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4870 lights on back of card? What do they mean?

Metalface Mark

Metalface Mark

Metalface Mark

Soldato
Joined
26 Dec 2005
Posts
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My 4870 gigabyte had been working okay since yesterday, i went out, turned my pc off, and when i come back my pc turns on, gets to the the bios screen, and then screen just goes off, the 3rd light on the back of the card lights up, i presume this is some sort of diagnostic check.

Im about my wits end with this card now, its given me nothing but bother since it arrived, i have no idea what this means and google dosent throw up any answers.
 
Metalface Mark said:
My 4870 gigabyte had been working okay since yesterday, i went out, turned my pc off, and when i come back my pc turns on, gets to the the bios screen, and then screen just goes off, the 3rd light on the back of the card lights up, i presume this is some sort of diagnostic check.

Im about my wits end with this card now, its given me nothing but bother since it arrived, i have no idea what this means and google dosent throw up any answers.
Click to expand...

D1601 - Red LED On, shows critical temperature fault

D1602 - Red LED On, shows External power connector A was removed

D1603 - Red LED On, shows External power connector B was removed

D601 - Red LED On, shows critical Core power fault
 
Im starting to think all my problems are related to my power supply, its the 3rd light thats on.

I have an antec truepower 550w, should be more than enough, but ive just done some mucking about, i removed my hard drives, and hey presto, it worked again.

The annoying thing was the thing has worked for the past day, albeit with the odd problem starting up.

Looks like its time to invest in a new psu, i guess if it says the power cable isnt in properly, then one of them might not be working properly.

Can you use a molex and splitter? I have a a pci-e - molex that has 2 molex adaptors, if i was to use this, do i need to put two seperate molex connectors in, or is only one required to power it?
 
If the card came with some 4x Pin molex to 6x Pin PCI-E adapters, then try one of those, and if they take 2x molex's, then id plug em both in.
 
varkanoid said:
Have you run your setup through the PSU calculator to see how much juice it requires ?

http://www.extreme.outervision.com/index.jsp
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Lol, thats pretty handy, i just ran it through it and it came back as 852w!

The default unoverclocked is coming back at 622w, so it sounds like it is a power issue after all, who would have thought 550w wouldnt be enough to power these beasts?

Bit of an update, at stock, ive managed by adding one at a time and rebooting to get things up and running, will see how i get on from here.
 
AbsenceJam said:
That PSU calculator is complete rubbish and is well known for it.
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Well known where for being rubbish might I kindly ask ? :)

I always seem to find it to be roughly correct. Mine comes out at 406W and I have 620w Corsair. So it might not be wholly accurate but I dont think its complete rubbish and its good to use it as a guide.

E8400 OC 4ghz, ATI 4870 OC, 2 SATA, 2 DVD Writers, 4gb PC8500, 4 120mm LED Fans, 1 120mm fan, USB devices etc.
 
I managed to get two on one of my 4850s to light on when I shorted some chips on the back.


There was sparks and everything when I did it aswell. :cool:
 
well im pretty sure it is my psu, its been an incredibly frustrating day.

Tried to tidy up my cables a bit, which involved unplugging and moving 2 sata drives, you would think it would just turn on as normal, but no, didnt start, took out the modular cables, still wouldnt start. Reset bios, starts, put cables back in at once, have to reset bios again.

Do the same but do one at a time, gets to bios and i can up the volts a bit which then lets me add the other sata things.

Finally, increase the clock, boof, no start and back to square one, got it all up and running this time by going back to my 8800, then once i was done, swapped over the cards and im in, im certain its the power supply, so ill be investing in a coolermaster 700w or a corsair 750w tomorrow.
 
varkanoid said:
Well known where for being rubbish might I kindly ask ? :)

I always seem to find it to be roughly correct. Mine comes out at 406W and I have 620w Corsair. So it might not be wholly accurate but I dont think its complete rubbish and its good to use it as a guide.

E8400 OC 4ghz, ATI 4870 OC, 2 SATA, 2 DVD Writers, 4gb PC8500, 4 120mm LED Fans, 1 120mm fan, USB devices etc.
Click to expand...

That would come to about 250w - at the wall.
 
AbsenceJam said:
That would come to about 250w - at the wall.
Click to expand...

No at full load itll be 300w+ at least. In fact with almost exactly the same system but with a hd4850 oced, I could get it to hit 350w+ using furmark and orthos running.

The calculator has a problem though. It assumes the TDP is the true power consumption of the CPU and therefore when this is extrapolated to overclocked speeds and volts, it can be quite wrong. Also, graphics cards tend to have TDPs which are higher than what they actually consume.
 
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Well I think it over estimates big style. Ignoring the overclock on my 4870, it reckons my wattage is 589W in which case my 480w Tagan should be keeling over and dying :eek:
 
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