Warning Signs When Buying Used GPUs: How to Detect Defective Video Cards
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Date: 2021-03-15
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Comments and reviews: 10
goddamnit452
I bought multiple 1060 6gb and 1070 and 1080ti from miners and internet cafe. Usually those came with very limited warranty from them. 7 days at best, but they sell in quite large quantities and reviews seems very positive. The cards looked dusty but not rusty/bend/scratched. The temper seal are usually untouched. I stress test them upon receiving them with 3D render, Ai workload, benchmarking software for a full 6h. And never got issues. Maybe the I got lucky for all those years. And the temps always looked really good which meant that apart from being a bit dusty they were working perfectly fine. Got even some excellent overclocking gpu for cheap. Such as a 1070 strix with OC clock till 2.15ghz at 70 celcius for only 120 usd. So, usually I buy second hand from known resellers and doing a lot of research without having the chance to test the system in shop.
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I bought multiple 1060 6gb and 1070 and 1080ti from miners and internet cafe. Usually those came with very limited warranty from them. 7 days at best, but they sell in quite large quantities and reviews seems very positive. The cards looked dusty but not rusty/bend/scratched. The temper seal are usually untouched. I stress test them upon receiving them with 3D render, Ai workload, benchmarking software for a full 6h. And never got issues. Maybe the I got lucky for all those years. And the temps always looked really good which meant that apart from being a bit dusty they were working perfectly fine. Got even some excellent overclocking gpu for cheap. Such as a 1070 strix with OC clock till 2.15ghz at 70 celcius for only 120 usd. So, usually I buy second hand from known resellers and doing a lot of research without having the chance to test the system in shop.
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JoshJLMG
The timing of this video is impeccable. Well, more coincidental than anything. I just picked-up an MSI 1080 today with an AIO on it for 650 CAD ( 521 USD). The card was a little dirty, but I didn't think much of it.
I got home and I found that it had some weird stability issues. Whenever the memory went under intense load, it would either artifact, freeze or become fuzzy for a second and then the entire PC would crash. I also found that if I overlooked the memory above +500, I would get the space invaders artifacts, which was cool to see, but also disappointing.
Right now, I have it mostly stable with -200 on the core and -500 on the memory (plus a 112% power limit), but it's unfortunate that it runs the way it does.
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The timing of this video is impeccable. Well, more coincidental than anything. I just picked-up an MSI 1080 today with an AIO on it for 650 CAD ( 521 USD). The card was a little dirty, but I didn't think much of it.
I got home and I found that it had some weird stability issues. Whenever the memory went under intense load, it would either artifact, freeze or become fuzzy for a second and then the entire PC would crash. I also found that if I overlooked the memory above +500, I would get the space invaders artifacts, which was cool to see, but also disappointing.
Right now, I have it mostly stable with -200 on the core and -500 on the memory (plus a 112% power limit), but it's unfortunate that it runs the way it does.
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Damir
I have few RX580 ex mining cards, most of them work just fine except for the squiking fans which were fixed after some cleaning and lubricating. But one of them was showing artifacts occasionally, not in games but when watching 4K/8K videos there are artifacts for a milisecond when image is shown like a negative image or with strange colors. Now I have 3 such cards and on all of them memory clock is fixed, even with 1mhz over default it crashes. Temperature is fine, gaming is fine but rendering 4K/8K videos is problem, on all of them, so, that's one method I use to check graphic cards.
All of them had mining bios with 1150mhz on core and 2000mhz on mem (default bios clocks are 1411/1750 RX580 Sapphire Nitro+)
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I have few RX580 ex mining cards, most of them work just fine except for the squiking fans which were fixed after some cleaning and lubricating. But one of them was showing artifacts occasionally, not in games but when watching 4K/8K videos there are artifacts for a milisecond when image is shown like a negative image or with strange colors. Now I have 3 such cards and on all of them memory clock is fixed, even with 1mhz over default it crashes. Temperature is fine, gaming is fine but rendering 4K/8K videos is problem, on all of them, so, that's one method I use to check graphic cards.
All of them had mining bios with 1150mhz on core and 2000mhz on mem (default bios clocks are 1411/1750 RX580 Sapphire Nitro+)
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Johan
Bought 2 used mining RX580 8GB cards a couple years ago for 100 Gave one to a friend, we're both happy owners. Mine is powered on 24/7.
During its mining period it used a undervolted BIOS, seller flashed regular BIOS before sale.
I had decent trust in the seller, it was a colleague, they still had original proof of purchase from reseller and knew the BIOS versions, offered to clean the cards before purchase (I declined and did it myself).
My only regret is not buying more of them.
I replaced my Nvidia 1060 with RX580 because I am running Linux and Nvidia drivers suck.
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Bought 2 used mining RX580 8GB cards a couple years ago for 100 Gave one to a friend, we're both happy owners. Mine is powered on 24/7.
During its mining period it used a undervolted BIOS, seller flashed regular BIOS before sale.
I had decent trust in the seller, it was a colleague, they still had original proof of purchase from reseller and knew the BIOS versions, offered to clean the cards before purchase (I declined and did it myself).
My only regret is not buying more of them.
I replaced my Nvidia 1060 with RX580 because I am running Linux and Nvidia drivers suck.
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Daniel
Bought a 580 for 120 buck shipped s in January 2019 as a hold me over the card, it was brand new looking even the box still had the sticker when it was purchased a couple months prior. Was not impressed with the 20 series lineup, when that came out, so I didn't even wanna change it till the next thing, and now the next thing is here, but it's impossible to buy and my 580 is still doing everything I need it to. My 580 has been the most bang for the buck used purchase I've ever done, not to mention I could sell it right now for more than what I bought it for.
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Bought a 580 for 120 buck shipped s in January 2019 as a hold me over the card, it was brand new looking even the box still had the sticker when it was purchased a couple months prior. Was not impressed with the 20 series lineup, when that came out, so I didn't even wanna change it till the next thing, and now the next thing is here, but it's impossible to buy and my 580 is still doing everything I need it to. My 580 has been the most bang for the buck used purchase I've ever done, not to mention I could sell it right now for more than what I bought it for.
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Mathew
I bet I can fix that viewers Rx 580. I ve fixed two parts only rx570s from eBay so far. One literally just needed to be scrubbed down with my special rubberized brush that s totally not for cleaning hair clippers. I just paid 330 for a sapphire Rx 480 8gb the guy who paid 700 is smoking paint chips.
BUY ON EBAY NOT LOCAL I ve bought about 20 gpus on there over three years with ZERO problems, buy your phone local not your gpu.
I have a gpu with a broken fan blade, I ve had to glue it back on several times. Works like day one lol
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I bet I can fix that viewers Rx 580. I ve fixed two parts only rx570s from eBay so far. One literally just needed to be scrubbed down with my special rubberized brush that s totally not for cleaning hair clippers. I just paid 330 for a sapphire Rx 480 8gb the guy who paid 700 is smoking paint chips.
BUY ON EBAY NOT LOCAL I ve bought about 20 gpus on there over three years with ZERO problems, buy your phone local not your gpu.
I have a gpu with a broken fan blade, I ve had to glue it back on several times. Works like day one lol
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Kyrinson
Another thing to do is get close to the card and smell it. Burnt electronics have a very distinctive smell. I had a fan fail during heavy load on an old video card and even the system shutting down didn't save the card from almost catching fire. My entire room smelled like burnt electronics for days after that and the computer case always smelled faintly like that. If the card smells like that then it was in close proximity to some sort of catastrophic failure and should be treated with suspicion.
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Another thing to do is get close to the card and smell it. Burnt electronics have a very distinctive smell. I had a fan fail during heavy load on an old video card and even the system shutting down didn't save the card from almost catching fire. My entire room smelled like burnt electronics for days after that and the computer case always smelled faintly like that. If the card smells like that then it was in close proximity to some sort of catastrophic failure and should be treated with suspicion.
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Matthias
Bought a used R9 290 (Tri-X OC). With all video outputs except DisplayPort being non-functional (didn't know it beforehand and actually for a long time after purchasing... since I used DP from day 1). So that may also be a valid thing to check: do the outputs actually work?
Funny thing though... first thing I did after getting the card was break one of the fan blades myself, then soldered it right back on with a heated butterknife. Card lives to this day (not in my PC though).
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Bought a used R9 290 (Tri-X OC). With all video outputs except DisplayPort being non-functional (didn't know it beforehand and actually for a long time after purchasing... since I used DP from day 1). So that may also be a valid thing to check: do the outputs actually work?
Funny thing though... first thing I did after getting the card was break one of the fan blades myself, then soldered it right back on with a heated butterknife. Card lives to this day (not in my PC though).
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Sam
I had bought a 2080 Ti from retail. It was out of box so I got a good deal. Problem was, the person who had sent it back wasn t up front about why they d sent it back. Turns out, it was faulty, but the retailer hadn t checked before restocking it. Wouldn t post at all, but would with another card. DDU didn t work either. Managed to get my money back through RMA.
TLDR; bought card from store out of box, guy who sent back lied, was actually faulty, got my money back.
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I had bought a 2080 Ti from retail. It was out of box so I got a good deal. Problem was, the person who had sent it back wasn t up front about why they d sent it back. Turns out, it was faulty, but the retailer hadn t checked before restocking it. Wouldn t post at all, but would with another card. DDU didn t work either. Managed to get my money back through RMA.
TLDR; bought card from store out of box, guy who sent back lied, was actually faulty, got my money back.
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Rob
I had a old 6800 Ultra with a very strange issue. Hook up monitor would be fine plays all games no issues what so ever. If i unplug monitor then plug back in just black screen i would have to unplug from pci-e for a few minutes then it would work. Even tested it on other motherboards and same issue. Using a dvi connection to this day still don't know why. I even push it to maximum over clock and still was working fine. Don't use for obvious reasons these days.
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I had a old 6800 Ultra with a very strange issue. Hook up monitor would be fine plays all games no issues what so ever. If i unplug monitor then plug back in just black screen i would have to unplug from pci-e for a few minutes then it would work. Even tested it on other motherboards and same issue. Using a dvi connection to this day still don't know why. I even push it to maximum over clock and still was working fine. Don't use for obvious reasons these days.
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