pocketdrummer

A friend of mine gave me his old 7900GT because it was giving him a lot of problems (see below) and didn't want to deal with it anymore. This is a screenshot of what happens when you play a game.



I am thinking that the card must be either overheating, or just completely trashed. So first, I would like your opinions on whether I should even bother, and second, how you might go about fixing it.

So far, I planned on taking off the HSF to put new thermal paste on the GPU. However, I am kind of at a loss for what to do with the thermal pads (where to buy) or even if they are necessary (alternative?).

After it's fixed, I'll hopefully be able to SLI this thing.

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grunion

This is a known problem, faulty ram.

You'll need to down clock the memory ~20mhz or more.
Can this card not be rma'd?

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How to Set/Verify 3870X2 overclock
How do I uninstall Video Card drivers?
How do I see my in game temps?

pocketdrummer

Well, the friend that gave it to me tore off the little sticker that (I'm pretty sure) reads, "Void if removed"
I contacted them about it, I'm going to see how it turns out.

OH, also, the 7800 GT and 7900 GT apparently use the same GPU. Thus, if I'm not mistake, can be used in SLI. So, the 7800 GT I have runs at 470mhz GPU and 550mhz Memory. The 7900 GT runs at 500mhz GPU and 750mhz Memory.

Since the 7900 GT essentially downclocks to run at the same as the 7800GT, would this fix it?
Oh, and would my 550 Watt PSU be enough?

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pocketdrummer

Ok, new development. I decided to just go ahead and try it.

So, after moving the jumpers for dual card support, adding in the card, and reinstalling drivers... I may not be able to SLI after all...

Opening up GPU-Z shows that SLI is disabled, but available. It also shows that the 7800 is a G70 GPU and the 7900 is a G71.

Does this mean I'm wasting my time with SLI?

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Tufelhunden

I don't know if you can SLI those two cards or not, but try enabling it and see what happens. The screen flickers then asks if you want to keep these settings, like a resolution change. So if it can't it will just revert.

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Folding For The Cure and OCN under Tufelhunden