Powercolor 5870 with Artefacts, can they be Fixed by an overclock??

Hi All,

Im a complete newbie so forgive me if I sound dumb,

I have a powercolor 5870 whic I bought at an auction of returns, I paid like £210 thinkin that was cheap

I was told to test it as I was thinkin about purchasing to sell on, I downloaded the Catalyst Drivers (driver only 30mb from amd.ati) and the ATITOOL to test the card, when I test the card firstly on the ATITOOL there is no output for the (core) Temperature of the card and secondly when you click on Test for Artifacts, my Pink cube starts turning Yellow with artifacts.

It boots into windows ok and everything looks ok.

Is there any way to save these cards?

Im sure I read somewhere that it might be possible to Fix this issue by overclocking the card, Is this true and If it is How do I do it?

Is it driver related, or hardware related justo confirm (Im guessing its Faulty Hardware)

Laugh Now as I have seen a video on YouTube saying you can fix Faulty Graphics Cards By Baking them in the oven at 200 degrees for 10 minutes, is this true or just a load of B/S?

Kind Regards Scamp

That pink cube should look more like a fur-covered cube, and it shouldn't change colors at all. It's a bad card.

There's usually no easy way to save a card. Only a few parts on a card can even be replaced. Return it and get your money back.

As for the card baking thing... As best I know it works on "some" cards from nVidia in "some" cases. I've never heard of anyone baking an ATI card, though.

Its a bad card plain an simple. Overclocking with just make it worse. The whole concept of baking a card has some truth behind it, it basically softens the solder points so it fills in better making a solid connection. I would NOT recommend even trying this though.

Here are your options.

- return it and get your money back
- contact Powercolor for a warranty repair. I had to send my 5870 back to ASUS, and all they asked me for was a serial. That was it, not receipt or anything. You may want to try this as you will then have a working card that you got cheap.

You should have attempted to RMA the card to Powercolor. You bought it and have a receipt for it. That's typically all that matters. That and/or date of manufacture. They should honor the original manufacturer's warranty on it.

And I can't believe someone sold you a broken card... That place is a total rip-off and scam. If I were you, I'd contact the UK's equivalent to the Better Business Bureau and report them immediately. That or I'd stand outside their store all damn day, every day, telling everyone they sold you a broken PoS and won't refund your money. It's usually perfectly legal if you do it peacefully from public property. Though laws in the UK may be different...

Matrox is old news... The only reason they're still around is because they make Quad-head cards. That's it. For gaming, their cards have sucked since about 1996.

The other ATI brands - XFX, ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, Sapphire, PowerColor, etc... All usually stand firmly behind their products for as long as the term defined in their warranty. PNY, Zotac, and BFG are strictly nVidia-based brands, but should also do the same. Experiences with each company will vary, though. Plus, since you're in the UK, the rules are all different than here in the US. You get your warranty through your retailer, I believe, whereas we get it directly from the manufacturer.

Lastly, I find it hard to believe you're actually attempting to sell something that doesn't even work... That's just passing the problem onto the next person, and I find that immoral.

RMA it. The manufacturer should replace it.