aye, maybe a dry solder joint or bad vrm. You could mail it to me for diagnosis and we could split some part of the sale of it. if it can be fixed that is.
So I took the Diamond apart and looked at it. I didn't see anything noticeable, so I took your advice and thought maybe it was a solder problem. I threw it in the oven at 385 F for 9 minutes, and it better! Not great, but better.
I was able to enable the 2nd core and mine with it! Before it would insta-crash. I had them both at 625/300/0.95 (I always undervolt), and it was hashing at just under 600MH/s. It's still a bit flaky, and as soon as it crashes once, you can't mine again until you reboot the pc. This is only after playing with it for about 20 min, so I'm still not really sure. If you think you can work with it, PM me an offer, and we'll see what we can do.
That's pretty friggin awesome. I have never tried the regular oven trick. When you say 385(196c) for 9 minutes. The card was in there starting at 385 or up until the oven reach 385? Is that sufficient to heat through the pcb and chip to hit all those balls? I'm asking because I am not real sure but I know a home convection oven does not always heat objects inside it evenly.
I woulnd't mind playing with it but honestly, as far as fixing it goes, it sounds like it is in better hands with you. As I would not be confident enough to attempt a home oven reflow. =)
You wouldn't want to do a full reflow on a double sided PCB, so be careful about doing it in the oven. If you actually melt the solder the surface tension is usually enough to keep most bottom side components attached, but you could lose the larger ones like a RAM chip if you bake it too long.
No the oven was preheated to 385, and then I put it in there for 9 minutes, and immediately took it out again. I've heard of people saying to cook it at 200C for 10 min, but I was feeling a little cautious, because if it gets too hot, other components can start to get loose like sadpanda was saying. I think 8-9 minutes is long enough to soften the solder inside the chip, but not long enough to really melt anything.
Also, I tried keeping the stock voltages, while still downclocking to 625,300, and it still crashed. GPU-Z shows both VRMs as outputting a consistent amp while mining, with no fluctuations, and decent temp, too. Thus, I"m pretty sure the VRMs are good.