5970 Finally Crapped out?

[pyro786]

UPDATE 2: Once I was able to boot up through onboard video, I could switch my DVI cable to my 5970 and it will display flawlessly. What the hell??

UPDATE: If I use my onboard MB video but leave the 5970 in, Windows recognizes it correctly in the device manager. So it's not completely dead?

Today I turned my computer on and found that it wouldn't boot into windows nor display the bios. I swapped out my 5970 for my 285GTX, and sure enough the 5970 card seems to be the problem. When it boots, the 5970's fan immediately speeds up to 100%. I've only had this card for 13(!!) months, so of course now it's one month out of warranty.

I've read that this brand (Diamond) has QA assurance issues, and that perhaps the memory's thermal paste wasn't seated correctly etc etc. Is it worth it for me to try to open this thing up and try to reseat stuff, or does the whole card just sound shot to the experts here? Does the fan at 100% signify anything? Do I have any other options?

Here's my card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814103195

It was overclocked, but it was always stable and I always watched the temps.

 

[Colin_Laws]

Yeah, I think that if people say the thermal paste isn't seated correctly for the memory chips, and that you are getting a 100 % fan speed on startup, to me it sounds like it is overheating. Why would it be overheating though, you aren't putting any initial load on those chips!? I would say that you should either contact Diamond and request an RMA or, if you feel confident enough, try to reseat the heatsink.

 

[tjs4ever]

Try and push for a warranty claim before you go hands on. Maybe they will rise to the occasion. Failing, and only failing that would I reccommend going elbows-deep in the thing. I have seen other devices exibit this "100%" fan behaviour when dead. I mean DEAD dead. This may not be your case though. See if diamond will do anything for you, and report back.

 

[pyro786]

DOUBLE WTF UPDATE: Once I was able to boot up through onboard video, I switched my DVI cable to my 5970 and it displays flawlessly. What the hell??

I will contact Diamond tomorrow. Meanwhile, more updates. Still using onboard video, sometimes the 5970 will be recognized and sometimes it won't be (correlating to whether the fan blasts at 100% in the beginning - if it does, the card won't be recognized). Got it to load up in GPU-Z, and everything looks normal (temp wise at least):

Doesn't look like I've blown out a VRM, which was a potential failure point for these cards judging from what I've read on some bitcoin mining forums.