Falty HIS HD6870 ICE Turbo

[fluffydemise]

Hi guys, I picked up one of the cards named above yesterday second hand. I am aware the card probably is frought with issues but the price was great (£75). I have been assured I can take it back for a cash refund within 28 days so I threw caution to the wind and thought i'd give it a go

...And unsurprisingly I think it is indeed faulty. However, I do not have enough to be certain and would appreciate some insight!

I ran various benchmarks. Furmark ran for 15 minutes twice both times temp peaked at 75c. No problems. Ran the basic 3d mark11 test three times, no problems.

However, the unigine heaven benchmark is causing me great concern. Anywhere between 10-60 seconds and the computer crashes. Fans running still but computer is dead. This happens every single time. I have tried various settings in unigine, tessellation AF and AA in various combinations, no difference. Also tried in all DX modes.

So i'm a bit stumped. If there are issues with the card that cause heaven to crash, why are they not replicated in other software tests? 3dMark uses dx11, tessellation and all the other bells and whistles yet it plays fine. I have also gamed on it for a few hours with no crashes and a good increase in performance. Not quite the wow levels I was hoping for but I think my a6-3500 is holding me back.

So, fubar card or is heaven an unreliable test?

Cheers!

 

[fluffydemise]

EDIT: Forgot to include, wen running heaven the audio gets very choppy and crackly worsening in intensity until the system crashes. I run my audio over HDMI from the card so it is probably related!