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Please help me sort this out???

Jacky-Boy16

Jacky-Boy16

Jacky-Boy16

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Joined
25 Jun 2007
Posts
109
hey guys, i'm getting pretty ****** off with Overclockers at the mo. My 7900GS broke about a month ago, a few days after the warrenty ended, and now after buying the new OcUK Radeon HD 3850 pro 512MB, this card is screwing up even more. Rainbow Six Vegas crashes on the menu screen. i.e the screen goes black and the monitor turns off, but the PC is still running. and the same happens with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. When I can occasionally run Battlefield 2, the card runs slower than my old 7900GS 256MB.

My PSU is a year old now, it's an Antec 430W

I put in an extra 2 gigs of RAM at the same time, could this be part of the reason? e.g sucking power from the card

Thanks in advance

No swearing, JG
 
Firstly, no reason to get ****** with Overclockers :)

So, on to the problem.... some questions first, some may seem stupid, but just need to be sure:
You definitely have the power plugged into the card?
What drivers are you running?
Have you tried running without the extra memory you added jsut to eliminate that as a source of problems?
What are your system specs?


No swearing, JG
 
Can't you just insist that the warranty claim letter you sent them was never answered ?

Not that i've ever done such a thing !


Jacky-Boy16 said:
hey guys, i'm getting pretty ****** off with Overclockers at the mo. My 7900GS broke about a month ago, a few days after the warrenty ended, and now after buying the new OcUK Radeon HD 3850 pro 512MB, this card is screwing up even more. Rainbow Six Vegas crashes on the menu screen. i.e the screen goes black and the monitor turns off, but the PC is still running. and the same happens with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. When I can occasionally run Battlefield 2, the card runs slower than my old 7900GS 256MB.

My PSU is a year old now, it's an Antec 430W

I put in an extra 2 gigs of RAM at the same time, could this be part of the reason? e.g sucking power from the card

Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
 
ok cheers guys,

the display driver is version 8.442.0.0 I downloaded it yesterday from the ATI site. It's the Catalyst Software Suite found here http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx?p=xp/radeonx-xp

and here are my system specs:

gdfgdgd.jpg


+ 2GB Geil RAM (exactly the same kit)

I'll remove the new memory now and see if that changes anything
 
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(sorry for double posting)
I have removed the new memory, and nothing has changed.

the PCI power socket is on pretty firm too.

Anyone have any ideas as to what it could be? my only guess is that the card was damaged before I got it.
 
^^^ oh dear...

ctrl panel -> Add remove programs -> uninstall nvidia drivers.. select graphics drivers. ( i woudl do the same for the ati ones too actually...)

Then download driver cleaner and install. Reboot into safe mode (keep hitting f8 on startup and select safe mode) then run driver cleaner.

Reboot into windows as normal, install ati drivers.

Ta-da!
 
I've got a feeling you have the exactly the same problem as me....overheating.

I downloaded rivatuner and adjusted the fan to 65%.

Now everything plays just fine.

Looking at other forums around the net there seems to be a big problem with this card overheating.
 
I would say uninstall your ATI drivers AND NVidia drivers. Then restart and re-install the ATI drivers for a start. Thats the easiest thing to try just now.

Then, once installed install ATI Tool and run the scan for errors. Then monitor the temps to see how high they go.
 
Thanks guys for all the input. I've basically just uninstalled all of the drivers, including the ATI ones, and then reinstalled them. It's still the same old problem though. I've also installed ATI Tool, and now that's spazzing out. When I open ATI Tool, it appears in the bottom right hand tray, and it says Core: -1.#J MHz, Mem: -1.#J MHz. It's basically unresponsive for about 2 minutes, and then it crashes the whole computer, in the same way that games seem to.
 
I am thinkin maybe the PSU does not supply enough amps to drive it.... either that or the card is borked. Is there any way you can inspect the PSU to check the amp ratings - might be on label of side of PSU.

Also, does this PSU have a dedicated PCI-E power adapter/cable? If so, perhaps try using a molex to PCI-E power converter....
 
cheers ffallic, I swapped the pci-e cable, but it's still screwing up. It's gotta be a busted card I guess? I even tried the original house of the dead, and it couldn't display the alpha maps properly in that.
 
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Do you have anotehr PC you could test it out in? Just better to be sure it is the card before sending it back, and not something like the PSU - in which case sending back card would cost you, and not solve the problem.
 
It really sounds like a PSU issue more than a graphics card issue. It could even be that the power supply has taken out the graphics card, and possibly the old one.

Even if the graphics card is faulty, I personally wouldn't put another one in until I had replaced the PSU.
 
yeah, that's a good point. I stuck the card in my other PC, and installed and ran ATI Tool, again. ATI Tool was unresponsive, and crashed again. The screen went black, and the monitor turned itself off (so damaged card sounds about right). I tried Oblivion as well, and this seems to run perfectly, strangely.

I wonder if my PSU could've killed it along with my last card. Apparently 7900GS do have a tendency to just die on you, hence why I trusted my PSU.
 
This is weird? the card seems to be running pretty well in my other PC. ATI Tool crashes when I use it, but I can run oblivion and the witcher without a problem. Is there a way I can test the graphics card for problems, other than trying different games? It may just be a compatability problem, or PSU problem in my computer.
 
Sorry to bump this, I'm still grinding away at it. So my new card (Radeon 3850 Pro 512MB) is in my other PC, and I've managed to get ATI Tool working. After running the 3d view for a few minutes GPU temps average at around 50C. Which seems pretty good. So all in all it looks like the card isn't damaged, and it is something in my own PC. What's the most likely culprit? the PSU (430W Antec) is only a year old, but has been on for most of it. Could it be something else?
 
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