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ATI 4890 nightmare!!!

There is a BIOS update

2008-09-23

Major Reasons of Change:
1. Added F9 Hot Key function.
2. Fixed ABS function fail when upgrade BIOS
3. Fixed System cannot display when "two" ATI HD 4870X2 are used in Crossfire.
4. Update Intel new 45nm CPU micro code


Il update it.
 
Don't forget that with time psu's loose approx 10% per year so your 5 year old psu may only be supplying 350W now.
 
using a wattage meter my overclocked 4870x2, with a heavily overclocked and overvoltaged P2 system with 8gigs mem, several fans, several hard drives etc, etc I end up using, a full 420W under full load gaming, I've never once seen a number above this.

The 4890 in crossfire rarely if even uses significantly more than a 4870x2, system power numbers aren't very different from what I've seen.

Frankly a quality 500W psu can power almost any sli/xfire setup with an overclocked quad pretty easily, to be "safe" a 600-650W is fine. Suggesting someone needs to go to a 850/1000W psu to be "safe" is completely misleading and 100% incorrect.

a quadfire system of 4890 would almost certainly run fine a 750W.

REally you'd want to see a full spec to decide, its fully possible that the PSU is at fault but its easily possible its something else.

If there was no issue on booting into safemode where the card is using full power and so on then it really points heavily to a driver issue.

If you haven't done a full reinstall i'd consider it, but first try uninstalling drivers again, trying a different set of drivers, reinstall better, install new mobo drivers, etc, windows updates for any possible issues.
 
drunkenmaster said:
The 4890 in crossfire rarely if even uses significantly more than a 4870x2, system power numbers aren't very different from what I've seen.

Frankly a quality 500W psu can power almost any sli/xfire setup with an overclocked quad pretty easily, to be "safe" a 600-650W is fine. Suggesting someone needs to go to a 850/1000W psu to be "safe" is completely misleading and 100% incorrect.
.
Click to expand...

Most review sites rate the 4890 around the 280w mark @ full load @ stock speeds... add maybe 20w or so for overclocking.. that's 600w full load for CF cards... so saying a 650w psu would be fine is just wrong. For Crossfire/sli machines I wouldn't be putting anything less than 750w in.. and to be honest, buy the best you can afford, because having more than you need is always better than having less.
 
realscot said:
Most review sites rate the 4890 around the 280w mark @ full load @ stock speeds... add maybe 20w or so for overclocking.. that's 600w full load for CF cards... so saying a 650w psu would be fine is just wrong. For Crossfire/sli machines I wouldn't be putting anything less than 750w in.. and to be honest, buy the best you can afford, because having more than you need is always better than having less.
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yes, that would be correct, except ALL sites that list power list FULL SYSTEM POWER. There is no way at all, completely impossible to measure the power draw of a single component in a system. All the reviewers do is use a bog standard £10 wattage meter that sits between the plug and socket and measures amp usage and voltage and gives you wattage being drawn.

The 280W is the gpu, memory, mobo, EXCLUDES the loss in efficiency in the psu, hard drives, fans, chipsets, etc, etc. of the 280 W depending on the cpu you've got probably between 60-120W of that as the cpu draw, another 20-60W depending on memory voltage and quantity.

In other words, the gpu is probably using between 100-130W full load, and a second card would simply take that up to the 400W mark, which in reality is about the max power usage any heavy overclocked/volted quad and any xfire/sli setup will run you. Of course tri/quad sli/xfire will set you back more power, but add 2 more 130W gpu's in and you're only going from 400w to 650W. At which point a 750W becomes a decent bet for a little leeway.

a 1000W psu isn't necessarily any better quality than a 450W psu, infact it could have the EXACT same components in but simple have some simply overvoltage circuitry set to a lower level, infact that is the difference in most psu's of the same range. IE a 650/750/850/1000W psu all say modular OCZ versions of the same name are likely IDENTICAL inside, but are simply limited at the lower end to provide less peak which is easy to do, likewise the 1000W is probably set with a high fan speed for the higher loads, in most computer components of the type on a PSU's you'll find the same parts rated to different outputs at different temps. Again infact you'll find most psu's like a 1000W psu will be rated at 1000W at 35C or so, and at the 50-60C they probably run at are rated closer to 700-800W. This is life.

Its the same way a Core I7 920 and 960 are identical in all but the default multiplier they use.
 
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on a 5 year old PSU i think the 12v rails might not be up for the job of a cross fire HD48xx cards,
need to look @ the spec`s of the PSU an look @ the 12v rails u need to know what amps they provide .. an how many 12v rails it has aswell !! most newer PSU have as many as 2-4 12v rails supporting up to 40amps per rail or combined ..

thats what u need to be looking @ on a older PSU ..
 
plenty of talk here of the power supply.
BUT it worked in safe mode so i would clean out all drivers and re install(gpu of course)
i'd certainly try this before splashing out big moolah's on a psu

jobe
 
elpedro said:
You would be insane to risk two high end cards in SLi/Crossfire with an overclocked system on a 500W PSU.
Click to expand...

as i said, i've never seen anyone, or any review ever show a 500W usage on a crossfire setup.

I'm using a p2, overvolted and clocked which uses a hefty whack itself, and a 4870x2, its never once gone over 420W, at stock with the cpu using cool and quiet thats a lot less too. You'll even find that on a 4890, its idle voltage of 1.05v compared to its load voltage of 1.35v effects the power output very very very little(not entirely sure why on that one) so even the overvolted 4890's are putting out very little extra power. Frankly going from 850/957 to 970/1100 added a total of about 5W to my load power usage.

However I do have a more powerful psu than that, I got a 1k TT psu for £70 rather than the £150 it retailed for, buy whats best value.

also, you generally want to be running your psu at a decent % load as efficiency goes to crap at low loads, IE run a 1000W psu at a 100W idle load and efficiency will be very low indeed, it will literally cost you more to run a computer at an idle power of 150W on a 1000W psu than it would on a 500W psu. theres also nothing wrong with running a 500W psu at a 400W sustained load unless you're running one of those £15 500W that use the peak load as the official rating, a decent brand will use sustained load as the official rating with a peak load that can go much higher.
 
Jobe said:
plenty of talk here of the power supply.
BUT it worked in safe mode so i would clean out all drivers and re install(gpu of course)
i'd certainly try this before splashing out big moolah's on a psu

jobe
Click to expand...

yep, thats what I said also. People see a thing and jump on it, theres absolutely no indication its a psu problem at all, as AFTER it played fine THEN failed, then failed again then was FINE in safemode. It reads as software problems to me, possibly hardware, if maybe 10 mins of fsx was fine then it started artifacting, its possible its overheating, if you manually set the fan to quiet maybe it got too hot and crashed.

The other info on PSU's was because, well, almost everything about psu's in this thread was completely and utterly incorrect.

This is the problem loads of people read reviews, read the power and assume thats the gpu power and then go and buy a psu that will handle that + what they think the rest of the system needs.

280W is probably an average full load situation on a quad core + 4gb mem + 4890 system. which would run with ease on a 450W psu with plenty of room to spare, add a second gpu and a 500W will still run it with ease, a 600-750W isn't exactly a large step up in price from a 500W so isn't a bad idea.

But suggesting the need for a £100+ psu for plain old crossfire is simply 100% wrong and a massive waste of cash.
 
People say that psu's degrade over time and his is 5 years old so what do you think his psu is putting out now drunk. I thought his psu as its 5 years old and may not be up to the job anymore even for 1 4890 but i don't know to much about psu's. I also read other articles where the psu was at fault even though it was able to power gpu's for 10 to 15 minutes then the machine rebooted due to the psu so i am not sure that because his machine is playing games for 10 mins or booting fine in safe mode excludes the psu from being the problem.
 
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elpedro said:
Guru 3D reported GTX280 SLi peaked at 550w
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peaked does not equal sustained, a 500W psu can peak higher. a 500 qtec would explode if it peaked at 500W. Guru3d is also the biggest and most useless site out there.

summary of their single best review, "you must get a core i7 for crossfire, because we used quad core games and tested a quad core against a dual core C2D, therefore, I7 is absolutely required".

In other words it was a review paid for by intel.

even so http://www.guru3d.com/article/in-win-commander-750w-psu-review-test/6

load 295gtx, 439w, thats not normal game but several pieces of software to constantly load cpu and gpu, its very likely in simple gaming solution you'd be lower than that, though not necessarily by much. thats dual 295's that put in a sub 700W load performance aswell. 1k psu for quad sli, overkill.
 
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drunkenmaster said:
peaked does not equal sustained, a 500W psu can peak higher. a 500 qtec would explode if it peaked at 500W. Guru3d is also the biggest and most useless site out there.
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Well, regardless. I wouldn't run a SLi/Crossfire system that can peak at 550w with a 500w PSU...
 
elpedro said:
Well, regardless. I wouldn't run a SLi/Crossfire system that can peak at 550w with a 500w PSU...
Click to expand...

well again I'd point out that, firstly thats trusting the review was correct. Keep in mind that checking guru3d, he does a review of a 250gts, that runs ta 350W full load and insists he wouldn't run it on anything less than a 500W psu because the card kept crashing.

Then more recently a review of a 750W psu, which is where a single 295GTX used 439W full load, and 691W full load on 2x295GTX's, and he said that was completely fine and stable on the 750W psu with only 50W leeway. in other words, his opinion seems to constantly change, the later review a 50W gap between theoretical max, and the full load as he listed was fine and dandy with no problems. In another review a 150W gap between listed spec and loaded readings and he's decided thats not at all safe. Another way to interpret it is, he's making it up as he goes along.


But another thing to mention is, the internals of a corsair 500W are likely IDENTICAL, identical components in the 500W and the 620W, like almost all brands of psu's theres no difference.

I also wouldn't buy a 500W, but I wouldn't recommend a minimum of a 750W psu for basic crossfire, when you can clearly run a quadfire setup on that kind of sytem.

if a 500W psu is £50, a 650/750 is say £60 and a 1000W psu hits the £120 mark, the suggestions in this thread of going all out to a 1k psu for "safety" is not only completely incorrect, but a ridiculous suggestion considering the price. Sure, go £10 more for a 650W psu, but double the price for a psu you don't need is where I have a problem with the advice.
 
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