ATI Crashes - Compatibility or just the norm?

[dave101sport]

So I've been using my Visiontek 4870 512MB card for over three years and crashes have been an everyday occurrence. In XP it almost never occurred but as soon as I moved to Vista and then Windows 7 64-bit I've had daily crashes at least once every five times I play a game.

The game simply freezes and after a few seconds the desktop appears with a message "Your display driver had stopped and has been successfully restored". Then it's back to normal.

Two very close friends owned Nvidia cards since their first rig and recently moved to an ATI card. The first friend said he was incredibly happy with his new 4870 card and the performance boost was incredible. It was only after I told him how my card was crashing everyday that he said he also was experiencing the exact same crashes on a regular basis.

The other friend just had a new Core i7 rig built by his local computer store and the very first thing he mentioned was the amount his 5850 ATI card is crashing in the exact same manner.

I've gone through about 30 driver updates and these crashes have always been present (except in XP).

What's the deal? Any suggestions about getting this working? Is this common for all ATI users? Is it down to 64-bit drivers? Could this be compatibility issues (I have nothing overclocked and RAM was stated as compatible with my mobo)?

i just bought a hd 6970 and the same happened to me i sent the card back tons of times finally i found out the the OC on CCC was not stable, so just do what everyone else says start the sliders back to the beginning and move up in increments until u find a steady OC.

 

[trentlad]

I received my motherboard back from Gigabyte, they were ridiculously fast with putting it through their repair center. It took 4 days for them to test the motherboard and ship it out. They gave it a clean bill of health. Best part was that they accepted a free warranty repair after the warranty period expired (three years). Love Gigabyte!

So it's been two days of testing the motherboard with my new NVIDIA GTX 470. I haven't had a single crash and all my games have been running amazingly well. Even AvP ran perfectly and that thing would literally blue screen my computer when I had the ATI installed.

I plan to test the incompatibility (between the ATI and my RAM) when I go to the next LAN party. I can't test the conflict until then, but I'm highly suspecting that was the case after F8tality's help.

Fingers crossed this NVIDIA will run super smooth throughout but I'll post an update after a few weeks.

 

[Alexrose1uk]

Glad to hear it sounds like blue sky is in sight, even if it's been a bit of a long/unfortunate haul.
Sometimes computers can be a right PITA, but sometimes its worth it

 

[trentlad]

Very true mate. Thanks!

I've had crashes with that ATI for over three years. It wasn't consistent either, so it would crash then I'd be fine to carry on playing for 20 minutes. I've never been a gamer who could play for constant hours on end so I never realised it was an actual issue until I faced games that flat out wouldn't work.

This NVIDIA has been fantastic, playing every single game without crashes or blue screens.