Sapphire HD 4870 Artifacts, anything I can do to fix it?

[madjam002]

Hi all,
So I bought a used HD 4870 off eBay for £16 (bargain) because the seller couldn't test the card so I didn't know whether it would work or not. I took the risk of buying it to see if it would work or not as I would like to upgrade the GPU in my secondary computer.

Here is what I've found. When booting up, the screen has white grids and lines and other artifacts when in the BIOS menu and the "Loading Operating System" screen (I have a Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 motherboard) but then when the system gets to the OS boot screen and further, my screen just flashes on and off, constantly "going into sleep mode". So I can't see anything to do with Windows on the screen.
I had a Sapphire HD 6870 Flex edition graphics card in my system previously, and I hadn't changed any drivers or anything, but I doubt that's got anything to do with the problem as there are artifacts before the system actually gets to the OS.

If I disconnect the 2 x PCIe power connectors to the graphics card, the system flashes and beeps a red message saying that the power connectors aren't connected, but there are no artifacts on this flashing message, the artifacts only appear when both power connectors are plugged in and in the BIOS screen / boot. My PSU is a Corsair TX650v2 if that helps.

So really my question is whether I can do anything to save this bargain graphics card and possibly squeeze some usage out of it. I have considered the whole "baking" option as I know that has worked for some people, not sure whether to try it yet though. I have already taken the heat sync off and cleaned it, and cleaned and applied some Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste, didn't help with the problem at all.

So yeah, any help would be much appreciated!

 

[ASHISH65]

Mostly i will not solve.that is why 2nd hand gpu not good.

 

[Witcher79]

Second hand GPU. No wonder he sold it for so cheap. He probably sold it for so cheap, because it was like this when he tested it.

 

[madjam002]

Second hand GPU. No wonder he sold it for so cheap. He probably sold it for so cheap, because it was like this when he tested it.

Yeah fair enough, I may as well give the old oven trick a go, I've got nothing to lose.

 

[J_E_D_70]

Would like to hear how it goes. I baked my 8800GTX three times (maybe was four). Limped it along for 18 months like that.

Edit: I did 385 degrees for 8 minutes (last one I think I did 10).

 

[madjam002]

Would like to hear how it goes. I baked my 8800GTX three times (maybe was four). Limped it along for 18 months like that.

Edit: I did 385 degrees for 8 minutes (last one I think I did 10).

Alright will do I just demoed the oven thing with an old 5570, I tried it for 7 minutes at 383 F and it didn't fix it unfortunately, the card simply provides no output, the OS continues to load fine though. I've re-done the thermal paste and everything so I'm not really sure whether it's worth doing again but I doubt it will fix anything.
I hope to bake my 4870 soon when my PSU for my secondary PC arrives, so hopefully that will all go well

 

[madjam002]

Just to let you all know that baking my second hand 4850 which had artifacts at 385 degrees F for 8-9 minutes worked a treat! My broken card now works perfectly woooo!