Problem with Gigabyte 4870 1GB and DX 10 games

[ComputerDude67]

I just bought a GIGABYTE GV-R487D5-1GD (no overclock) which is a new video card based on ATI 4870 1GB with HDMI\Display Port\DVI with a Zalman cooler and looks to be a Gigabyte design. I am using the DVI connector.

If I run any DX 10 game Crysis, Crysis Warhead and Far Cry 2 I get immediate corrupted flashing screen when the playable part of the game starts; computer does not crash but video is corrupted. I have tried the Gigabyte drivers from there website and ATI drivers version 8.12 and 9.1 and have the same problems with all of them. If I run these and any other games in DX 9 mode I have no problems in games or anywhere else. I previously had a Sapphire 4850 Toxic 512MB card and never had any problems from day one and have had this card since 8/08.

The computer is hand built with a Gigabyte X38-DS4 mainboard and a Antec 550watt power supply. I have 5 case fans and 2 power supply fans and the video card is running a Zalman cooler and at idle I get 41C and 65C at load (the 4850 with a Zalman 9000 at load would run at +80C and no troubles). I put the 4850 back in and no problems. I have tried all clean installs of drivers and to no avail. I have not tried the ATI 9.2 driver but will tonight. I am running Vista 64bit Ultimate with all patches including SP1. I am not going to replace any hardware except to toss the Gigabyte 4870 if I can't solve this through software.

Any Ideas???

Video Card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814125256

 

[thilanliyan]

Do you have a 2nd monitor by any chance? Or have the desktop extended? If you do disable that and try again. I was having a similar problem in DX10 in Win 7 64-bit and it was also with Warhead and FC2.

EDIT: Try the Catalyst 9.2 driver...I no longer have to disable the extended display in FC2 but warhead still requires it.

 

[ComputerDude67]

Thanks but only have one monitor and I checked the setting and it is correct. Still have problem with ATI 9.2. Problem is only with DX10. I have tried Bioshock, Far Cry 2, and Crysis and Crysis Warhead and all have the flashing screen. All DX9 games work perfectly even GTA4 with max settings and I get around 30-40 frames. When playing DX10 games I can actually play the game but the screen flashes and it looks like it is running with 16 colors and block textures. Gigabyte has not responded yet. If I can't figure this out by Monday then the card is going back to NewEgg.

 

[ComputerDude67]

Gigabyte was not able to help. I do still love Gigabyte mainboards as I have had both a P965 and X38 board and use both still to this date with no troubles at all.

Anyways I am sending this video card back to NewEgg and NewEgg is great as they gave me no troubles at all to send this back including a full refund and paid shipping, nice job NewEgg (I am a good customer and have spent +$1000s and only sent back some Ram one time long ago). Always call NewEgg for full refund.

I really liked this board and it worked fine in DX9 but could never get it to work in DX10, but it was a nice board 4870, 1GB GDDR5, Zalman, HDMI and Display Port, 3 phase power and blue colored to match my setup. Not sure what the problem was but I put back my Sapphire 4850 Toxic 512MB with Zalman and have not had any problems. I played Crysis Warhead for several hours in 64bit DX10 mode (love this game). Also played GTA4 (DX9 lame) and it works fine on my 4850 (GPUz shows GPU load at ~80% most of the game) of course my 4GHz Core 2 8400 was pegged at 100% on both cores which gives me a pretty smoooth game. I did upgrade to 8GB Ram (5*5*5*15@900MHz@2.0V - less than $100 from NewEgg and free shipping) from 4GB because I could and no troubles there.

 

[onyxsolo]

I'm having the same problem. However it seems to be going beyond DX10 games. For me it is happening whenever I Force AA and AF through the control panel and not through the game options. I'll be attempting to send my card back as well because of this. I had high hopes for this card

 

[VerticalChallenge]

I just purchased this graphics board myself, and running stock cannot run Crysis Warhead more than 10-15 mins before the game crashes. Usually Crysis.exe or cryphysics.dll are listed. I'm only playing on High at 1156x856 with 4xAA. Happens for me DX9 or DX10; in fact, I usually can't even load Shore Leave in DX10, a problem I've seen reported elsewhere.

Core temp gets to 61C, Memory I/O gets to 70C, VRM temps get to 80C, with phase 1 the hottest. Given how loud the card's Zalman always 100% fan is, I'm surprised there isn't better cooling.

My system includes: GIGABYTE GA-P35-DQ6; Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 2.66GHz; 4 GB DDR2 1066 (5/5/5/15); SeaSonic S12 Energy Plus SS-550HT 550W; Antec Solo Case. Running Vista Ultimate 32 bit.

I had no problems with my previous GPU, a silent ASUS 8600GTS, getting to temps in the 70C range.

Newegg, sadly, only had a 30 day non-refundable policy on the card... I guess I won't buy a card with that restriction again. I should probably RMA it for a replacement, in hopes that it's just bad memory or power unit, but am curious if anybody has suggestions to try first.

 

[thilanliyan]

How are the CPU temps? Try pointing a fan directly at the card and see if that helps...maybe the memory is overheating (there's no heatsinks on the memory right?)? I have no idea what are acceptable temps for GDDR5.

 

[error8]

Oh great. This was the card I wanted to buy after selling my 4870 512.

Try putting a fan to blow air somehow over the VRMs and memory chips, maybe some of those are overheating!? The VRM heatsink seems to be far away from the fan, so probably the air doesn't reaches it, causing those chips to ovearheat and loose stability.

EDIT: I see that gigabyte has some bios versions on their site. So it might have something to do with this. The latest one is from 3-04-2009.
BIOS

 

[VerticalChallenge]

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll get a 120mm fan in there and report back. That was part of my long-term plan, actually, after seeing a picture on hardwarecanucks.com of a Accelero S1 Rev. 2 attached to a 4850 and a quiet 120mm fan zip-tied to it. I just wanted to verify my 4870 card was stable before pulling it apart!

http://hardwarecanucks.com/for...cs-card-review-23.html

Interestingly, despite the horizontal orientation of the Zalman cooler's fins, it feels that barely any air is blown over the black heat sink towards the end.

The card came with the most recent bios, F23, and I installed the most recent Gigabyte verified ATI driver, 8.582.0.0. I had also installed the Catalyst 9.4 package, but backed that out when it didn't help.

Thilan29, my CPU temp at most recent time of crash was ~45C.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: VerticalChallenge
the end.

I installed the most recent Gigabyte verified ATI driver, 8.582.0.0. I had also installed the Catalyst 9.4 package, but backed that out when it didn't help.

Always use the latest official catalyst driver ( Catalyst 9.4). It's the safest and includes the latest improvements and bug fixes.

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: VerticalChallenge
Thilan29, my CPU temp at most recent time of crash was ~45C.

Well...I guess CPU temps are fine...try the fan and report back. If the temps are lower and it's still crashing then it's probably the card.

Also, can you feel your PSU fan working? Is it blowing air out?

I've found that problems that take some time to crop up are usually temp related to some component.

 

[error8]

The coincidence of having three people with the same problem, makes me think it's because of the card, so I'd rule out the PSU. Maybe Gigabyte has a batch of bad cards? VRMs at 80C are nothing. Mine gets as hot as 100C in my current fan profile, under Furmark and it's totally stable. And I believe that naked ram chips are cooler then those under the stock steel plate.

EDIT: I just red the 80C VRM part, so this is my updated response.

 

[thilanliyan]

Yeah 80C VRM is nothing...so cooling the card can't be the issue. However, VerticalChallenge's issues only crop up after a little while, whereas the others have problems instantly right? This makes me think it's temp related to something else.

 

[VerticalChallenge]

I finally got a Scythe S-FLEX SFF21D 120mm fan, though there was really no good place to properly mount it for now so it's wedged in the case diagonally behind the lower drive bays blowing air from the front up to the card. I was a bit puzzled how to control this fan's speed, as my motherboard 3-pin options seemed to be SYS_FAN1 and PWR_FAN, which are both designated for GND/+12V/Sense. The Antec Solo's included 120mm case fan runs off a 3 position switch and doesn't tie to a sensor, and the Seasonic PSU's 120mm fan is controlled by PSU load.

Anyway, EazyTune 5 Pro tells me the Scythe fan is running around 857 RPM. This seems to keep the hot VRM1 down to the low 70's, but Crysis & Warhead still crash after 10-15 minutes w/ no overclock on the video board.

So I'm thinking it's RMA time, hoping a new board is better and comes in time so I can send in the $30 rebate before end of month.

Thanks everyone for your ideas.