Problem with a new Sapphire HD 3850

I should preface this by admitting I don't know a lot about computers.


I was told the Sapphire HD 3850 was the best AGP card out there, so I went out and bought it to replace the 6800 ultra I had that died.

System is a 3.2 intel running xp home and a P4C800-E motherboard. Anyways:

I installed the new card, fired up my system and add/removed (removed obviously) the old nvidia drivers. Reboot. Install the drivers off the Sapphire disk, reboot.

Then nothing! My system comes back on, but acts like no drivers have been installed. When I try to fire up a game I get "cannot find compatible direct3D device(s)".

A google search lead me to a thread here ( http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=551109 ) talking about the "hotfix" download that is supposed to make a difference, so I downloaded that and ran it.

It seemed to install ok, I rebooted.....and nothing. Same problem.

Another thread here mentioned some guy spending a whole day getting his new card to work (what with driver troubles) and I've been messing with this for 5 hours now.

What should I do? Anyone have any ideas? I am completely lost here. I just want my new card to work so I can play some HL2 or something.

.

Ugh this is so frustrating.


Thinking that maybe the "8.3" drivers from ATI would work better than the sapphire ones, I download it. But, when I try to run the driver install I get

"Setup did not find a driver compatible with your current hardware or operating system. Setup will now exit."




What the christ. Do those geeksquad guys fix problems like these, because I am totally at the end of my rope.

Did you use Driver cleaner pro to clean out your old drivers? You really should if you didn't. When switching from Nvidia to Ati or vice versa, You really need to make sure to get all the remnants of your old drivers out of the system.

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=745

Still nothing.

Hmmm, Sure sounds like it isn't being recognized, When/Have you updated your chipset and gart drivers? I'm sure you tried reseating the card and making sure the power plugs are plugged in properly. Also what are the specs on your PSU? The 6800 ultra was a pretty power hungry card, Not sure if the 3850 sucks more juice or not, Just trying to think of different things to check.

and if wat he said dont work...back up your windows and do a fresh install

Thanks for ideas scott.

Updated chipset drivers yesterday before whole fiasco began. Power supply is only like two months old: enermax noisetaker 600 watt. The previous one was another of exact same type, worked fine then crapped out suddenly after 3 years.

chrome-187 said:

and if wat he said dont work...back up your windows and do a fresh install

Click to expand...

Oh god nooooo

Kurten, Do you have any other cards you can slap in there to make sure the Agp slot hasn't crapped out on you.

ScottinIndy said:

Kurten, Do you have any other cards you can slap in there to make sure the Agp slot hasn't crapped out on you.

Click to expand...

wow that is a good idea, I have a buddy who has a spare card I can put in temporarily to check that.

The guy from geeksquad came over and ****ed with it for an hour or two. Said there's no logical reason for it not to be working except for "bad drivers". When I asked what he meant he said "ATI does not support their cards worth a crap. The only option you have here is to return it and buy another card. I suggest going with nvidia. I've seen a lot of people having very similar problems to the one you are having. Get a different card."

Well, after this distressing news, I've decided to attempt an RMA on my old card, the 6800 Ultra. To hell with all this headache, I was plenty happy with the card I had before, hopefully EVGA has another one to send me.

I don't know what else to do. Seems like this Sapphire will NEVER work. The guy tried 3 different drivers (ones on disk, ones from the web, the 'hotfix' ones, etc) and nothing work. He even tried some 'omega drivers' (?) and messing with the bios and none of that worked either.

Don't know what else to do. Hopefully back to using a 6800 Ultra I guess. I just want the damn thing to work.

Edit: thanks for the advice scott and others, it is really appreciated!

1) Add/remove programs "ATI uninstall utility"
2)Safe mode
3)Use driver cleaner pro and choose create new cab, then go and delete nvidia display drivers and ATI, reboot
4)Install 8.3 CCC

This should work, report back and dont give up yet.

I'm pretty sure you wouldn't get a 6800U replacement, but something of equivalent speed (or usually faster ). Give it a try!

dan

Jacobman said:

1) Add/remove programs "ATI uninstall utility"
2)Safe mode
3)Use driver cleaner pro and choose create new cab, then go and delete nvidia display drivers and ATI, reboot
4)Install 8.3 CCC

This should work, report back and dont give up yet.

Click to expand...

The guy from geeksquad already tried this. Nothing. I've given up on the sapphire unfortunately.


Dan: I didn't know that manufacturers kept stocks of old cards, I assumed once it was no longer sold, that was it as far as getting a 'new' card was. But when I called the original manufacturer of my 6800 Ultra (evga) the guy on the phone said they have backstock of old cards, and would fire me up a "new" (possibly 'rebuilt'? I don't know) card as soon as I send my old card in. I am in the process of doing this now...had to dig out old receipt and whatnot. I will post here again with a resolution (hopefully!) when I get it.


Thank you folks again for the advice/ideas/encouragement! Wish me luck with just getting a drop in replacement for what I had before!

kurten said:

The guy from geeksquad already tried this. Nothing. I've given up on the sapphire unfortunately.


Dan: I didn't know that manufacturers kept stocks of old cards, I assumed once it was no longer sold, that was it as far as getting a 'new' card was. But when I called the original manufacturer of my 6800 Ultra (evga) the guy on the phone said they have backstock of old cards, and would fire me up a "new" (possibly 'rebuilt'? I don't know) card as soon as I send my old card in. I am in the process of doing this now...had to dig out old receipt and whatnot. I will post here again with a resolution (hopefully!) when I get it.


Thank you folks again for the advice/ideas/encouragement! Wish me luck with just getting a drop in replacement for what I had before!

Click to expand...

Good luck, Hope your back up and gaming soon, Sorry we couldn't get your 3850 working for ya!

Hmmmmm it could be that when you put the ATi card in the system still thinks the 6800 Ultra is installed and working and tried maybe to load the drivers for the card but it wasn't found then you removed the nvidia drivers & rebooted.

Usually before you upgrade if it's a different chip e.g nVidia = ATi you remove the nvidia drivers reboot and then run driver cleaner with the nvidia card still in, it won't load the drivers there gone. Power down >> remove nvidia card >> install ATi card >> power up >> install drivers & reboot and it should work fine.

Thats my guess on why it won't load up the drivers for the ATi card there something still conflicting even after you removed the nVidia drivers. Also delete the nvidia driver folder when you've removed the drivers from add/remove it's usally installed to the Local Disk C: where program files and Windows folders are kept

I'm sorry to say that i too have this videocard and i'm on a P4P800-E De... mobo, it seems that we are stuck..... i have spent over a week trying to get it to work properly, no luck i even purchased a weaker HD2600 version of it and it works decently well (GeForce 7300GT 512 AGP version is outperforming the HD2600 PRO 512 AGP on my PC....funny ey?...)

my specs:
p4p800E-Deluxe ASUS
3gig ddr pc3200 ram ULTRA
200gig sata hdd
20gig HDD (used for OS)
WinXP sp2 with all updates up to feb 2008

i even had the hd3850 install mess up my windows installation and had to format and make a fresh-install...

i eventually got the 3850 to play WoW for a while, i had to keep all the settings at the minimum or it would bust out with the BSOD.... i'm afraid anyone who purchased the AGP (or any AGP version of an ATI card) HD series is pretty much shafted.... albeit some people are able to get some form of stability from the HD2600, i've yet to see anyone not complain about the HD3850.... I even got the HD2600PRO to work decently for about an hour or two, (i benchmarked it using some rinky dink crappy video tool... but i was just comparing the 3 cards i had...) the HD3850 AGP really REALLY killed in the benchmark test, it really is a powerful card, but the drivers is the only thing holding it back... d3d crashes way too often.... the HD2600Pro and GeForce 7300GT 512 agp cards were pretty evenly matched (the HD2600Pro supports DX10, Windows XP doesn't... so i dont even care that it does support it, the 7300GT worked better imho). ....well thats it, i'm just trying to find a solution or a way around ati's driver issues.... so far no good.... the very last attempt i'm going through is using ati's official release on a clean winxp install and see how it goes........ oh also, i wanna add.... the hd3850 i have is: Sapphire Radeon HD3850 512mb GDDR3 AGP.... the driver CD it came with said 8.3 on cat's version..(on the cd itself), the CD was DOA.... i never even had a chance to install the drivers the vc came with :'(

I have a recollection that there was a thread here regarding this issue... (can't find it though.) I believe that a member bought an AGP 3850, and recieved the drivers burned on a blank CD. Total amateur job. The drivers never worked, and through research, the member found that there were no working drivers for the AGP version of this card. The company was essentially selling paperweights.

Kurten, you have to choose: GeekSquad, or OC forums. You can't do both

Welcome to the forums Kurten and Puliaomu!

There's an 8.4 hotfix for AGP cards

http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=31542

However, since you're not even getting your card detected, I'd suggest you manually set your graphics to standard VGA from safeboot. I think you may have some residual nvidia drivers entries that may cause problems.

Uninteresting update: just received a replacement video card from EVGA. It is not a 6800 ultra, but is a "geforce 7800GS" which I don't know much about. But hopefully it drops in ok and I can get back to playing HL2 and Civ 4.

Oh btw, EVGA was absolutely pleasant to deal with. No hassles or anything, on getting a replacement card 3 years after buying the first one! Overall a great experience and I plan on buying products from them in the future.

oakstave said:

Kurten, you have to choose: GeekSquad, or OC forums. You can't do both

Welcome to the forums Kurten and Puliaomu!

Click to expand...

Well, like I said earlier, I am totally clueless about anything beyond bolting/unbolting **** together.

Thanks for the welcome!

Well, the card dropped in ok.

Oddly though, they did not include a driver disk, cables, nothing. Also weird how my old 6800 ultra took two power things and this only takes one. But it went in ok, I went to evga's website, found the drivers I needed, downloaded and installed them. And....everything seems to be working just fine!

That's the way it should be, and I think this whole annoying experience has turned me off to ATI products for quite some time. Not trying to start anything with those who have been able to get their 3850's to work, as I am sure they are awesome cards, but this whole "selling a product without drivers that work for a large percentage of people" thing is inexcusable. Lesson learned for me is "do not buy hardware without reading lots of user reviews!"


Thanks to the people who offered help and advice in this thread, it was really appreciated! I am not a very tech savvy person but the coolness of the posters here will have me lurking for quite awhile!

i wanted to max out my computer and upgraded to the best agp card available at the computer store i always go do. spent 160 on 7600GT wrongfully labelled and it was a GS, played with that for a while and realized that the the card wasnt that much more powerful in some games than the 9800pro. upgraded to the next best agp by ati 2600xt and that card had problems, but i soon figured it out. drivers drivers, and direct x! full screen video was all black by default and that was a driver setting in the catalyst control panel. just turn up bright and contrast... etc...

i did another upgrade soon after to a 3850agp and the same situation came up with drivers and directx. (the reason for the constant upgrades is due to the stores' availability to the hardware... i just kept returning the hardware for upgrade )

i decided to format a hard drive and install a new OS. chose xp pro with sp2 and then downloaded sp3 from microsoft. used the drivers available from website for the 2600xt and 3850AGP from sapphire and used the hotfix drivers for crysis. (8.3) if i can remember. this all worked. i could play any game but flatout2 cuz of some disc protection error that came up after playing for a min or two.

anyhow, all games would cause problems before when i had the 7600gs nvidia drivers installed and upgraded to the 2600xt. it actually could be a lot of reasons, but for anyone doing a graphics card install from one company to the other, please format and reinstall os. it eliminates a possible week of trouble shooting when you're working with ONLY the drivers you put into the system. i did manually uninstall all drivers etc and upgraded with normal procedure to each and every new driver matching the hardware, but nothing seemed to actually work the way a format-reinstall did.

i now have way better performance in all games, old and new and with sp3 in xp it is even better! with the 3850agp on my asus p4p800e and prescott @3.2ghz with 2gig ddr400 dual channel, i'm good to go in crysis on my hdtv @ 720p all at high and i'm testing vista32 now with everything running very very smooth!

performance in games and video is absolutely rediculous with this card in my old old computer! just wish this was out years ago when i was struggling to get an ounce of performance from my super expensive 9800pro ($630 after tax CAD).

now, max all settings and go!

all old games, including far cry and fear run 1920x1080 perfect all max settings. its crazy when this upgrade cost about 1/3 my old gfx card and is 10-40x the performance increase.

3dmark03-05-06 all run 1080p with this card and my 9800pro would do like 4fps at xga res.

email me for a list of what to do to get your 2600xt or 3850agp running!

ps- you have to upgrade your direct x and .net framework as well. there are many ways to muck the install up or have missing or loose ends without any working knowledge as to what is missing in the package of a gaming system!

Wayne M