4850 issues

[Narynan]

Alright so I bit the bullet and went with the upgrade to a 4850. I would say I love the card, but I rightly have no freaking idea.

As it is right now I will try to trace my steps that led me to this point of madness and see if anyone has and ideas as to what I need to do to get this thing up and running.

Using Sapphire 3870 with 8.6 drivers and CCC & Rivatuner

Removed 3870 / Installed 4850... booted up Fine.
Started up UT3, played fine.
Started up CoD4, played fine.
Upgraded drivers to 8.7
Edited .XML to 55% fan speed
Installed ATI Tray Tools.
Never really played with it before, screwed around in the OC tool.
OC'd to 725 / 1150, and decided to play a game with my new fastness
CoD4, didnt work, gave some kinda error.
UT3 also didn't work. Gave a error, and an error report.
UT2k4, worked, but had no textures on the guns and ran REALLY SLOW.
Halflife2 worked, but with jittering and all in game characters seemed to jump every 5 seconds.
Sins of a Solar Empire, would play, but would also not render textures.
Uninstalled ATI Tray Tools & 8.7
Installed 8.6
Same as above.
Uninstall / reinstall 8.6
Same as above.
Removed 4850, replaced with old 3870. Everything back to running great.

So. What the hell did I do? Do I have a bad card? Is it a drivers issue? Like I said, before the upgrade from 8.6 to 8.7 everything seemed fine, although it only worked for about 20 minutes before I started the rest of the process.

I am looking forward to hearing some ideas. Because I am at a loss.

Also some tech specs for those interested.
Q6600 @ 3.2 ghz 9x356
Asus P5E
Zalman 850W psu
Zalman 9500 cooling for CPU
4GB Corsair XMS2 DDR 800
WD 320GB HDD sata
Creative X-Fi PCI-E

 

[error8]

So you overclocked the card blindly and not a single game worked, right? Your clocks were probably to high and the card wasn't stable. The thing is that after the first game that didn't worked, you tried another and another that probably blew the card away. I'm guessing that the card is dead. You could test it in another computer, but I don't think it'll work.

Next time read some advices about overclocking and don't do it like you did it now. The frequency has to be increased slowly and every megahertz you put over the stock ones has to be tested seriously, before you can start playing games on it.

An overclocked card is some 80% stable after it passes at least one hour of ATI tool artifacts test. When it passes that it's ready to be tested in games.

 

[Narynan]

Thanks for the heads up, maybe I skiffed a few of what I thought were uneventful details. As soon as I threw the card in I hit the ATI autotune button. And it drove the card up to 700 / 1200, and the it gave me the all clear. So, given that thought I didn't think the extra 25 mhz was going to make a stick of difference. I will admit to never coinsidering a burn in time frame for the OC. Didnt think it was a big deal. Thought it was more like a CPU. Hit a OC that everyone else is getting easy and then tune from there. Also going to edit my above post to include my .xml editing of the fan speed to 55%

 

[error8]

Well, never use something like autotune, since it's not able to detect instability problems at the clocks it finds. Since you had the fan cranked up to 55%, maybe the temps were not that high, but probably the clocks were. Even so, it's pretty odd to kill a card like this, that is why I was saying that you should try it in another computer.

Never think that if "everyone" got the card at those clocks, yours will get there as well. For example, my 8800 GT wasn't even getting 690 mhz stable on core, when all those other people were hitting over 720 and so. Even after a volt mod, I was getting "only" 800 mhz, when all the others were topping 850 mhz. Every card is different and overclocks different.

 

[Shimmishim]

question. How did you go above the 700 core limit that CCC limits you to? I had to flash my bios to get access to over 700.

 

[Narynan]

So, I went out and replaced the card. Straight out swap at BB. And guess what, same freaking problems. I am currently the 8.6 drivers which have NOTHING changed from the 3870 card I was just using. All I am doing is swapping the card out, and it goes from working perfectly on the 3870, to performing like crap on the 4850.

WTF?

Suggestions?

 

[Narynan]

Well, I guess I'll give the 8.8 drivers a shot. Not like that will really work or anything. Are there any files I should be looking for? Regkeys I should be looking to delete. I do I completely remove all ATI related good from my computer. because I know I will be getting to that point here shortly.

The weirdest part of this whole thing is. I throw my 3870 in, and everything works fine.

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: Shimmishim
question. How did you go above the 700 core limit that CCC limits you to? I had to flash my bios to get access to over 700.

ati tray tools

 

[Tempered81]

yah delete all old shit, just remove card & uninstall drivers. delete files. Try a driver sweeper if you feel like it. reinstall card w/ 8.8 betas. 8.8 whql cat's should be out tommorow.

 

[Narynan]

Alright so, 8.8 didnt do jack. I think I have some kind of 2d rendering issue that is effect a few games. Because here is what I got.

Also having rendering issues with Dawn of War.
Oblivion works fine.
Halflife 2 works fine.
Warcraft 3 works fine.
Diablo 2 works fine.
ET: Quake Wars also works fine.

I've got some screen shots of what is going on in some of these games.
http://i177.photobucket.com/al...34/Narynan/COD4WTF.jpg
http://i177.photobucket.com/al...4/Narynan/ut2k4wtf.jpg
http://i177.photobucket.com/al...234/Narynan/DowWTF.jpg

And then the UT3 is just a standard windows message.

GRUMBLEGRUBLE

 

[Narynan]

alright so more weirdness. I got the 3870 plugged in, running 8.7, and everything is working fine. But we knew that already.

Once again, is there any files, or anything that could have been related to JUST the 4850 that I need to be aware of because right now I am so at a loss. Its not power related. And two cards from two different BB's would not have the same problem. So, I beg the question.

What the hell is happening with my 4850?

 

[sgrinavi]

Sounds like an IRQ or memory address conflict to me. Maybe RAM.

First you might try setting the BIOS to all stock and go from there.

Did you uninstall all the drivers and sweep it clean with the 3870 installed then stick in the 4850 and install 8.8 ?

 

[Narynan]

I unstalled them yes, but I did not do a clean sweep or anything. I dont have links to any available programs, and really, it's not like I was going from a 3870 to a 260GT or anything. Same drivers required just a different chipset.

I would think it might be IRQ related, but it's only happening on SOME games. I dont think its RAM at all, I got good RAM that is Memtest stable for 24 hours plus.

And last but not least, I could set everything back to stock and then go from there. Oh they joys of OC'ing. But on that note, wouldn't a stock Q6600 be a bottleneck for a 4850. Thought that I had heard that somewhere. 2.4 isnt all that fast, actually I think the RAM on the 4850 is faster than that.

 

[sgrinavi]

I am not suggesting you leave it stock, just as a temporary measure to remove the possibility that it is causing an issue. Probably not, but it can't hurt.

It may be a memory address conflict, a 100% clean install will clear that up.

Does that board have a second PCIE slot? If so did you try that?

Take a look in the Downloads section of Guru3d, I think there is a free drive sweeper there, if not just google it. I don't recall where I got mine.

 

[Narynan]

Originally posted by: sgrinavi

It may be a memory address conflict, a 100% clean install will clear that up.

Does that board have a second PCIE slot? If so did you try that?

A complete clean install of what? ATI drivers and tools, or Windows? Cause god knows I love dealing with itunes, and MP3 files, and backing up. Sigh, well I guess I would coinsider that as only really a last resort.

I never did put it into the @nd PCIE slot. Never coinsidered it would make a difference. Would it? Interesting I will have to try that out and see what happens.

 

[SilentRunning]

Originally posted by: Narynan
So, I went out and replaced the card. Straight out swap at BB. And guess what, same freaking problems. I am currently the 8.6 drivers which have NOTHING changed from the 3870 card I was just using. All I am doing is swapping the card out, and it goes from working perfectly on the 3870, to performing like crap on the 4850.

WTF?

Suggestions?

Are you uninstalling the drivers for the 3870 before you remove it or are you really just swapping the cards?

 

[Narynan]

I've done both. Doesnt make a difference as to the porblems with the card. Went both ways on this one. Card / uninstall / card & card in / card out. Didn't make a lick of difference either way.

Also, does anyone think that this might be an issues realated to the games no seeming the new card correctly? Or some for of config issue with the games and the card / drivers?

 

[Narynan]

I have found the problem. It was in the CCC under "use custom settings" I installed JUST the driver for 8.7 Worked fine. Updated to the CCC, and it started crashing on me again. Then I figured it was something in CCC. And sure as hell, it was in the 3D tab, "use custom settings". I eliminated that and the world is as right as rain.