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This week 'Silent Cooling solution' 4870?

I find the cooler provided on the Powercolor 4870 quite effective - the grating noise from the fan at idle is annoying but can be rectified by running it at say 5%. My average temps don't exceed 70c when gaming and that's only running the fan at 30% speed (I have a large case with a 120mm fan blowing over the card)
 
cheers for the info. Looking at a lot of the reviews, seems like the 4870 will stay around the 80c mark when gaming and 70c when idle (thats without changing the cooler).

Anyone know if these kind of temperatures reduce the life-span of these cards?
 
I would doubt it - although a constant 70c at idle is a little on the high side. I would say chances are you will be upgrading long before the card dies due to excessive heat.
 
Got mine today....now running fine. Replaced my HD4850 with this. Same as when the HD4850 went in....no video output over DVI.....Switched everything off, pulled power cable from monitor, then plugged back in and fired it all up !
No problems so far and running great.
 
You were lucky to get things working that easily. I've tried everything to get a DVI signal to my Dell TFT but no luck. Stuck with the DVI to VGA adaptor for now. Oh, my X-fi decided to stop working as well when I upgraded to the 4870, so I've ordered a Xonar (good excuse to upgrade I guess :p)
 
hmm i guess no one has had any problems with their powercolour 4870 pcs then. but is case you do check the link in post 84.
seems like the bios problem will not go away.
 
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darwin said:
You were lucky to get things working that easily. I've tried everything to get a DVI signal to my Dell TFT but no luck. Stuck with the DVI to VGA adaptor for now. Oh, my X-fi decided to stop working as well when I upgraded to the 4870, so I've ordered a Xonar (good excuse to upgrade I guess :p)
Click to expand...


Hmm - is that a common problem [I use my 24" Dell in DVI] ?
 
rapid64k said:
hmm i guess no one has had any problems with their powercolour 4870 pcs then. but is case you do check the link in post 84.
seems like the bios problem will not go away.
Click to expand...

I have mate, both my friend and I returned ours straightaway, absolute rubbish.

How they can market it as silent is a joke, not to mention a rubbish cooler and unfinished BIOS (fan speed grating sound)

Not buying another Powercolor card again.
 
miker1 said:
Hmm - is that a common problem [I use my 24" Dell in DVI] ?
Click to expand...
Seems to be an issue with certain TFT's, 4870s and Windows Vista, the ATI drivers seem to work fine in XP...you can read all about it here
I have a Dell 24" 2407 btw, so chances are you will run in to the same problem as me. Given the choice again I'd stick with Nvidia.
 
I was 99% going to buy the card still may well try another company if they get round to releasing the 1 gb version or may well get me a gtx 280.
 
darwin said:
Seems to be an issue with certain TFT's, 4870s and Windows Vista, the ATI drivers seem to work fine in XP...you can read all about it here
I have a Dell 24" 2407 btw, so chances are you will run in to the same problem as me. Given the choice again I'd stick with Nvidia.
Click to expand...


Fortunately, still using XP! :cool:
 
i have had my card for about a week and mine is running fine on vista 64, bin playing all my games with no problems, need to get crysis to see how it plays on that, bin playin with 19" monitor and resolution maxed and all my games ive played i have maxed out the settings! sumtimes not using AA etc but games like:

Oblivion
Far Cry 64
FEAR
DOOM3
GRID
CS:S
Half Life 2

All have maxed settings and run smoooooooth! And as for the noise well its just a mixture between system noise and a grinding noise but not overly too loud. plus when you have your speakers on or head phones you wont notice the sound. Also when i put the card in i noticed the card looked silent but its when the fan goes to spin really fast to cool the card thats y it makes the noise cus of the power going through the fan! could it be possible to just change the fan?????
 
Unfortunately, I'm another victim of the Powercolor 4870 grinding noise. It's absolutely unbearable and makes the card much louder than those with stock coolers. :( The folks saying this isn't too bad must either have very noisy PCs or were lucky enough to receive a quieter card.

As far as reasons for the problem go, I'd guess at the fan being a poor choice for 3-wire PWM. Without the 4th wire, the tach reading requires extended pulses on the supply which will momentarily blip the fan up to full speed. On a fan which can change speeds quietly, this wouldn't be an issue, but the one on my card makes an audible "clickedy click" noise even if I just spin it by hand.

The theory is backed up somewhat by the grinding getting quieter as the fan speeds up.

Oh well, mine's going to be RMAed. I hope Overclockers get assurances from their suppliers that future batches aren't going to be this bad. Personally, I don't think I'm going near Powercolor again.

Does anyone know where I can buy a 4870 (or Nvidia equivalent) with a quieter-than-stock cooler in the UK? The IceQ and revised MSI versions of the 4850 look quite promising if I can stomach trading performance for quiet. Of course, even those aren't available in the UK yet.

[EDIT: Overclockers have the Iceq in now...!]

--
Dave
 
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ok so ive overclocked my system at last and the GFX card using the CCC software, my memory is at 1000mhz and the GPU is 820mhz. idle tempreture is 70oc but when underload its goes up to about 76oc so far as ive seen anyway.

ive got my 19" tft and the settings are maxed out! all AA etc etc, but i ran 3dmark2001 and with my clocked cpu to 3.16ghz i managed to get 37142 on my score which i fink is pretty impressive :D dont you think, and as for the grinding noise well wen im using my speakers i can hardly hear it its only when your not using your speakers you will notice it but it dont bother me.

its a good card!
 
jamieakabubble said:
ok so ive overclocked my system at last and the GFX card using the CCC software, my memory is at 1000mhz and the GPU is 820mhz. idle tempreture is 70oc but when underload its goes up to about 76oc so far as ive seen anyway.

ive got my 19" tft and the settings are maxed out! all AA etc etc, but i ran 3dmark2001 and with my clocked cpu to 3.16ghz i managed to get 37142 on my score which i fink is pretty impressive :D dont you think, and as for the grinding noise well wen im using my speakers i can hardly hear it its only when your not using your speakers you will notice it but it dont bother me.

its a good card!
Click to expand...

Its a good thing you wrote it all down because i cant hear a word that your saying due to your GPU:D
 
Why do you guys not flash with the later bios from Powercolor for these cards, which gets rid of the low speed grinding noise.....?
 
Had the griding noise but just did a bit of Bios editing and moved the fan to 6% at low speed instead of 3% - fan is now almost silent and the card is much better than my older 8800GT - handles HDR + AA ( 4x Edge Detect) in oblivion flawlessly (unlike the 8800GT that just crashed all the time)
 
Bito said:
Why do you guys not flash with the later bios from Powercolor for these cards, which gets rid of the low speed grinding noise.....?
Click to expand...

Is this contained within the driver zip on their web page? There appear to be no other downloads for the 4870.

The latest driver update was released the day I posted mine back to Overclockers for a refund. It would be ironic if it contained a BIOS fix for the problem.

--
Dave
 
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