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Please help me sort this out???

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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
 
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.
 
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.
 
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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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?
 
I have swapped out the good PSU into my PC now. The screen has gone black for a second about 3 times now, dunno what this could be. The card reaches a peak of around 62C in ATI Tool ,but averages around 58C (with 3d view). I have tried STALKER twice now and it's crashed both times. I also tried Rainbow Six Vegas, and it crashed on the menu screen.

Therefore, it seems there is nothing wrong with the video card (it works in other PC), and there is nothing wrong with PSU (both PSU's give the same syptoms). Any other ideas? I might try some different drivers. i.e not the catalyst drivers.
 
k i've started running Orthos(Blend - stress CPU and RAM), any idea how long I should run this for?

I'll give the RAM a try as well
Thanks guys

Oh and it aint OCed either ;)
 
ok, quick update. I ran Orthos for 7 hours straight, all was well. I then swapped out my memory, and found I had the same problems with games crashing.

I then stuck my Radeon x600 pro in, and I get almost exactly the same problems. It's almost as if my PC just doesn't like ATI cards. Could it still be a software based problem do ya think?

I've tested everything but the actual motherboard itself now.
 
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