Problems with new 4870

[obiwanquinobi`]

Ok..

Hows this for a tale of woe? (Please forgive any bad spelling, grammar, punctuation as this was typed in a hurry on what was left of my laptop battery charge)

Got my new 4870 and did the usual uninstall drivers, safe mode reboot, driver sweepser, remove card, install new card and then new Cats.

Card was running fine for a couple days without issues (And by the way, theres no way its 2x Faster than a 2900XT)

Tried a bit of overclocking on the VRAM today using the CCC overdrive (Only about 30mhz) applied the settings and my screen got corrupted instantly and it rebooted. System booted again and instantly corrupted so there was no way to get in an change the settings back.

Booted into safe mode and uninstalled the drivers as by this point the CCC wouldnt start and I thought I'd start afresh. Did the usual cleaning/safe mode routine but when I tried to re-install the drivers I kept getting the error message 'Inf File Could Not Be Found' Now, reading posts on this forum suggests that this is a common problem, so I try un-installing cleaning again and still the drivers will not install and fail with the same error message.

Now, looking in Device Manager, my Standard VGA Adaptor driver is not installed either, so I go to driver tab, point it to the standard VGA driver, reboot. I'm thinking at this point that this should fix the issue.....and I should be able to install the catalysts now -

No dice...the device fails to start at boot and has the exclamation mark again in Device Manager.

Bored yet?? Please read on....


I'm thinking at this point that the little bit of overclocking has buggered my new 4870 and I'm in a bit of a panic!! So I install the 2900XT again - SAME PROBLEM. I cant even install the standard VGA Driver for any card (I presume this is why the Catalyst installer is failing as it can not find the base VGA driver)

Now I think, "Bugger it..I'll re-install Windows as its been a long time coming. I've got a copy of VISTA 64 from my Technet Plus so I'll give that a whirl"

Install Vista 64 and chipset drivers...Standard VGA Driver still not installing. And the Catalyst install fails because of this.

This is driving me up the pole.

I don't think the graphics card is bad, as my 2900XT exhibits the same behaviour now and I just can not get the standard VGA driver to work - the install works when I point the device to the driver but it fails to start upon reboot.

I'm thinking that this could be a problem with my PCI-E slot/Motherboard?

Anyone else had a similar problem? Or can anyone offer any advice.

I'm currently running a Gigabyte DS3P (Rev2.0)

Thanks for any responses guys

 

[H4wklord]

A fresh install is always a good idea if all other remedies have failed, alternatively try an earlier driver version as some people have had issues with cat 8.9's

I replaced my HD2900XT and dis-agree it gives me about double the performance if you factor in the use of AA

 

[obiwanquinobi`]

Tried a fresh install mate. Its just that the Standard VGA Driver fails to load now..even if I tell windows where to find it and reboot.

I'm worried that theres a problem with the motherboard or something?

 

[sir-les-mp]

sounds like there is still something lurking on the hdd even after the re install of windows
i would suggest using a drive cleaner like kill disk and completely clean the drive back to
like new. then try re installing windows see if that help's

 

[pieman109]

Try slinging the vista disc in again and cancel the instal process, then try to update the "standard vga driver" from the device manager. If that works, reinstal the chipset drivers, then instal catalyst drivers.

 

[obiwanquinobi`]

Will try these suggestions and will post back here to let you know the outcome. Cheers

 

[AWPC]

Would not advise overclocking on stock gfx card cooler as they get hot enough as it is and unless you mod your 4870 bios anyway the overclocked extra memory bandwidth makes little real world gaming FPS difference.