New HD4870 artifacts already?

[fustercluck]

Was playing a gaming for a long time earlier (though I've probably gamed longer recently) and artifacts started showing up. I just got this HD4870 about a month ago... PCwizard showed the GPU temp at 59C, but idle it's only 55C so I don't think that's a big deal. Should I take any action? Kinda worries me since it's so new.

 

[dguy6789]

See if it artifacts in multiple games. Are you saying it gets to 59C at full load? 4C is a very small difference between idle and full load, doesn't sound reasonable to me. If you idle at 55C, you might want to consider turning the fan speed up.

 

[error8]

Fire up ATi tool artifact scanner, and GPU-Z in the same time. Look at your temperatures and see if the cube spots something.

 

[fustercluck]

Yeah the GPU temp just kept climbing and climbing, PC wizard isn't good for measuring temps I guess (along with many other programs). GPU-Z showed GPU temp (DISPIO?) went up to 74 C after only about a min of artifact scanning. GPU (MEMIO) showed 89C and GPU (SHADERCORE) showed 78C. So I can imagine temps could get pretty high after a long bout of gaming. Not to mention it's usually pretty hot in my room.

 

[error8]

But did it detected any artifacts?

 

[fustercluck]

Nope, not after a few minutes anyways. I can see how it might happen after a few hours of gaming as the temp was climbing rapidly.

 

[TidusZ]

Use furmark torture test stability test. max settings you can run on your screen. Watch it for 10 minutes. If anything is gonna make artifacts and high temps, it will. You have to manually watch for them, but its faster and better than using atitool.

 

[FerrelGeek]

Nuts! It looks my my 4870 is having artifact problems as well! Even at stock 750/900 with the fan running at 35%. Temps for the card show tolerable as well. I'm running it at 600/805 and it seems to be working fine now. Still, I paid for a 4870, not a 4850. Any advice guys? RMAing the card won't be as easy as I cut the UPC off the box for the rebate. Guess that means I have to deal with HIS.

 

[SSChevy2001]

Originally posted by: FerrelGeek
Nuts! It looks my my 4870 is having artifact problems as well! Even at stock 750/900 with the fan running at 35%. Temps for the card show tolerable as well. I'm running it at 600/805 and it seems to be working fine now. Still, I paid for a 4870, not a 4850. Any advice guys? RMAing the card won't be as easy as I cut the UPC off the box for the rebate. Guess that means I have to deal with HIS.

Get GPU-Z and open it. Then get and open ATi Tray Tools lock your clock speed and voltage at 750/900 @ 1.263v. Then click show 3D render and click scan for artifacts. If you get artifacts while it's scanning and the temps are okay then you'll have to RMA the card.

If the temps aren't okay then you can either try increasing the fan speed, RMA the card, or reseat the cooler.

 

[fustercluck]

Let's just assume that I'm seeing artifacts. Would RMAing the card be an option or getting it replaced from the company (Sapphire) themselves? I know these cards are supposed to run hot but it shouldn't be required that they be liquid cooled. Never had any heat probs with my video cards in the past.

 

[SSChevy2001]

@wankawitz

If your seeing artifacting the 1st thing you need to do is determine what's the cause of the problem. Again using a program like GPU-Z and ATT you should be able to get all the info you need. If you want you can post a screenshot of this.

These are with stock reference 4870.
Load 4870 1GB
Idle 4870 1GB

If you feel that the card is really can't handle the stock clocks then it needs to be RMA. You should always go to the place you bought it 1st to see what they can offer.

As far as cooling goes these cards do run hot by default. There's 2 reason for this.
1) the idle clock sucks on these cards ( this can be changed via ATT )
2) the fan speed are to low by default ( increase this during load )

Also I don't recommend using Furmarks just, because it pushes the VRMs to hard on these cards.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: wankawitz
Let's just assume that I'm seeing artifacts.

What does this suppose to mean? Are you seeing or not seeing artifact?

If you are, you can use ATI tray tools and up the fan speed and see if the artifacts are still there. If they are, then RMA is the only way.

 

[FerrelGeek]

Originally posted by: SSChevy2001

Originally posted by: FerrelGeek
Nuts! It looks my my 4870 is having artifact problems as well! Even at stock 750/900 with the fan running at 35%. Temps for the card show tolerable as well. I'm running it at 600/805 and it seems to be working fine now. Still, I paid for a 4870, not a 4850. Any advice guys? RMAing the card won't be as easy as I cut the UPC off the box for the rebate. Guess that means I have to deal with HIS.

Get GPU-Z and open it. Then get and open ATi Tray Tools lock your clock speed and voltage at 750/900 @ 1.263v. Then click show 3D render and click scan for artifacts. If you get artifacts while it's scanning and the temps are okay then you'll have to RMA the card.

If the temps aren't okay then you can either try increasing the fan speed, RMA the card, or reseat the cooler.

OK, this worked. Thanks! But I'm going on record as saying that I'm rather disappointed that you have to do so much tweaking just to get this card to run properly at stock. What the heck would a person do if they weren't as tech savvy as you guys are? :disgust:

 

[SSChevy2001]

Originally posted by: FerrelGeek
OK, this worked. Thanks! But I'm going on record as saying that I'm rather disappointed that you have to do so much tweaking just to get this card to run properly at stock. What the heck would a person do if they weren't as tech savvy as you guys are? :disgust:

I think it's just a problem with 8.12 and 8.12 hotfix drivers. Complaints about flickering would be a dead giveaway of powerplay problem, which of course while gaming can cause artifacting. It's something that will more than likely get fixed in 9.1, which should be out this week.

IMO though is you should just get rid of CCC and just use ATT. I don't even notice these problems as I don't use powerplay at all. ATT sets my idle clocks and my overclocking setting for each games.

 

[fustercluck]

Originally posted by: error8

Originally posted by: wankawitz
Let's just assume that I'm seeing artifacts.

What does this suppose to mean? Are you seeing or not seeing artifact?

If you are, you can use ATI tray tools and up the fan speed and see if the artifacts are still there. If they are, then RMA is the only way.

Well unless I'm having some sort of hallucination, I can SEE the artifacts after gaming for a while. So I don't know why I need to do hours of additional testing to find out something I already know. Can even see artifacts in the ATI control panel: PIC - ATI tools doesn't work well in Vistax64 but speed fan said all the fans were running at max speed.

Most likely already past the deadline for RMAing, but I'll check newegg now. No reason this thing should be showing artifacts.

 

[error8]

It should have 2 years warranty.

ATi tools works well with Vista X64, since I'm using it. But if you say you have artifacts in ATI control panel, then the card is probably screwed anyway. Replace it.

 

[fustercluck]

Looks like a few other neweggers got a bad one here and there also, looking at the reviews. Hoping I can get it replaced with one of the 'good' ones.

 

[error8]

My sapphire 4870 also had some problems. It was crashing here and there and needed a bios upgrade. But now works fine. I'll never buy a Sapphire card again, though.

 

[fustercluck]

Didn't even know video cards could do bios upgrades...or do you mean you had to upgrade your motherboard bios for your video card to work properly?

 

[Jessica69]

Originally posted by: error8
I'll never buy a Sapphire card again, though.

And that one comment probably sums everything up quite nicely. My Asus 4870 is run hard, put up wet, and has never shown one problem at all......and i agree, Sapphire, while the biggest ATI seller, is one of the least reliable brands out there, sad to say.

 

[MihiAir]

And that one comment probably sums everything up quite nicely. My Asus 4870 is run hard, put up wet, and has never shown one problem at all......and i agree, Sapphire, while the biggest ATI seller, is one of the least reliable brands out there, sad to say.

Really? was planning to buy a video card from them, which Asus 4870 you have?

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: wankawitz
Didn't even know video cards could do bios upgrades...or do you mean you had to upgrade your motherboard bios for your video card to work properly?

No, videocards have their own bios, which you can upgrade yourself.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: Jessica69

Originally posted by: error8
I'll never buy a Sapphire card again, though.

And that one comment probably sums everything up quite nicely. My Asus 4870 is run hard, put up wet, and has never shown one problem at all......and i agree, Sapphire, while the biggest ATI seller, is one of the least reliable brands out there, sad to say.

And when I bought my card, it was right next to an Asus one. Oh well...