Is my 6950 stuffed?

Lately it's started becoming very unstable and after a few hours of Bitcoin mining at stock clocks it gives a BSOD. It was very stable at 930MHz with 1.200V, then suddenly it started crashing again and again.

I even gave it a 40mV increase over stock and it still crashes at stock clocks. Everything else on the computer is run at stock clocks. I tested my PSU with a multimeter while running 8 threads of Prime95 and GUIMiner simultaneously and the voltage is 12.43-12.44V the whole time.

I flicked the BIOS switch back to the original BIOS from the shader unlock one and it gives the same issue which makes me think that the video card is the problem.

sounds like a RMA case

The shop that I bought it from won't be interested unless the card is either fully dead or gives immediate obvious signs that it's faulty. It only seems to crash when mining and not gaming so I want to look for a way to kill the card properly without leaving any obvious signs.

Any ideas?

you cant really kill a card from using it lol, just start picking some caps off of it

What drivers do you have installed i started get BSOD 0xFC with 12.8 with my hd 6950 had to go back to 12.6

QuickFast said:

What drivers do you have installed i started get BSOD 0xFC with 12.8 with my hd 6950 had to go back to 12.6

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I tried 12.6 and 12.8 with the same results. I doubt it's a driver issue as my overclocks were stable for a couple of weeks and now suddenly it's not even stable at stock clocks.

If its beginning to die it will get the the point where it wont even boot eventually, you need to speed that up
Furmark it constantly?

How old is it? BTW, i read on Toms Hardware or TPU that Unlocking shaders on 6950's can shorten the life of the card as the PCB is not actually designed to run at 6970 specs.

SMOKEU said:

The shop that I bought it from won't be interested unless the card is either fully dead or gives immediate obvious signs that it's faulty. It only seems to crash when mining and not gaming so I want to look for a way to kill the card properly without leaving any obvious signs.

Click to expand...

You can't rma to manufacturer?

Frakk said:

How old is it? BTW, i read on Toms Hardware or TPU that Unlocking shaders on 6950's can shorten the life of the card as the PCB is not actually designed to run at 6970 specs.

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The card is about a year old.

Janus67 said:

You can't rma to manufacturer?

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It's going to cost a lot of money since I'll have to send it to another country to RMA it and shipping is expensive.

Hi all,

I hope you're well.

I staggered across this thread by co-incidence this evening as i've literally just started getting problems since the latest catalyst update. I thought it may be worth giving you my 2cents too.

I was playing GW2 this evening when all of a sudden - BSOD (Crash dump)... Now, this has happened quite a few times in the past but usually if I turn off the pc and on again, it loads up fine.

Now, I get a blue screen as soon as I pass the windows loading screen. I've loaded in safe mode and disabled the 6950 and this fixes the problem!

It seems pretty co-incidental that myself and OP both have had this card for around a year and have started running into problems after the latest update.

It's worth mentioning that I don't OC my gear.

Any ideas what's going on?!

FilthyOstrich said:

Hi all,

I hope you're well.

I staggered across this thread by co-incidence this evening as i've literally just started getting problems since the latest catalyst update. I thought it may be worth giving you my 2cents too.

I was playing GW2 this evening when all of a sudden - BSOD (Crash dump)... Now, this has happened quite a few times in the past but usually if I turn off the pc and on again, it loads up fine.

Now, I get a blue screen as soon as I pass the windows loading screen. I've loaded in safe mode and disabled the 6950 and this fixes the problem!

It seems pretty co-incidental that myself and OP both have had this card for around a year and have started running into problems after the latest update.

It's worth mentioning that I don't OC my gear.

Any ideas what's going on?!

Click to expand...

Try going back to the old Drivers, there is no gain for 6### series cards after 12.6 anyway

SMOKEU said:

The card is about a year old.



It's going to cost a lot of money since I'll have to send it to another country to RMA it and shipping is expensive.

Click to expand...

I'd just Furmark it until it dies. IMO, if it can't handle continuous Furmark at stock settings, you deserve a RMA anyway. Haven't heard anything about unlocking killing cards prematurely myself, I figured it was the same risk as typical overclocking.

Frakk said:

Try going back to the old Drivers, there is no gain for 6### series cards after 12.6 anyway

Click to expand...

Thanks - I will try this now. Pretty obvious, I don't know why I didn't think of trying this before

OP - what exactly happens with yours? Does it blue screen upon passing the windows screen or just randomly?

(apologies in advance - I'm not very technical and I am definitely out of my depth here, I'm just interested in seeing if there are any similarities.)

Thanks

Unlocking a 6950 can indeed kill that card, because the standart electronics isnt tuned for such a high amount of current unless its a special PCB design which is at least equal to 6970. So it simply will bust the underperfoming parts. Unlocking and overclocking at once is giving very high stress to a design which isnt tuned for. Especially the combination with bitcoinmining or furmark is dangerous and i would not feel safe unless its a special OC design which is made for unlock/OC (designed by the manufacturer). Cooling can only do so and so much, but when the hardware ingridients cant handle the power it may not be of use. I probably didnt say the stuff people wanted to hear but it seems the truth. But the worst part of the truth is that breaking CAPs, chokes or what else are even able to kill processors as a follow up...

However: Running that card with a usual game which is not permanenntly stressing that card, is usualy safe when stuff is done properly because the hardware can have some rest in between. A game is rarely using a GPU at continuous full load, its usualy combined with lot of up and downs, so the hardware can perform at higher clocks with lesser risks. But, both, Furmark and Bitcoin is definitely to much stress for a standart PCB.

Continuous Furmark is never recommended, and a unrealistic situation which isnt even caused by bitcoin mining because bitcoin only does rely on the core, not the RAM.

Anyway, i would say, RMA it and dont unlock the other card. OC is fine but no unlock anymore (when combined with bitcoin). Unlock should be reserved to gamer only.

The 6950 is different to the 6970 PCB, for a start the 6970 has 8+6 power plugs vs 6+6, a pretty good indication the PCB is designed to handle more power intake.

But who knows, what i came across about unlocking shortening the cards life was just chatter on TPU and TMW forums while looking into to for my own 6950, nothing conclusive.

If i was you i would flash it back.