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Big persistant problems with Gainward HD4870.

Duggeh

Duggeh

Duggeh

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Joined
15 Aug 2008
Posts
6
Big persistant problems with _ Motherboard?

Just replaced my age-ed Athlon XP system with a new machine I've put together with parts from OCUK.

Intel Core 2 Quad 9550
OCZ 2GB DDR3 PC3-1333MHz Platinum (2x1GB)
Asus P5Q3 Deluxe @ Wifi-N
Thermaltake BigTyp 120 VX
Western Digital VelociRaptor
Gainward ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB GDDR5
LG GGC-H20L Blu-Ray
Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 Rev. 2 VGA Cooler (still waiting for it)
OcUK Value L2442WD-VA 24"
Zalman ZM1000 1000w PSU

Installed windows XP and I am having nothing but persistant and continual problems with the graphics card drivers. Many games can't run for even 30 seconds without a VPU recovery instance, others, like half life 2 and bioshock seem okay and can run for a while, but sometimes crash just as readily. NWN crashes not long after the game menu comes up and GTA:VC and others, don't let me select anythgin except the base graphics settings.

Even just running windows, time will pass and then *blort* blue screen of death ati3duag.dll error (or similar).

Lowering the core or memory speeds, or upping the fan to 100 to keep maximum cooling has no reliable effect. I've done 3 windows reinstalls. One with SP3 and 2 with SP2. No change.

Has anyone else had trouble with the gainward card? Is it likely I've got a faulty one? I'd really rather not be forced onto Vista.

Any help much appriciated.
 
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NWN crashes not long after the game menu comes up and GTA:VC and others, don't let me select anythgin except the base graphics settings.
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Hmm... could it be a borked driver install? I'd download the latest chipset drivers and the DirectX updates (I believe August 2008 is the latest).
 
Borked driver install over 4 windows installs with the same repeating errors?

Chipset is up to date, Directx up to 9c. The errors do not happen until the catalyst 8-7 or 8-8 are installed.
 
Borked driver install over 4 windows installs with the same repeating errors?

Chipset is up to date, Directx up to 9c. The errors do not happen until the catalyst 8-7 or 8-8 are installed.
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Possible if you were installing the same drivers, like ones of a disk that don't work.

By don't happen until 8.7 or 8.8 is installed, do you mean earlier drivers work? Or they don't support the card?

The reason I was looking at drivers is because you said GTA:VC doesn't let you select anything but the base settings, that says to me something isn't being recognised properly. I guess it could actually mean GTA:VC doesn't detect the card but you should be able to manually change the settings.

You could turn off VPU recover but I think that is just hiding the problem so maybe you have a faulty card yeah...

I assume the system is stable in CPU tests like Orthos?
 
Are you able to change the screen resolution after installing the drivers?

Also try giving the BIOS a reset and are you running the latest BIOS?
 
Sounds like a faulty gfx card. 8.6 to 8.8 have all been perfect for me on both Vista & XP on 4 different systems with 4870 & 4850.

GTAVC is not a good indication as you have to manually change the resolution due to the way it detects gfx cards as think it queries the OS for supported resolutions but it probably has an outdated method of finding out which card you have.

Try a new game as that should work fine. Also try everything at stock and not overclocked at all especially the 4870 as they do not like being overclocked unless you have better cooling (I have the same cooler you have on order and it lowers temps around 40C!!!).
 
Hmm.. I was having similar problems with my setup (Q9550, Asus P5Q, ati 3870). I was often getting game lockups, then would go back to desktop with a VPU Recovery error. Also on loading the ati CCC on windows startup it would often come up with an error and not load.

After much head scrathing turned out that my case the board was setting the cpu core voltage to 1.20v (or a little below) when on auto in bios. Core temp reports a VID of 1.2375 for the chip.

Set the vcore manually to 1.2375 in the bios and haven't had any further problems so far. Seems to be running a fair bit better generally after doing that too.

Something to check anyway?
 
Thought I'd report back on this. Further testing (and chance) leads to the conclusion that its bad RAM, the problems simply amplified by things involving the graphics card. One stick of my OCZ dual channel kit being pants, the other being lightly unreliable. I'm waiting on delivery of new Corsair DDR3 before sending back the OCZ as I don't want to be without the use of a machine and so long as I stick to Firefox, Word and spider solitaire with only the lightly faulty stick in, the machine tends to manage without crashing.
 
Duggeh said:
Thought I'd report back on this. Further testing (and chance) leads to the conclusion that its bad RAM, the problems simply amplified by things involving the graphics card. One stick of my OCZ dual channel kit being pants, the other being lightly unreliable. I'm waiting on delivery of new Corsair DDR3 before sending back the OCZ as I don't want to be without the use of a machine and so long as I stick to Firefox, Word and spider solitaire with only the lightly faulty stick in, the machine tends to manage without crashing.
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I bought a P5Q3 Deluxe and 4GB of OCZ DDR3, and it was on it's way back to OCUK a few days later. The board was suffering terrible problems with RAM a couple of months ago, I'm not sure if they sorted it but are you sure your RAM is bad, and it's not just the mobo?
 
The replacement RAM arrived today, Corsair XMS3 1333 2gb dual channel kit.

The machine will not even post when one of the sticks is in any of the slots. It boots and works fine with the other stick in any of the slots. I think it remarkably unlucky to suffer two bad RAM products from two different manufacturers. However if it is a motherboard problem it is a remarkably individual one, why should it greatly dislike one stick out of two matched pairs more than the other?

I'm also wondering if this thread might be better renamed and moved to a more general problem discussion area.

At this point I'm giving serious consideration to sending back the entire machine for a complete refund. I've had nothing but uncured headaches from this build.

Two lots of ram being bad and issues which looked like gfx card problems initially could be down to a bad mobo. Serves me right for picking a non-ABIT motherboard for the first time in years. I'm also slightly iffy on the voltage readings that CPUID reports for the CPU, they're too low, even before VDROOP kicks in and so i've got it set higher to compensate.

Any contributions from others who have had this mobo would be appriciated, so would a MOD moving this thread to the motherboard forum with a title like "issues possibly related to bad ASUS P5Q3".
 
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