Gigabyte 7970 VRM Heat Pad & Troubleshoot

Hey everyone,

Alright, I have three Gigabyte 7970 Windforces.

Two of them won't even post... I've had 7970's before and i know they were temperamental with the connection to the monitor. So i've tried the DVI and HDMI... while also clearing the CMOS. Still wont post. Anything else I should try?

The third card works (altho suprisingly slows the computer down substantially) and it gets HOT. Under any load, almost immediately 100^C. So I intend to do a cleaning... but Unfortunately the previous owner used thermal compound on the VRM's. I remember reading that this is a "no-no" So Im going to clean everything up, use some arctic silver on the GPU and I need some new Thermal Heat Pads for the VRMS.... Where should I buy this and what thickness? Any suggestions? Thanks!

If your going to redo thermal paste on VRM use MX2/MX4 its non electrical conductive hopefully previous owner did not use something like liquid pro or AS5 on it.

I would clean it all off with alcohol and order some new appropriate sized thermal pads for the mem / vrms also. contact may not be happening for you.

once this is all done try the secondary bios switch.

Hey Again,

I'm not exactly sure what was used on the VRM's... but If remember correctly from what he was showing me, it was the Arctic MX4 thermal compound. Either way, I've ordered some FujiPoly 17w/Mk thermal pads for the VRM's and i'll be using arctic silver 5 for the GPU. The thermal pads are 1mm thick... which I hope my research is right! I was going to order 0.5mm... but damn that stuff is pricey!

I'll probably have these cards cleaned up and ready to run within a week or two... I intend to play with the bios on the cards and refreshing the CMOS on the mobo. Like I said... i'm fairly sure these cards are extremely finicky. Is it rare for a card to literally be DOA?

Also, is there a easy way to reflash a graphic card... if that's even possible?

Bump

Eaks77 said:

Hey everyone,

... but Unfortunately the previous owner used thermal compound on the VRM's.


Thanks!

Click to expand...

Perhaps the previous owner pushed them too far? Causing the instability?
Haven't heard of finicky 7970 cards, unless if they were overclocked too much, or were used with other cooling devices etc.

Maybe flashing the default bios to the cards?

These cards were water cooled.

Is flashing a GPU a fairly easy process? Are there any good tutorials out there?

yes as long as the card can do post and bios function you can flash it.

or if you can use onboard video to get it done.

like i said before try the secondary bios switch if he was smart he would have flashed the blank slot with new bios not the stock bios area.

Unfortunately, nothing posts or shows on screen with two cards. I'll play with the bios switches first and I may have to use the inboard video and flash the cards

I'm back and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

I've taken the only working 7970, cleaned it up, put some thermal pads and new thermal compound on. Threw it into a MOBO and started up windows. No problem! I then opened MSI Afterburner and GUIMiner (yup, mining) and as soon as I start the miner... the card is INSTANTLY 98+^C and the Core Clock is rapidily fluctuating between 501 & 1050. After a few minutes I check to see if I can feel the heat... it certainly doesnt feel like the card is putting out 98+^C. Something isnt right.... so will a flash help? or what next?