james1997bond
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Hello, So I recently saw another forum user attempting to fix a dead 970, and since mine “died” recently, I thought I would give fixing it a try before I memorialize it in a display case. I would appreciate any help you guys could provide. Historical datapoints for my EVGA GTX 970 FTW Card: - December 2014: Card purchased and incorporated in rig.
- December 2014 to October 2020: Card operational on stock setting and used for several thousand hours of gameplay. No anomalies.
- October 2020: I overclocked the card a little bit in MSI Afterburner to squeeze a bit more performance out of it. With temps limited to 90 degrees, I was able to squeeze out a +60 MHz Core OC, and a +300 MHz MEM OC (around that range). This was stable in 3DMark, GTA Benchmark, and prolonged gameplay in DOOM 2016, Fortnite, and other fairly demanding games.
- I chose to only keep the OC for maybe a week as the card was pending a little too long close to 85 deg C.
- December 2020: I disassembled the card, cleaned the thermal paste, put on new thermal paste, and reassembled the card and put it back in my rig.
- I was able to repeat all the earlier OC parameters and get it stable. However, I still chose to not keep the card OC’d on a permanent basis.
- I noticed a few issues at this time, namely a sudden drop in FPS once in DOOM (while playing, the FPS would drop from a stable 75-76 on VSYNC to below 30, along with a crash of my entire system).
- I took out and reseated the card and when I turned my rig back on, everything was fine, except a white VGA LED which stayed on constantly on my motherboard (X570 TUF Gaming Plus Wi-Fi).
- Mid Feb-2021: The card ran fine for a month and a half until mid-Feb 2021, when all output from the card suddenly stopped. The monitor received no signal, and I tried using both the DisplayPort port and the HDMI port in different monitors, but no signal is ever output. The white MOBO LED which indicates a GPU problem stays on, and to this day this error remains.
I will provide pictures shortly of my card opened, and I see no obvious damage. So my question is, if I want to go about repairing this, WHERE DO I START?
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james1997bond
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Re: HELP Fixing Possibly Dead GTX 970 FTW
2021/05/17 15:00:40
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PICS of the card
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james1997bond
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Re: HELP Fixing Possibly Dead GTX 970 FTW
2021/05/17 15:03:13
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james1997bond
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Re: HELP Fixing Possibly Dead GTX 970 FTW
2021/05/17 15:05:57
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Alright sweet the image uploads worked. So the first thing I was going to try was baking it in an oven to possibly re-seat any loose solder?
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ty_ger07
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Re: HELP Fixing Possibly Dead GTX 970 FTW
2021/05/17 15:12:40
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Some people have luck reflashing the firmware ("BIOS") to the card. It seems that sometimes the firmware gets corrupted all on its own somehow. If you try to find the card using nvflash, is it listed? Does it find the card and the eeprom model? Baking it is worth a try, but I would start with the firmware first. If all else fails, sell it for parts to someone who needs to use it to replace their burnt up power VRM. The VRM often burns up on those cards, and since yours doesn't look burnt up, someone might want to buy your card for stealing parts off of.
ASRock Z77 • Intel Core i7 3770K • EVGA GTX 1080 • Samsung 850 Pro • Seasonic PRIME 600W Titanium My EVGA Score: 1546 • Zero Associates Points • I don't shill
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jb355
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Re: HELP Fixing Possibly Dead GTX 970 FTW
2021/05/17 22:42:45
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i would use ddu and do a clean reinstall of drivers, if that doesnt help, try doing what ty_ger07 said and reflash the firmware
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hpak53
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Re: HELP Fixing Possibly Dead GTX 970 FTW
2021/05/17 22:51:24
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Try baking it and see if that helps. A cleaner application of your thermal paste wouldn't be a bad thing, especially if you're using one that is conductive. Also, if you have another rig you can test the card out in that would be helpful to eliminate the MB as the culprit.
post edited by hpak53 - 2021/05/17 22:52:27
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james1997bond
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Re: HELP Fixing Possibly Dead GTX 970 FTW
2021/05/18 09:18:44
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Thank you guys. So from your responses I'm going to follow the following checklist: - DDU and re-install drivers (I don't think this is the problem as there is just no output).
- Try in a different rig (I believe I already did that once but it doesn't hurt).
- Re-flashing firmware.
- Baking.
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james1997bond
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Re: HELP Fixing Possibly Dead GTX 970 FTW
2021/05/18 09:20:54
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Is there a detailed guide that would explain the reflashing process?
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ty_ger07
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Re: HELP Fixing Possibly Dead GTX 970 FTW
2021/05/18 09:36:18
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james1997bond Is there a detailed guide that would explain the reflashing process?
The specifics keep changing as different versions of nvflash get released. As a start, download nvflash and do the "--check" command to see what it detects. This will give you an idea of how healthy the firmware circuitry is. With the card installed in your computer (of course), and using your onboard GPU, follow these steps: 1) Download nvflash.2) Extract it to your desktop. 3) Open command prompt as administrator. 4) Type in %userprofile%\desktop\x64\nvflash --checkThat path only works if you extracted it to your desktop, like I instructed. 5) Post your results. Here are my results: That will give us a good start determining how healthy your card is, and determining the feasibility of flashing it. We can go from here, depending on what you post.
post edited by ty_ger07 - 2021/05/18 09:58:37
ASRock Z77 • Intel Core i7 3770K • EVGA GTX 1080 • Samsung 850 Pro • Seasonic PRIME 600W Titanium My EVGA Score: 1546 • Zero Associates Points • I don't shill
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james1997bond
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Re: HELP Fixing Possibly Dead GTX 970 FTW
2021/05/18 10:14:03
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So the problem now is I don't have onboard graphics (5600X) and this card wont output anything. So let me see if I can figure out an alternate rig with onboard graphics.
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hpak53
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Re: HELP Fixing Possibly Dead GTX 970 FTW
2021/05/18 10:16:30
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james1997bond So the problem now is I don't have onboard graphics (5600X) and this card wont output anything. So let me see if I can figure out an alternate rig with onboard graphics.
This is pretty much the only reason I still have a 560ti lying around... just in case I need to output video.
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ty_ger07
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Re: HELP Fixing Possibly Dead GTX 970 FTW
2021/05/18 10:22:01
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You can do it with a second different NVIDIA video card installed in your computer to display on your monitor, but it gets more complicated. Using onboard makes it easier because you don't have to worry about specifying which NVIDIA video card you are trying to probe, nor accidentally flashing the firmware to the wrong intended NVIDIA video card.
ASRock Z77 • Intel Core i7 3770K • EVGA GTX 1080 • Samsung 850 Pro • Seasonic PRIME 600W Titanium My EVGA Score: 1546 • Zero Associates Points • I don't shill
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james1997bond
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Re: HELP Fixing Possibly Dead GTX 970 FTW
2021/05/18 11:41:07
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Got it, I have a 1050 Ti I currently run. I'll use that.
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tanmancan
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Re: HELP Fixing Possibly Dead GTX 970 FTW
2021/05/19 19:23:12
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james1997bond
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Re: HELP Fixing Possibly Dead GTX 970 FTW
2021/05/21 12:57:11
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Alright so I won't get to use my rig until tomorrow and thats the first opportunity I'll have to check out any driver or software errors.
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james1997bond
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Re: HELP Fixing Possibly Dead GTX 970 FTW
2021/05/21 12:59:12
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What do you mean by the "top"?
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BillBoyTM
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Re: HELP Fixing Possibly Dead GTX 970 FTW
2021/05/21 14:45:36
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I'm thinking it may be time to just replace it...
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ty_ger07
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Re: HELP Fixing Possibly Dead GTX 970 FTW
2021/05/21 22:00:04
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james1997bond What do you mean by the "top"?
Ignore it. It's just spam. People are talking a lot of nonsense lately just to try to reach Elite status. They post off-topic nonsense which almost seems like it means something.
ASRock Z77 • Intel Core i7 3770K • EVGA GTX 1080 • Samsung 850 Pro • Seasonic PRIME 600W Titanium My EVGA Score: 1546 • Zero Associates Points • I don't shill
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james1997bond
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Re: HELP Fixing Possibly Dead GTX 970 FTW
2021/05/22 12:33:55
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I see, well that was kind of the expected outcome of having forum posts be one of the provisions.
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james1997bond
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Re: HELP Fixing Possibly Dead GTX 970 FTW
2021/05/22 12:36:08
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That's the plan. But instead of throwing it away or putting it up on display, its a pretty good chance to intricately study a piece of hardware without any major consequences. If I get it working, that's great and I probably learned something, if not then it was dead anyway. I've already learned quite a bit thanks to people like tyger helping me out with the process. I'm trying to get the card status right now but methinks my PSU might've crapped out. It keeps restarting from load spikes (well below its TDP).
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james1997bond
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Re: HELP Fixing Possibly Dead GTX 970 FTW
2021/05/24 08:29:22
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Update 05/24/2021 So I put the 970 in my second PCI slot and ran display output through the 1050 Ti. I couldn't really get it to communicate for now, but I now have another random issue to fix (which I've mentioned in the previous post) where something is causing my PSU to drop power to the PC. Hopefully its a loose connection but I unfortunately can't confirm that until this weekend again. I intend to keep following the steps I listed above and I'll keep posting updates.
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ysesq
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Re: HELP Fixing Possibly Dead GTX 970 FTW
2021/05/24 09:26:11
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check solder joints. usually those break from thermal cycling. swap out psu and try.
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OhmicFutility
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Re: HELP Fixing Possibly Dead GTX 970 FTW
2021/05/25 00:44:06
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You seem to know what you are doing, which means the basics are covered. Personally I have never successfully baked a card/board in a manner that lasted long-term. Obviously that is the last resort... and there is no going back from that. I am curious if there is any other indications of board power. You indicated the led came on, but how about the fans? Those should ramp on BIOS load assuming power to the fan controller is present.
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