My 5 year old GPU died... anything I can do? I feel cheated.

[sdifox]

Apply, apply ..there's refund $$ to be had...right? Maybe even a class action....woot.

Mine had the fdiv bug and Intel shipped a replacement to me :awe:

 

[highland145]

Mine had the fdiv bug and Intel shipped a replacement to me :awe:

SOL

 

[sdifox]

SOL

I think I still have the Pentium keychain with an actual Pentium encased in plastic

 

[VirtualLarry]

Suck it up, OP! (Then go buy Vega RX.... LOL)

But seriously, 5 years is a good lifespan for cards with fans.

My GPUs with fans, never seem to even last that long - the fans are spinning 24/7, and they die in 3-4 years or so.

If you don't want to worry about fans, I've got some Kepler-based GT630/GT730 cards I could let you have cheaply. They're passively-cooled. They might last 10 years, if you don't cook 'em.

 

[highland145]

I think I still have the Pentium keychain with an actual Pentium encased in plastic

I still have my MCP card before MS said, "Eff You." 5 tests in...oh, too bad, so sad.

Big wake up call for me. I'm too lazy to be in class for the rest of my life.

Now I get to break knees.

 

[highland145]

My GPUs with fans, .

Heh, I rigged a fan on this current GPU home thing. It's quite and works. +1

 

[Zorander]

Doesn't hurt to try contacting either AMD or the store you bought it from. Technically you are well out of the warranty period but who knows if they will replace it for you out of goodwill.

On the plus side, current cards around $100-150 easily surpass the HD6870 and without wasting as much heat/electricity. You can even settle with iGPU if you are no longer gaming, etc.

Not sure if this still belongs in General Hardware, but here goes.

I have an older GPU (HD6870) that I spent pretty penny on 5 years ago. Today it still allows me to play older games. This is NOT about troubleshooting, that's resolved.

I'm frustrated because it just died without any warning. I really don't want to spend another $$ on GPU. Is there ANYTHING I can do? I mean a videocard's lifespan is not meant to be crapped out in 5 years. I have GPUs that still work 10+ years.

1. Can AMD do anything to recoup my cost?
2. Will card maker do anything? (HIS IceQ X HD6870)
3. Or the retailer? (was it newegg or amazon).

I feel bit cheated because I did nothing out of ordinary and it died early.

 

[Rumpltzer]

I was able to recover my TV's motherboard by reflowing the solder balls under the CPU. Rather than putting it into the oven, I tried to shield everything but the CPU chip with foil and I put it under a halogen lamp (maybe 1cm away from the bulb) for an hour. It worked! For a few days...

But the concept was sound! So, I got myself a cheap ($9) Harbor Freight heat gun, and I repeated the work. I had to hold the heat gun further away, and I had a meat thermometer near the surface of the chip trying to maintain the right temperature for ~10min. That worked too! And the TV is still alive today... two and a half years now.

 

[whm1974]

I think the OP is being silly complaining about his five year old GPU dying on him. After all who in hell expects to still be using the same video card for five years?

 

[VirtualLarry]

I think the OP is being silly complaining about his five year old GPU dying on him. After all who in hell expects to still be using the same video card for five years?

I mean, really. If you're gaming, then you should upgrade your video card every major lithography shrink, or every-other generation of GPUs. (Because, the alternate every-other generation is a "refresh".)

And if you're not gaming? Use the freaking IGP. Or use a passive HTPC-oriented card that will last 10 years, with no fans, if your IGP gets too out-of-date or becomes unsupported by OS or current drivers.

 

[Red Squirrel]

GPUs go out of date within like 6 months of release typically because something better comes out. So it would be a good opportunity to upgrade.

What I feel cheated by is my GTX 560 TI's I bought for SLI when I built my last machine. The drivers for those cards were so buggy that it made the cards useless. The driver was both buggy in windows AND in Linux. Had to take them out and get another card. I had dropped the SLI idea at that point since it used way too much power to have two cards and did not feel like spending money on 2 cards.

Those two cards are still sitting on a shelf and probably considered super out dated that they basically have no use. Such a waste.

 

[Darwin333]

Yes, but it involves lots of capacitors, a bit of wiring, a power source and you absolutely must yell "CLEAR" before touching the leads to the GPU.

 

[whm1974]

I mean, really. If you're gaming, then you should upgrade your video card every major lithography shrink, or every-other generation of GPUs. (Because, the alternate every-other generation is a "refresh".)

And if you're not gaming? Use the freaking IGP. Or use a passive HTPC-oriented card that will last 10 years, with no fans, if your IGP gets too out-of-date or becomes unsupported by OS or current drivers.

A midrange to high end card at least should last you about two to three years depending on what kind of games you play and on what settings.

It very reasonable to expect a gaming build being kept for five to six years to have it's GPU replaced at least once in it's lifetime.

 

[BUTCH1]

A midrange to high end card at least should last you about two to three years depending on what kind of games you play and on what settings.

It very reasonable to expect a gaming build being kept for five to six years to have it's GPU replaced at least once in it's lifetime.

Fair enough, but it's also "reasonable" to expect a product to have some longevity if that if the particular user's preference. Many still run Intel 775 systems and as long as you don't go bonkers with the OC's they are rugged CPU's. It's possible that OP's card maker used the bare minimum in AMD's spec's for cooling requirement's or possible he had a cap go bad on the board.

 

[highland145]

It's 5 years. Heck, Ze, you haven't even been married that long.

 

[Iron Woode]

My GTX 260 sp216 is still running like a champ since I bought it new.

But video cards do die sooner or later.

 

[Capt Caveman]

I think the OP is being silly complaining about his five year old GPU dying on him. After all who in hell expects to still be using the same video card for five years?

This unless the OP is trolling. I have an old HIS X1900XTX that died after only a couple of years. Learned to never buy another HIS product again and moved on. Not knowing the rest of the OP's system, his case could have not provided sufficient airflow and the card was always running hot. Contacting AMD or the retailer is hilarious. Buy an EVGA if you want customer service.

Put it on ebay acknowledging it doesn't work and see if someone is willing to buy it for parts or interested in trying to repair it.

 

[BudAshes]

My Pentium 60 was 1000, just for the cpu. The mb 700.

But how awesome did it feel firing that thing up for the first time?

 

[sdifox]

But how awesome did it feel firing that thing up for the first time?

Awesome. It also had onboard scsi

 

[brianmanahan]

Awesome. It also had onboard scsi

wow, that's nice

i had to install a SCSI card in my DX66 but it kept having all these conflicts and i didn't really know what i was doing as an 11 year old without internet

took me like a week to get it working, but when that scanner actually scanned, man what a feeling of accomplishment

 

[Omar F1]

This unless the OP is trolling. I have an old HIS X1900XTX that died after only a couple of years. Learned to never buy another HIS product again and moved on. Not knowing the rest of the OP's system, his case could have not provided sufficient airflow and the card was always running hot. Contacting AMD or the retailer is hilarious. Buy an EVGA if you want customer service.

Put it on ebay acknowledging it doesn't work and see if someone is willing to buy it for parts or interested in trying to repair it.

Don't blame HIS, everybody knows X1900XTX was hell of a heat-producing product, %0.01 of global warming cause.

 

[notposting]

Yeah most gamers will replace their dGPU at least once or twice if they are keeping their rig for five years anyway.

How old is the OP's computer?

I replaced my rig around my 2009 ATI Radeon 5870 instead.

 

[zinfamous]

I paid $1700 for my 1st Pentium 3 machine in 199something

I just paid $190 for a Dell refurb i5.

I want a refund....bitches. Paypal works.

We upgraded c. 1993 to a glorious 50mhz pentium with 8MB RAM! (Packard Bell!) and it only cost us $1400! (way too poor for the 75mhz pentium with 16MB RAM)...but it came with a free printer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Best Buy was the jam at one point.

 

[mikeymikec]

My GPUs with fans, never seem to even last that long - the fans are spinning 24/7, and they die in 3-4 years or so.

Why do you have a gaming graphics card running 24/7? If it's for bitcoin mining I understand them not lasting that long, but it's a little odd to imply that the fan is at fault in that scenario.

 

[Ichinisan]

Half a decade. Not bad.