Radeon R9 troubleshooting: just dead?

[quest for silence]

Hi mates!

Long story short: after the usual and very normal shutdown at night, the rig doesn't boot anymore in the morning.

Using a secondary VGA it booted again and then that's what I see through GPU-Z



Well, we should have some good boys with GPUs, so... is it just dead, even with the rendering test running?
If so, why is it dead? If no, why the rig doesn't boot (or anything else) with it?

I can save and re-flash the BIOS on this card, but seemingly that's as worthless as the GPU-Z render test



So dear Mask, McSteel, rafal, behemot and others (I'm also looking at you, Wolfie, with all those Radeons mining you should know those R9s very well), any hint?

[McSteel]

Did you try another vBIOS from a repository? TPU has one, but not the only one...

To me it looks like the GPU never initialized fully.
Are you sure the rendering is done by it and not the secondary card (iGPU or whatever)?

[Stefan Payne]

In Windows 7 and later, rendering is done by the primary GPU and sent to the secondary GPU. So all it has to do is display stuff, nothing more.

So the first thing I'd do is putting the graphics card into another board and see what happens...

[quest for silence]

Originally Posted by McSteel

Did you try another vBIOS from a repository? TPU has one, but not the only one...

I know just TPU's one, and I also have the original rom: none works (= solves the problem) out of three.

Originally Posted by McSteel

To me it looks like the GPU never initialized fully.

I don't understand what you mean, actually it doesn't initialize (as it doesn't boot).
To me it's dead, just I don't understand how come I can access the vBIOS, or why something works but most of the things do not.

Originally Posted by McSteel

Are you sure the rendering is done by it and not the secondary card (iGPU or whatever)?

No, Mac, I just run the test within GPU-Z, I dunno what happens then.

Originally Posted by Stefan Payne

So the first thing I'd do is putting the graphics card into another board and see what happens...

Why?

At any rate, quite the same thing, putting this R9 on PCIe 0, even the other board doesn't boot.

[McSteel]

I mean the card reports to the system that it exists, but the GPU frequency is 0. Meaning there's no short or anything, just the GPU fails to transition into working state, while the rest of the card seems to be waiting for it.

If none of the BIOSes helped in their original state, possibly the leakage current within the GPU is so large it needs more voltage to even "wake up". This would be a sign of an inevitable final failure, which is why I won't suggest you edit the BIOS so as to specify a higher voltage in the GPU's running profile.

RMA the card - it's dead for all intents and purposes.

[quest for silence]

Originally Posted by McSteel

RMA the card - it's dead for all intents and purposes.

It's out of warrant since some months ago, so I guess the trash can is its final destination.

[-The_Mask-]

If it's still under warranty.

Edit: guess not.

[McSteel]

Originally Posted by quest for silence

It's out of warrant since some months ago, so I guess the trash can is its final destination.

Could be some bad solder then, if you were riding the card intensively, some bad joints may have developed. Do you have anyone who could re-flow or even fully re-ball the GPU? Might be worthwhile to try re-flowing it if it won't cost too much.

Alternatively you could even try selling the card to a repair shop for some peanuts (20-30€), if they feel hopeful about fixing it. Better than being left with 0. Or salvage the cooling system. I personally would get the entire power stage and the RAM chips as well, if the GPU really is dead, but then I do tinker with this stuff a bit more than the average Joe

[quest for silence]

Originally Posted by McSteel

Could be some bad solder then, if you were riding the card intensively, some bad joints may have developed. Do you have anyone who could re-flow or even fully re-ball the GPU? Might be worthwhile to try re-flowing it if it won't cost too much.

Alternatively you could even try selling the card to a repair shop for some peanuts (20-30€), if they feel hopeful about fixing it. Better than being left with 0. Or salvage the cooling system. I personally would get the entire power stage and the RAM chips as well, if the GPU really is dead, but then I do tinker with this stuff a bit more than the average Joe

No, I don't have anyone handy (everytime that happens I think: - "How come a cheap and easy to use reballing station does not exist on eBay?" ); so, if you wanna pay the shipping (my couriers don't serve North Disturbia, BTW), I may send it to you, dear Joe!

[McSteel]

No courier in their right mind comes to Serbia if they can avoid it, definitely no surprises there...

If you can afford to stow the card away for now, I may be able to sneak some money past my wife relatively soon, to pay for the shipping. Trouble is, the Customs may also give me a hard time, possibly claiming the card is in working order and that I'm trying to smuggle it in without paying import duties. I've actually had that happen before.

If you're in a hurry to throw the card away, I'm sure we'll both somehow survive without it