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I Have to "Underclock" to play games ??

grifgrif1

grifgrif1

grifgrif1

Associate
Joined
26 Dec 2009
Posts
78
Location
Worcestershire
Basically my problem is that - When I go to play certain games - e.g Bad Company 2 and crysis - the games will just crash my whole computer - leaving a grey screen with vertical lines running down it - (sometimes the patterns are different) - The only way I can stop this from happening is by downclocking the "Memory Clock" - from about 1050Mhz to about 920Mhz - Why am i having to do this ?? Is there anyway this problem can be solved, - Temperatures seem to be fine . . The graphics card i'm using is an ATI 4850 XXX EDITION - and running crysis on medium settings I can get a good frame rate of about 45fps - But then everything just crashes - Dirt 2 - I dont have to underclock my gfx card though - and I can run everything on High and get about 70fps ?? -
I've had this problem for over a year now - and stupidly I have'nt bothered to send my graphics card back to be checked for faults - Anyone suggest anyway of solving this ?? Or whats causing the problem ??

Thanks :)
 
Full system specs? Is the system overclocked?
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+1

My Graphics Card used to do the same thing when I overclocked the core past 700MHz, as soon as I dropped it back down to 650MHz all would be fine.

I guess the hardware just becomes unstable under load, but it would be very confusing if you had to underclock under stock speeds.

If you have overclocked however, I guess it's just unstable under load.
 
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:)
Motherboard - Gigabyte MA780G-UD3H
MEMORY - 4GB OF DDR2 RAM
GFX CARD - XFX ATI 4860 XXX EDITION
CPU - AMD PHENOM 2 - TRI CORE 720, 2.80GHZ

And no the system is'nt overclocked :) - I'm sorry if that isnt quite the system specs you were looking for - I'm a bit rusty when it comes to looking for things like this :L

Thanks
 
Has the card ever been cleaned?

What are the temperatures like?

It could be the case that if the card is a few years old now (A HD4850 will be) it may be overheating thanks to dust blocking the exhaust or the TIM no longer doing its job properly.
 
Had this on my first 4870, no game would run for long without artifacts or black screening, RMA and replacement is fine to this day. Underclocking memory gave stability as well..
 
No it has'nt been cleaned before - The whole thing has quite a large case over the top of it

126050.jpg


Hmmm - So is there anyway that I can clean the gfx card ??
 
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Have you been checking the temp ? Could be that, or as martini said faulty VRAM.

RMA should be 2 years +...try and get a replacement ?
 
grifgrif1 said:
No it has'nt been cleaned before - The whole thing has quite a large case over the top of it

126050.jpg


Hmmm - So is there anyway that I can clean the gfx card ??
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Compressed air or failing that a good hard.... er.... blow into the fan should expel some dust.

If you can't get anything out that way you will have to remove the cooler shroud and clean it manually (no doubt there are screws on the back which need to be removed to accomplish this).

A quick way to check if it is temperatures causing the issue is to monitor them in game with a program like MSI afterburner. Run a game for a while with afterburner running in the background (not minimised). Alt-tab out of the game and see what temperature the card is running at.
 
Ok well I'll have a go at cleaning it now - And tell you of the results later- But if there is a problem with this VRAM - then maybe i can get in contact with XFX and see what they say - Because I think "Overclockers" waranty only lasts a year ?
 
grifgrif1 said:
Ok well I'll have a go at cleaning it now - And tell you of the results later- But if there is a problem with this VRAM - then maybe i can get in contact with XFX and see what they say - Because I think "Overclockers" waranty only lasts a year ?
Click to expand...

Warranty with Overclockers will depend on what they were offering at the time. Sometimes it will be 1 year and other times they will cover it for longer (the current HD69xx are 2 years with OCUK IIRC).

You are most likely looking at dealing with XFX though.
 
If it is out of warranty and you can't get an RMA, remove the cooler, clean ALL dust and reapply the TIM. That worked with an ageing 8800GTX
 
Unfortunatly its out of its warranty :( - So I'm gonna have a go at cleaning it - Just wondering - There are no other problems that could be causing this - Could this problem have anything to do with the "Refresh Rate" settings ?? - Sorry Im a bit of a noob when it comes to these things :L

Thanks :)
 
Clean and new thermal paste is a good place to start. If you still have problems, monitor the temperatures and go from there.
 
Ok I've cleaned the card as best I could - But the problem still persists - Though gameplay did last a bit longer this time than it has done before - Still crashed though . . . Is it worth upping the fan speed to max ?? I think though the problem is going to be this VRAM thing and so Im probs just gonna end up buying a new gfx card soon :/
 
grifgrif1 said:
Unfortunatly its out of its warranty :( - So I'm gonna have a go at cleaning it - Just wondering - There are no other problems that could be causing this - Could this problem have anything to do with the "Refresh Rate" settings ?? - Sorry Im a bit of a noob when it comes to these things :L

Thanks :)
Click to expand...

Skyrocket said:
If you have to down-clock the card to play it aint working properly.
RMA
Click to expand...

:rolleyes:

What PSU do you have? Leave HWMonitor running in the background while gaming to see what the temps get to.
 
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