Sapphire 7950 Problem (4ª line of the pci-express x16)

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DARKKNIGHT11

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Feb 24, 2013
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Hello guys, i really need your help.

I bought a Sapphire 7950 from ebay and the seller said that everything is okand now it is too late for I make a complaint.

I was noticing that the card was laging in games and in Furmark.

My MSI 7950 was doing around 50 fps on Furmark without overclock and around 60 fps with overclock,, consuming around 160W.

On the other hand, my sapphire was doing around 31-35 fps on Furmark without overcdlock and with overclock (of course that I raise the energy +20 power limit). Without overclock, the card was consuming around 60W and with overclock around 80W during the furmark benchmark.

Now I looked carefully to the card and I notice a problem: In the fourth line of the PCI-Express, there is a "short circuit" (the line is open where the golden rectangule should be binded to the golden circule - the part that fits inside the pci-express x16 slot).

I searched on the internet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express) and I found out that the problem is in the 'ground' line.

I will ask to mey friend to weld the line again to see if the card is going to work well again.

Any chances of the card to work normally again or am I screwd?

(the seller was a crook ...damn it)

Anyway, thatks a lot for your help.

 
Solution
nitrium

Yep, sounds a lot like you've run into the exact same issue as myself with my Sapphire Vapor-X 7950. Mine would within a minute or two clock down from 950 to 850, run at that for a few minutes and then clock down to 500. Periodically it would spike back up, but it was completely hopeless at maintaining satisfactory framerates. Send a ticket to Sapphire on their website, and they should send you a link to an alternative firmware which will hopefully fix your problem. I think on the Vapor X cards you could update the two BIOSs...
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nitrium

nitrium

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Before doing any drastic, run GPU-Z and click the Sensor tab. Make sure your GPU is maintaining the correct clockspeed in games (i.e. 950 or 850 MHz - there is a physical button on the Vapor X card to toggle between two discrete firmwares). I also have a Sapphire 7950, and had no end of problems with it until I updated the firmware. The issue is that Sapphire used two very different types of GDDR5 VRAM on it (1.6v and 1.5v stuff from two brands). Also the VRMs on the Sapphire Vapor-X version of the 7950 are not properly cooled by their fancy cooler and tended to heat to ~115 oC, making the card thermally throttle to as low as 500 MHz.
 
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DARKKNIGHT11

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Feb 24, 2013
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10,510



Hello nitrium, thanks for your answer.

I have the sapphire 7950 boost edition dual-X. Nominal speeds are: core: 925Mhz and memory: 1250Mhz.

I did 2 tests now with the bios switch button and with Furmark runing for 15 minutes @ 1920x1080:

First Test (With the bios button not pressed (position 2) without any light in the bios buton).

- The result was that the GPU-Z showed the core speed ranging from 850 Mhz to 501 Mhz.
The power draw showed on the Furmark screen was ranging from 32, 34, 37W to 57, 71, 73 W.
The fps average was 35.


Second Test (With the bios button pressed (position 1) and the blue light on)

- The result was that the GPU-Z showed the core speed constant 925 Mhz for the GPU and 1250 Mhz for the memory.
The power draw showed on the Furmark screen was ranging around 57, 64, 65, 67, 69W.
The fps average was 29.

One of the bios is read only and can not be modified, right?

So the problem is in the fourth line that have that issue that I explained before or should I try to upgrade the bios to see what it will happen?

GPU-Z says that my 7950 has the Elpida memory.

 
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nitrium

nitrium

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Yep, sounds a lot like you've run into the exact same issue as myself with my Sapphire Vapor-X 7950. Mine would within a minute or two clock down from 950 to 850, run at that for a few minutes and then clock down to 500. Periodically it would spike back up, but it was completely hopeless at maintaining satisfactory framerates. Send a ticket to Sapphire on their website, and they should send you a link to an alternative firmware which will hopefully fix your problem. I think on the Vapor X cards you could update the two BIOSs separately.
https://support.sapphiretech.com/presentation/member/member_login.aspx

 
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Solution
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DARKKNIGHT11

Honorable
Feb 24, 2013
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10,510
Hello nitrium, thanks for your answer.

I already created a ticket there.

I am only disappointed because the seller stated that everything was working without any problems...and now it is too late for I fill a complain against him. It took to long for I realize that there was a problem with the card...

Lets see if they can solve the problem.

Thanks a lot for your time and patience in helping me.

Best regards!
 
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