7970m possibly broken on arrival?

Hey guys, been a while. running here for help.

So I got a 7970m from ebay [refurbished from startrading777] and it arrived relatively quick. After installing, the first thing I see on boot up is a green EVERYTHING. Vertical lines. Small vertical green lines that greens my entire screen. This happens all the way from post to windows. Oddly enough though, I am able to play games/videos/install drivers etc which makes me think it's my LCD because on an external, it looks normal and awesome.

Logical, right?

Then I put back my old broken GPU - my 6990m and it looks... good. No green lines. just the indication that SOMETHING is at fault on a hardware level. See massive vertical line on the right side of the alienhead on boot and a lot of horizontal lines on bios. On windows, it's running at VGA drivers because I can't install amd's drivers otherwise it'd be a black screen with nothing. basically unusable. External display does the same thing. What I see on my LCD is exactly as is on external. Basically my LCD and external are working perfectly fine.

I even put in my brother's 5850m to further isolate things and it's all good with the 5850m.

I applied all three cards to my brother's m15x, reseated cards, reconnected LCD/external connectors. same results.

That being the case, it's safe to say that my 7970m is faulty/broken, and I should ask for a replacement, right?

Attached photos for reference. Everything "green" is with the 7970m on.

 

Seems like your new 7970m is defect. GPU processor could damage

 

It does seem like the card is broken, better send it back for a refund.

 

This is why I'm so hesitant to upgrade my old 5870M to the 7970M, seems like people's 7970s are popping left and right, and a lot of people have gone thru 2-3 of them.

 

Whatcha talkin about mate? This guy clearly said is bought REFURBISHED! That means it was second hand. You buy second hand at your own risk. My ES 7970M I have run since May 2012 in my M15x and guess what I bought it from a member off here second hand LOL

 

Update: thanks for the responses.

They just got the card back yesterday and should have a response as to whether it's for refund or replacement by this coming week. I'd prefer a refund and I'll just sell off my 6990m to buy a lower gpu [5850/460 or thereabouts] for back up incase it blows up again.

 

If they send you a new card replacement you shouldn't have any issues. If it isn't just cross your fingers it hasn't been manhandled!

 

Repaired card is on its way to me. Should have it tomorrow [HK-PH]

@king, I just realized there's a throttling issue on the 7970m for m15x. Is everything on that thread still applicable? Also should I pump up my 6gb ram to 8gb or more or am I still good? I don't feel slowdowns much .. save for when chrome is open with a bunch of video tabs.

 

Yes. Best fix is to keep your 150W PSU for charging purposes and get a 210W/230W or 240W slim PSU. Once you have it yank out the centre data pin from the adaptor tip (end that goes into the laptop). The laptop will not charge from this PSU however you will have throttle free gaming. All you have to do after booting into windows to get perfect performance is toggle stealth mode on and then off again. Then load your game and enjoy.

 

would another 150w cut it if I yank out the said data pin? Planning on grabbing another one soon because my current charger's plastic finish split open when my laptop fell. Said housing is the one that you plug on to the m15x's socket. It makes me uncomfortable to say the least. That and my battery's already near dead. my 9cell's full capacity is at 25.5 wh from 85 =\

 

my 7970m arrived yesterday and SHE IS ALIVE! Aaaaaa!!!

Benchmark on stock -> AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-740QM Processor,Alienware does that look right? Thanks!

Soon: 920xm! is it still worth it? looking to get it mid year after reballing and repairing my 6990m

 

Yes! The 920xm will you OC it to it's safe limits will bring you about a 45% increase in performance over the 740qm in multithreaded apps. Put it this way I run my 920xm 24/7 at 3.2ghz across all cores and 3.6ghz on 1 and 2 cores. The 740qm can only manage 1.8ghz or so across all cores.

 

What's the "normal" temperatures for the 7970m at idle and under-load at stock?

 

If the paste job is good, it should stay under 80°C, if it goes a little over that, it's not really a problem. Check out this article for recommendations to avoid overheating issues.

 

I hit max of 83c without elevation other than the 9cell battery. With that, I haven't tested. I'll try running TR again this weekend. For idle.. 40-50C but that's more about ambient temp than anything imo.