliss and good gaming moments. I updated it's bios to a 7970 Ghz (official update) without any kind of problem. Yesterday, I decided to clean my PC of dust so I brought it to my workplace where we have compressed air. I thorougly cleansed it (putting the "air gun" inside the GPU vent and its fan, and almost everywhere). All was fine until I took it home.. while I was carrying the case grabbing it by the front door, it snapped and fell on the floor from around 1.50 meters. Nothing on the inside got hit directly, only the front of the case was hit. When I connected the PC, really bad artifacts immediately appeared.. In the Bios startup and on the desktop, they get worse in a matter of seconds and everything freezes and crashes. I disconnected the GPU, connected it again, cleansed the PCI-E port, but no go. Artifacts all the time. This GPU has "dual-bios" so I flicked the switch to put it on the default bios. No artifacts at first, but then they appeared. Oh, after the computer crashed you can hear the fan of the GPU going really loud (overheating??) Makes no sense since its squeaky clean and under no load. Finally, I boot up using the onboard GPU and it BSOD everytime when trying to load up Windows 8. The fault was on a .sys file called "AtihdWB6.sys" which I found out is a HD Audio file. So I disabled HD Audio from the mobo bios and it worked. After being able to boot Windows, I uninstalled everything AMD related so I could get audio and no BSOD. It worked. Now im wondering if the GPU got ****ed up with the air gun or the fall, it shouldnt since it wasnt directly hit and the case is really sturdy. Is there any chance the mobo is defective and not the GPU? Thanks!
It could have been damaged with either. The air gun might be too much air pressure. Dropping a card can always cause damage from the jolt.
I remember back a while ago I had dropped my video card on the concrete drive outside while I was trying to clean it also. It had fallen and hit first the bracket and bent it, looked like the only thing so I bent it back. Popped it back in and it would do the same thing yours is doing. I tried a few things with no work, but then I tried removing the h/s and fan and cleaned off the old and reapplied paste and it worked. Till this day the card is still running in another machine. Just an idea. Hope you get it figured out.
yes could be something tiny like the hestsink got a bump and moved a tiny bit try redoing the heatsink and new paste
I would definitely pull the heatsink off, inspect for damage, re-apply thermal paste (real men use Coollaboratory Liquid Pro), put it together, and keep my fingers crossed.
