Billy Young's Blog - Posts Tagged "meltdown"

My graphics card failed spectacularly this week. I had just headed for bed on Wednesday when Magz called up to me to ask if I had switched off the computer. So I headed back down stairs to have a look to see what was going on as I had left it on. At first the system refused to power up so fear that something very serious was wrong filled me with dread. After a couple of minutes it did finally power up but as it booted into windows I heard the crackle of electricity and smelled that unmistakeable smell of burning PCB. I quickly killed the power. After removing the now defunct graphics card I checked the rest of the computers innards finding nothing towards. I powered up no problems using my I7 for a picture to my screen to find everything else was working as it should. Sadly my new XFX HD7970 showed the clear sign of a complete melt down. Sadly I can’t just send it back to the retailers to be replaced as sending it back to the USA is just a little too expensive. I have been trying to contact the manufacturer but have heard nothing back from them. The weekend I will try to get their phone number maybe calling them might give results. I would hate to think that I am now stuck with a useless waste of cash on my hands but at the moment that is exactly what I have.
Calum had a spare card that he has lent me so that I don’t need to rely on my CPU to deliver the display. Unfortunately it has meant that I can’t mine any coins at the moment. This is when I wish I had the ASIC miner that I have pre-ordered from Butterfly Labs. That though is still going through testing with only a limited number so far shipping. So it could be some time before I get mine. I expected that though when I placed the order so can’t complain. I’m just very disappointed about XFX’s product which I had high hopes for.