Are ATI drivers really getting this bad?

[heymrdj]

Hello all, a little background. Fiance has been wanting better pc gaming for awhile right now, so I figured I would jump into the 6 series and give her my card. The card I had (from a member here) is a Sapphire ATI 5850 1GB (basic non reference version). I was running catalyst 11.4 and then 11.6 a few days before, smooth as butter no performance issues. So I pick up the XFX 1GB 6870 reference version over the holiday sales. Express uninstall the CCC packages and driver, safe mode, uninstall video driver in device manager, run driver sweeper, reboot into normal mode, download the latest 11.6, shutdown, install card, reboot, install CCC. Immediately things are unstable after the CCC reboot. Firefox locks the screen immediately and have to force down the system (nothing responds). IE9 causes random atikmdag resets. Sometimes browsing is enough to cause a BSOD (normally STOP 0xA000001 or something like that, no naming of the cause). It'll game ok with rarely a hiccup, in fact that's the one thing it seems to do smoothly, never had an issue yet in game (Alice: Madenss Returns, Serious Sam HD first and second encounters ect). But I'm walking on glass to keep the system running, even now I'm expecting this to freeze so i'm typing and saving after every sentence in office first. It just wants to randomly BSOD and or atikmdag error or just lock the screen completely where I have to force reboot. Anything requiring UAC while like a video is running in WMP, VLC, or in browser is a guaranteed screen lock.

So to troubleshoot, I try the fiancés system, except this time I didn’t uninstall drivers, just ran it with what it had. Same issue. Clean drivers and reinstall. Same issue. Put the 5850 back in my system with no driver changes, smooth as silk, gaming and otherwise. Put the 5850 back in her system, again smooth as silk. Cleaned drivers ect again and put the 6870 back in mine, and instead of letting the XFX cd download the latest drivers I just let it use what was on disc (11.4). Still like glass. So I followed XFX’s troubleshooting pdf (basically same steps as mine for drivers), using their old driver database, downloading and trying from 10.12 to 11.7 developers beta. All of them have issues (majorly for some, like bsoding on boot) except 11.5 I’m running 11.5 right now just to have a semi-stable system, though it still wants to hardlock in IE 9, or BSOD in firefox, or (only once in awhile) atikmdag on a UAC call.
So I’ve got two systems that don’t work with this card. I opened a support ticket late Friday night with XFX with no response as of yet (guess they have no support on weekends) so I’m trying to see what resolution. IS there something I’m missing? I haven’t tried a fresh install yet, I shouldn’t have to fresh install the OS to side grade a gfx card when the old one can be popped in and out and run just fine (my 4290 integrated graphics work fine too). Anand want to give any advice? I ran into one thread on another forum with a guy having these symptoms with a brand new 6850 XFX card, they RMA’d and the new one worked just fine, in fact I have read several of these posts. But when the card does fine for the most part in games (gamed for 2 hours last night straight in Serious Sam HD: FE) with no lockups, but acts crazy within windows itself, I’m not sure how the card would be bad..The system also goes crazy if it’s allowed to get the newest Windows 7 Update driver from MS. The stock driver built in works fine, but if WU gets the newest one the same symptoms pop up.
My System details:
MSI 890GX-G65 mainboard
AMD 1055T stock clock/voltage
4 500GB WD Blacks in RAID 0 in a NetStore SAS cage
LSI Megraid 8308ELP SAS card
Happauge 2250 tv tuner
AMD 5850 before, now attempting 6870
Antec EarthWatts 650

Fiance’s build is exactly the same except instead of 4HD’s just 2 WD 1TB Black drives in RAID 0.

TL;DR
Had 5850, bought 6870, 6870 causes all kinds of random glitches/bsods, tried all catalyst versions from 10.12-11.7developer beta with all but 11.5 being completely unstable, and 11.5 offering limited gaming and system usage. Please help!

 

[daveybrat]

Send that card back as soon as possible. Sounds exactly like a bad card to me.

And yes just browsing the web or windows actually uses your video card now (Aero and IE9's hardware acceleration), so if your card has issues, windows will too.

I'll bet the new one works fine.

 

[heymrdj]

I just gamed with it for 2.5 hours last night and it worked fine. It bsodded 6times trying to get into the game but it did finally run. Then it atikmdaged,while exiting the games, hard locked on playing a dvd and bsodded while doing a nightly backup.

Still waiting for xfx to respond. I feel like I spent so much on this card when I include well over 9hours of my weekend time troubleshooting it. This really sucks :/

 

[Zargon]

I had issues like this for weeks, and it was actually a power connector shorting out in my case, FWIW

 

[heymrdj]

I had issues like this for weeks, and it was actually a power connector shorting out in my case, FWIW

I thought about that myself, which is why I used two difference systems (both with Antec Earth Watts 650 units) and also brought in a friends HX1000. The card performed no differently with any of the PSU's.

 

[busydude]

Have you checked if your video card has the latest BIOS installed?

XFX rep in here.. stated that in most cases the issue is with the RAM instead of the video card. If you OC'd your RAM.. just try running it at stock and check if everything works out.

 

[heymrdj]

Everything in my system is 100% stock and never volted, I'm after stability (the cpu cooler is not stock, I put on the Cooler Master Hyper 212+ for silence). The RAM, RAID array, and cpu all checked out fine using PCTools, Memtest, and MegaRAID diagnostics.

Seeing as a 5850, while drawing more power and producing a bit more heat, is just as powerful as a 6870, and I can swap in the 5850 at any time and become 100% stable, it would seem to me that the driver, the 6870, or both, are the root of the issue.

 

[denis280]

This is a driver issue.is it ok with the windows drivers.and yes update drivers.and see if you bios is up to date with the mobo.

 

[sandorski]

Have you checked if your video card has the latest BIOS installed?

XFX rep in here.. stated that in most cases the issue is with the RAM instead of the video card. If you OC'd your RAM.. just try running it at stock and check if everything works out.

Indeed. Definitely check for an Updated BIOS.

 

[heymrdj]

This is a driver issue.is it ok with the windows drivers.and yes update drivers.and see if you bios is up to date with the mobo.

BIOS is latest. Card runs at 8x because I have a raid card in the other PCI-E slot, again though this never affected the 5850, it should have no affect on a 6870, if it really is that sensitive I won't rma, I'll just return it. Again I shouldn't have to baby this card.

The base windows driver works ok (low resolution support) and if it is updated (like i said in the earlier post) it exhibits the same problems of instability. I ran every driver from 10.12 to a leaked beta of 11.7. Nothing makes the card stable.

 

[brandonb]

A friend of mine (my boss actually) had the exact same issue with his video card. After a month of the problem, the system would fail to boot. Found out it was the MB on the system was failing and eventually fried out, and not the video card. He had a biostar MB and bought an MSI as a replacement (and things worked fine after that.) However, it sounds like that is not the same situation as you as you tried in other computers and have an MSI anyways. I'd RMA the card.

 

[heymrdj]

Still waiting on a reply from xfx. System is still useless even after a second flash to bios 1B0 with all defaults. Bsods in ie, or when alt tabbing, or sometimes hard locks for the hell of it. This is extremely frustrating.

 

[heymrdj]

I apologize to earlier posters, in my agitation and busyness I didn't see you said VIDEO bios, not mainboard bios. I'm not sure what bios the card currently has, but with the current system instability I won't flash it. Hard locks and bsods come at any random time and I won't give xfx the opportunity to hold me over a barrel saying I bricked a card.

 

[badb0y]

RMA the card, I think it 's probably faulty.

 

[heymrdj]

RMA the card, I think it 's probably faulty.

I would love to, because I really think the card is at fault . Still no response from XFX. Just shy of 60 hours since the ticket went in. Computer seemed ok this morning after downloading about 5GB for me last night. But then it hard locked when I tried to launch IE for the morning news.

 

[busydude]

Still no response from XFX. Just shy of 60 hours since the ticket went in.

PM this guy.

 

[heymrdj]

PM this guy.

He hasn't been on since 6/03 but I did it anyways. Thanks alot for the link!

 

[heymrdj]

Well I have an RMA now. Have to say this whole process has left a horrible frigging taste in my mouth. I have to pay to send the damn thing in, so now this stupi card is going on up towards the next price tier, I spent my whole weekend troubleshooting it, I have to be without it God knows how long, and on top of that I spend for brand new merchandise and I have to get a fricking USED card back? I am a little beyond PO'd right now. I could have bought a damn open box cheaper and had the same fricking thing. I might call the purchase place and ask if I can take the damn thing back and get a new one. This BS is just too much.

 

[heymrdj]

Well can't take it back, only choice is to RMA. I'll get the last laugh though. I just canceled an order of 1300$ of XFX stuff from newegg going into a bunch of systems for a business here. I sure as hell won't be shafted like this then be expected to buy more. If an exec wants to ensure I get a brand new card, I'll pay the shipping and reinstantiate the order. Till then, any future affiliations with xfx are done with me.

 

[Quiksilver]

Well I have an RMA now. Have to say this whole process has left a horrible frigging taste in my mouth. I have to pay to send the damn thing in, so now this stupi card is going on up towards the next price tier, I spent my whole weekend troubleshooting it, I have to be without it God knows how long, and on top of that I spend for brand new merchandise and I have to get a fricking USED card back? I am a little beyond PO'd right now. I could have bought a damn open box cheaper and had the same fricking thing. I might call the purchase place and ask if I can take the damn thing back and get a new one. This BS is just too much.

uh, paying the return shipping is pretty much the norm with just about every company. The only exceptions would be if it were a mass recall or a product that doesn't work correctly out of the box in mass.

Just for example...
See the p67 chipsets for example for mass recall (which is why there is a b3 revision now) and the corsair force 3 series ssd's they have a very high failure rate so return costs is covered by corsair.

and in any case, one dud card isn't really enough to go omg wtfz u no get my moneyzzz on them...

I mean really? Everyone gets duds of something in their system every now and thing.
Hell my 3 month corsair SSD died on me last week... and before that I had a WD hard drive died on me after 5 minutes of use, guess what I still have in my PC?

 

[heymrdj]

uh, paying the return shipping is pretty much the norm with just about every company. The only exceptions would be if it were a mass recall or a product that doesn't work correctly out of the box in mass.

Just for example...
See the p67 chipsets for example for mass recall (which is why there is a b3 revision now) and the corsair force 3 series ssd's they have a very high failure rate so return costs is covered by corsair.

and in any case, one dud card isn't really enough to go omg wtfz u no get my moneyzzz on them...

I mean really? Everyone gets duds of something in their system every now and thing.
Hell my 3 month corsair SSD died on me last week... and before that I had a WD hard drive died on me after 5 minutes of use, guess what I still have in my PC?

Like I said the shipping is a small thing to me, It's shipped it's done. It's the fact that I paid for a new card and I'm getting someone elses repaired crap in return that burns me. Later in warranty sure. But this card is 4 days old, none of which it actually got to get used! If I wanted refurbished I could have paid 1/2 as much for that "feature".

I had a 8 day old Scorpion Black go bad on me back in 2007, I called them and told them I wanted a new one, not a refurb, and the nice rep lady made it so that is what I got. So I'm running a new black in this laptop, not a refurb.

 

[Quiksilver]

Getting a refurb. back is the norm too for a lot of companies. Last I remember even EVGA does the same thing and they have really good customer service.

I mean this could be a whole lot worse, Sapphire has some of the worst customer service I've seen. I've read horror stories of them charging customers the return shipping plus and RMA fee.. which I think is like $25 - 30 without shipping costs...

Also why couldn't you just return the card back to where you bought it from? If you did that you would have gotten a new card back :S

Also, I've had my brand new Powercolor 6970's heatsink fan explode apart (3 blades on the fan just exploded off...) on me while I was in the middle of playing bf:bc2... (lucky I had 2) so, you know any company you chose if going to have a fault somewhere.

 

[Rizyn]

just wanted to say i'm in the same situation as the OP. one of my 4890 failed on me so i sent in a ticket for an RMA on the 9th. i didn't receive any reply until i found this thread and messaged XFXSupport to have a look at my ticket, and within an hour got a reply back to look at my ticket on their site which included an RMA#.

i sent out my card on the 13th insured and according to the tracking, xfx should receive it on the 15th. i'll keep an update on how my RMA goes.

Update #1: XFX received my card on the 15th. the card was tested on the 18th (as they do not work weekends) and came back FAULTY. now i'm waiting for a reply from the technician to complete the process. i'm hoping they send back a 4890 as i run a crossfire setup.

 

[heymrdj]

I sent mine off on the 13th, it's supposed to be delivered there tomorrow.

Quicksilver, I called Tigerdirect but apparently XFX has the support restraining order on them, and they're not allowed to accept any registered cards back. They have to be returned via the proper channels, IE through XFX. From what I've seen they got newegg under the same deal. Falls under the "limited electronic return policy" instead of the normal 15 day policy.

 

[heymrdj]

I just got a response from XFX being pretty much the same mumbo jumbo of standard industry practice. People have really let the industry become a steaming pile of **** for letting stuff like this go unchecked with companies. If I buy a new car, and the wheel falls off on the way home, I don't have to pay to have the damn thing fixed. I done paid to ship it, loosing all sale value the card had on it, and if I get a used piece of crap in its place, I will spread XFX's wrong doing every where I can. I have tons of posts on different forums for pluses companies have done for me, for doing me right in support and not shafting me. They have a chance to join those ranks, but it seems like they'll choose the sludge path and grind along happy in substandardcy.