Oh Dear, more ATI 58xx mysteries!!

[toon_mad]

Skip to bottom if you hate reading

As you all might know, a lot of people, including myself have experience some kind of problem with the 5850/5870 cards.

From getting no boot at all, to fans revving up, driver crash errors, and many more (even my windows experience score used to show at 2.0 to begin with!) - i would like to add to its glitching wonderfulness

Now before I go on, i do not intend to slate ATI, as a previous Nvidia fanboy, this time round i wanted to give the opposition a try, that being ATI. I have never had problems with my Nvidia cards, from 8800GT's to GTX260's the drivers and stability of the cards have always been excellent.

As a first time ATI owner, i ran into many problems myself immediately, mainly driver stopped responsing messages, blacked out screens and other silly things, that and the fact that no matter what drivers i downloaded from the AMD ATI site, none worked - it was odd I had to use the drivers from CD provided, which i normally never.

For the past 2 weeks or so, gaming has been solid, Fifa 10 a breeze, Crysis never broke a sweat... But today, out of complete randomness switched the PC on after closing it down like normal, to find the screen was huge, i figured it was the drivers. CCC had dissapeared, so i uninstalled all the ATI software, my usual gpu tools such as RivaTuner/Afterburner etc, rebooted in Safe Mode and ran Driver Sweeper to remove all the left over crap. Rebooted in normal mode, went to install the drivers off the CD and it errorerd. I repeated the same previous method, this time attempting to install them from the AMD ATI site, same problem again, drivers or CCC would not install. I thought it might be overclocked rig, went into BIOS, Load Optimized defaults, repeat the same as before, still error when installing CCC. This was all on Windows 7, formatted Windows 7 and reinstalled, drivers and CCC still would not want to install, even after the format. As i was running out of ideas i thought it could be because i flashed the BIOS to the MSI one to unlock the overclocking potential, i wasnt daft i backed up the original BIOS and soon had it switched to that, repeated the previous mentioned still no joy!

One last throw of the dice was still in my favour, and i never thought this would ever happen but Vista was my saviour. Formatted, Installed Vista, CCC and drivers installed no problem at all.

My conclusion to this ridiculously long thread is:

Get Windows 7 > Your 5850/5870 is likely to not work, or not too well
Get a 5850/5870 > Dont get it for Windows 7, seriously (well not until something improves)
Get a 5850/5870 > Join the ever increasing long list of people with problems

I must add, still have had no time to test its stability on Vista, but it looks like its not going on Windows 7 no more, by choice or otherwise!

I hate to say this, and im going to get called a Nvidia fanboy for it, but come 300GT release time, i will be selling this and moving back on the green the team.

Its been problem after problem with this card, and im certainly not alone.

 

[toon_mad]

They are good cards, WHEN they work.

I will still sell towards the new GT300 releases, at this rate i will be lucky to play pacman!!

 

[toon_mad]

It sucks the problems people are having but I do think allot of them will be sorted soon

Soon is not good enough, ive had this card since overclockers first got them in stock. It really annoys the hell out of me, they should not release something until it has some proven stability, I and many others should not have to put up with flaky hardware for 2 months+ whilst they sort it.

I hear what you're saying, but call me a Nvidia fanboy i don't care, im going back on the green team

 

[toon_mad]

fans revving up to 100% on boot, no boot at all etc etc.. that is flaky hardware

 

[toon_mad]

Well after some quick google reading, ATI has always had poor drivers, new games come out, ATI is behind on there drivers etc..

im not knocking the card, just going off my experiences:

Nvidia:

Pros:

Always Stable
Up to date
Optimized games
Fans are not too loud
Dual Monitor/TV setup is much more reliable

Cons:

Stock fan not too good
Cards overheat quicker
Cards cost more usually

ATI:

Pros:

Cheaper
Seem to run cooler
Overclock very very good

Cons:

Loud Fans
Poor Driver Support
Running monitor/TV switching is pretty glitchy

Thats just a few of my comparisons, obviously you cannot compare some of them as this is a new card.

If i pay £200 plus for a GPU i shouldnt be on edge waiting for it to nack up at any given time.

 

[toon_mad]

never use driversweeper or drivercleaner! EVER!

even with a format it wont work on windows 7, which by they way had been using with my 5850 since these cards came to overclockers.

something odd happened completely by random which wont let me install the CCC and drivers on Windows 7 anymore.

 

[toon_mad]

who saying about overclocking? most peoples issues is at stock and all my issues is at stock, so i still can't blame it on the hardware or software????

as for reflashing, it's to see if it fixs the issues. for me it as helped a lot..

as i said to them in the first page, people bought these and had problems out the box, no boot, revving up fan etc etc.

And to say its down to people overclocking, flashing etc that is nonsense > i restored the original bios, i formatted windows, reinstalled windows, no utilities like afterburner open, just try to install the ccc and drivers off the cd and it errors (but will not say what the error was).

I tried removing all usb devices apart from the essential, removed all overclocks > loaded optimized defaults, still refused to install.

Now for whatever reason, i cant install any drivers for Windows 7, yet i have here Vista installed and its worked flawlessly thus far.

As Gareth said, the majority of the problems with these cards are in fact not user related, but hardware > then software. For those who cant even boot, or get the crazy fans revving up to 100% has to do with the card. And the fact that so many people have had these anomalies surely suggests its not the user, or the users computer > but the card itself!

i use driver cleaner and never had a problem.

what problems could they cause?

i always uninstal from add/remove programmes and then run driver cleaner before instaling new drivers or rolling back to old ones

+1

 

[toon_mad]

To reiterate,

ive had problems with my card from day one - not constant, but enough to notice it. I ran my card out the box for 2 weeks before even attempting to flash the card, to test default stability - also never overclocked it and problems were there.

Believe it or not, flashing from the Sapphire to MSI BIOS actually increased stability in some areas, this is the same MSI bios many others around here are using.

Its been hit and miss with these cards from day one, some will run perfect out the box, some will work but not so great, some wont even boot at all.

I have tested mine through multiple scenarios, stock motherboard bios settings, stock gpu overclock settings, stock bios, clean install of windows - you name it and the problems are there, nothing to do with flashing bios, overclocking or anything as the problems were there before any of this happened.

And to the people saying dont use Driver Sweeper, before i installed this ATI i uninstalled all Nvidia Control Panel and drivers, rebooted in safe mode and deleted any left over nvidia folders, ran ccleaner then installed the ATI card. I ran Driver Sweeper and it picked up about 6 Nvidia entries left over.

Its naive to think the problems with the card are user related, as i repeat, my problems and others have been happening since getting the card out of the box - its trial and error.

 

[toon_mad]

Can you link me to a copy of the MSI bios you're using, I may aswell give it a try.

sure,

MSI Bios for 5850 (remember to backup original!)
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=306903

 

[toon_mad]

After switching to Nvidia GPU's I never had any major problems at all.

I dont want to sound like a troll or fanboy, but ive been saying this for years that i find Nvidia more reliable.


To update everyone, I and many others are correct, it is not our faults for flashing the bios, overclocking or anything like that, i have just managed to prove that some of these cards are just faulty from out the box.

As mentioned in my first post, i ran my 5850 on Windows 7 for weeks with not too many problems, but problems non the less, and just the other day after switching the pc on drivers were lost, and i could no longer install the CCC and drivers for Windows 7. Even after removing any overclocks, restoring original gpu bios, and formatting windows 7 - still the drivers either off the cd or amd ati site would not install, I could only get the drivers to work in Vista.

Well, today i managed to get hold of a Powercolor 5850 which is flashed to the same MSI bios I and many others have flashed too. I swapped out my 5850 for his 5850, did the same as before removed all overclocks, formatted windows, installed windows 7 - and lo and behold the CCC and drivers installed perfectly!!

I tested Crysis Warhead and Gta IV for a good hour and a half, no problems at all, tested first at stock and then overclock.

I then repeated it, swapped out his 5850 and put mine back in, removed all overclocks, formatted windows, installed Windows (exact same procedure as before), tried to install CCC and drivers but no, would not install, got error but no actual error report.

My conclusion is, as said before > the cards that have had problems have not been because of us, whether that be overclocking, overvolting, or flashing, but the fact that not all these cards will work out the box.

which explains fans revving to 100%, no boot at all, and flaky use at best. The above for me proves this, which is now i will consider rma'ing my card or selling it on.

 

[toon_mad]

I'd RMA it if I were you mate.

Personally, I never o/c my graphics cards, I don't really feel the need to tbh, they do a good enough job at stock frequencies, and once they start to struggle with newer games, I tend to just upgrade to a better performing card.

I always o/c my CPU's though!

free performance boost.

 

[toon_mad]

just RMA it and enjoy the new card you get back.

and pray that you get one of the good ones and not the duff ones, flip a coin its that close to work/dont work.

 

[toon_mad]

its not about me at all venting frustration at ATI, or ATI vs Nvidia - theres loads of people having problems with there 58xx cards.

I was sharing my experiences, my bottom line point was people spend over £200 for hardware that should have at least went through thorough testing, I understand hardware can fail at the best of times, but ive seen these in there numbers failing.

Seems like ATI rushed these out slightly in time for the Windows 7 launch, rather convenient - if im paying over £200 i expect something to work 100% out the box - end of.

 

[toon_mad]

theres a uncanny amount of issues if you ask me for the number of cards sold, ive got a mate who works for a fairly well known computer system builder hes reporting a failure rate of 11%

as i keep saying to the others, im not fickle that hardware does not fail, especially with new ones - but ive seen loads of problems myself with these cards failing in some way.

for the naive people saying they are brilliant blah blah, it would be nice to know if you thought the same if you had one of the bad ones.

 

[toon_mad]

but i thought your issues were software related and not hardware?

if you read a few posts up it is not software related as i cant install ccc/drivers on my 5850, yet i tested my mates powercolor 5850 and everything installs fine with that in.

i can only install ccc/drivers on vista - even though i had it on win7 for weeks, out of the blue i powered on and the drivers screwed up, after formatting windows, and everything else i tried in my previous posts it still would not work.

 

[toon_mad]

no, reflashed to sapphire same errors, besides if it was that why can i install on vista and not windows 7 anymore (both x64).

 

[toon_mad]

to me that says software. but if you've tried your friends 5850 with win7 then possibly not.

have you RMA'd it?

Also have you tried or did win7 instal the ATI drivers from the update centre?

.......

As a first time ATI owner, i ran into many problems myself immediately, mainly driver stopped responsing messages, blacked out screens and other silly things, that and the fact that no matter what drivers i downloaded from the AMD ATI site, none worked - it was odd I had to use the drivers from CD provided, which i normally never.

For the past 2 weeks or so, gaming has been solid, Fifa 10 a breeze, Crysis never broke a sweat... But today, out of complete randomness switched the PC on after closing it down like normal, to find the screen was huge, i figured it was the drivers. CCC had dissapeared, so i uninstalled all the ATI software, my usual gpu tools such as RivaTuner/Afterburner etc, rebooted in Safe Mode and ran Driver Sweeper to remove all the left over crap. Rebooted in normal mode, went to install the drivers off the CD and it errorerd. I repeated the same previous method, this time attempting to install them from the AMD ATI site, same problem again, drivers or CCC would not install. I thought it might be overclocked rig, went into BIOS, Load Optimized defaults, repeat the same as before, still error when installing CCC. This was all on Windows 7, formatted Windows 7 and reinstalled, drivers and CCC still would not want to install, even after the format. As i was running out of ideas i thought it could be because i flashed the BIOS to the MSI one to unlock the overclocking potential, i wasnt daft i backed up the original BIOS and soon had it switched to that, repeated the previous mentioned still no joy!

One last throw of the dice was still in my favour, and i never thought this would ever happen but Vista was my saviour. Formatted, Installed Vista, CCC and drivers installed no problem at all.

and

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=15291490&postcount=142

 

[toon_mad]

long shot i know but get your mate to make a copy of his MSI bios and then using his machine flash yours and try again. just for what ever reason it's becoming currupted someway

will ask him to try on his, though i dont see how it make a difference, still worth a shot.

Its almost as if windows 7 has blacklisted my card (not possible i know), i even tried it on windows 7 rc, can only get drivers and ccc to install on vista - its baffled me.

Have you tried yours in his machine? (oh that sounds wrong)

and it's not faulty out the box if it was working for two weeks previous

yes it was working, though still had less serious problems, like every 20 minutes in windows the driver stopped responding (that i know must be software related), monitor switching over to tv on its own etc.

 

[toon_mad]

being realistic when was the last (if ever there was one) completely bug free launch of a graphics card?

for me ive never had problems with launch cards, namely nvidia > it doesnt mean to say the nvidia ones have been flawless however as others most likely would have had some kind of problem, i just think i must be one of the unlucky ones and it had to be when i gave ati a chance.


not too much more i can add really, will try my card in mates pc if i can, to rule out any software bugs.

 

[toon_mad]

who said anyone was using student windows 7 here?

i was using win7 home premium, tried also win7 ultimate rc, and running in vista now - all x64 bit.