[SOLVED] Radeon RX580 just stopped giving out signal to my monitor, tech support says card is OK

[harruspex]

I've had this Sapphire NITRO+ Radeon RX580 4GB DDR5 graphic card since February 2019 and I've had no issues with it, but one day around December 2019 I would turn my PC on and I would get no signal at all (not on HDMI, not on DVI), even though the BIOS would POST as normal. The card's leds do turn on, but the fans don't spin for a few seconds at boot like they used to. This is what I did to troubleshoot it:

• I tried installing my (very old) GeForce GT210 in the same PCI-E 3.0 slot to see if it was a motherboard issue. It worked perfectly so I assumed the slot worked just fine.
• I tried using a different power supply with my RX580 to see if it was my power supply (a 650 watt Corsair VS650) that was failing. It still didn't give out any signal.

After this, I assumed it was an issue with the card itself, so I sent it to my local store's tech support service. One month later (!!!) I got the card back without a single note or report explaining what my card's issue was or how it was resolved. After installing it and powering up my PC, I got signal on my monitor but it was rather short-lived - 10 seconds after I logged in, the screen went pitch black again. No signal again, even after rebooting several times.

I went back to the store right away and they had me hand out the card to send it to tech support again, but the next day the store's electronics department clerk called me and said tech support reported that the card passed all the tests and works OK. I told them it didn't seem OK at all to me and that I had replaced several components to test the card. They seem unlikely to give me a replacement, and it's now been a week without any news from tech support. Looks like they're going to make me wait another whole month, which is the period after which they're forced to give me a replacement if they weren't able to repair the card.

Is it possible that my card is actually OK or am I dealing with awful customer service?

 

[Mrgr74]

Hi @harruspex

It sounds like a little of both. Whats your primary PSU? Have you tried the 580 in another PC? A months turn-around is simply unacceptable and I would contact Sapphire directly. Take a video of it not working and notify Sapphire of this should they wish to see for themselves and that you cannot be without a working system. Tell them about the run-around you've been getting. Which local store did you take it to? If you do take the card back in, bring your whole system to show the tech as there may be an issue with it and not entirely with just the 580. (even if the GT210 worked fine) Do NOT however, leave your system with them.

Be sure to save all documentation, emails and receipts as you will then have a leg to stand on so to speak should you need to enter in an RMA. What happened when you talked to Sapphire? Your card is still under warranty if you bought it in February of 2019.

Here's Sapphires Support Page.

Let us know how it goes or if you have any further questions. I'm curious how this turns out.

 

[harruspex]

Thanks for the quick reply @Mrgr74.

I do have another PC I can try it on, but it's being used by my father and the card doesn't fit in the case, since it's an low-end office PC. I would have to take the motherboard out of the case to be able to insert the card in the PCI-E slot and test it, which honestly seems too much of a hassle since I thought the tests I had already done strongly suggested my PC was fine and it was a card failure.

I haven't talked to Sapphire yet, I'm dealing directly with Carrefour, the multinational store I bought it at. I hoped they'd be quick to solve the issue. I don't know if they have their own tech support team working on my card or they send it to Sapphire themselves - I will ask them about it.

In any case I will report back with whatever progress I make.

 

[harruspex]

Okay so a little update on this...
After waiting for yet another week I got called by their customer service department and told me that yet again tech support has found no flaw in the graphic card and that it functions properly so they're sending it back to me, no replacement. This time I managed to convince them to at least sent me a report detailing the tests and benchmarking they did on the card to see how they've reached that veredict.
It's a pretty unfortunate situation, since I can't prove that it's the card which fails and not my computer, even though I tested it with different components and it still didn't work. At this point the only thing I can do is contact Sapphire support directly and see what solution they can offer me, but first I will try the card in a completely different computer to be 100% sure that the card is broken and it's not my computer.

 

[harruspex]

Alright, here's the final 2 months later in case anyone gets the same problem:

After getting the card back from tech support I tested it on another computer and verified it worked. It still didn't work on my computer, but I noticed the DRAM_LED was solid red, and this happened whenever I installed my graphic card. With my old graphic card, it would boot without any issues. So I installed my graphic card and after fiddling around with the modules, taking them off and putting them back on again, the DRAM_LED eventually stopped turning red and my PC booted successfully. I'm guessing it's a problem with either my RAM modules or my motherboard, since I get blue screens on Windows every now and then.