I Have to "Underclock" to play games ??

[WingZero30]

Unfortunatly theres no RMA available now - the PSU I have is OCZ 600W - I bought it new about 3-4 months ago

The PSU is more than enough for your system. I have got similar PSU running my [email protected] and 5850 and everything is smooth.

 

[Reldar]

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

Wow I thought I was the only one with this problem. I have a Sapphire Vapor-X 5870 2gb and I get crashes/grey vertical lines.
But like you, the problem stops when I underclock the memory.

This is my first high end video card and to be honest it's made me want to switch over to nvidia.


EDIT: I could RMA my card, but I don't know if can be bothered with the hassle. It plays games more than good enough and it's only slightly underclocked.

 

[radar19]

+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.

I had an 4870 flashed with a Asus BIOS that ran at 815/925. Dropped the core clock back to 802 because it would lock up on me at 815. Never had an issue at 802.

 

[Jakus]

Just a crucial point here Guy's

If an ATI GFX card falls over generally (ati recovery will kick it back to the desktop)
If the PC locks, look at PSU/CPU/memory etc..

Slightly worrying that 2 people have the same issue !

If You are sure it's GFX memory do a bit of research and flash the video card bios with a similar hardware spec bios (looks like the memory timings are too tight) suspect they changed memory type/supplier

 

[Jakus]

O dear , I read "same problem" in reply but realize they a different GFX cards

Anyway, My first reply stands

 

[grifgrif1]

Just a crucial point here Guy's

If an ATI GFX card falls over generally (ati recovery will kick it back to the desktop)
If the PC locks, look at PSU/CPU/memory etc..

Slightly worrying that 2 people have the same issue !

If You are sure it's GFX memory do a bit of research and flash the video card bios with a similar hardware spec bios (looks like the memory timings are too tight) suspect they changed memory type/supplier

Just wondering - How would I go about "flashing" the memory bios on my gfx card ?? sorry its a bit new to me :L Thanks

 

[engstrom0304]

Don't flash the bios. the other guy had a different card so unlikely it is a bios timing issue as mentioned before....

James (OP)... you need to take off the cooler... clean off the thermal compound with artciclean or alcoholic wipes... then apply some more (don't over do it) which may help.

 

[Langlest]

i once had a xfx card that was overclocked out of the box, it was fine in most games but some of them would have problems like you are mentioning and by setting the card back to normal clock speeds it would be fine, i think they need to test the cards more before shipping them out to be sold

 

[Coke]

Same problem with exactly the same card, I usually underclock the Core on mine, but might try it on the memory to see if that works on mine. Contacted XFX and they said because it was an "intermittent" problem (only happens on certain games, not on benchmarks etc.) the best they could offer me would be a discount on an upgrade, even though it's still under warranty.
It's a common problem with the 4 and 5 series of ATI cards if you look around the various forums etc.
I'm upgrading soon 'cus of this.