Hello
I'm using Windows 7 Home Premium if that's relevant.
After foolishly messing around with the overclock settings in CCC, it appears my graphics card (or other hardware possibly) has been damaged somewhat.. I'm not sure to what extent.
I set my HD4870 card to roughly 800MHz Clock, 950MHz Mem. after doing a few tests which apparently passed with a stable temp. of roughly 85°C.
(Default is 750MHz, 900MHz, average 60 - 75°C)
My actual case temp. is very low averaging around 15°C at the front fan and 30°C at the rear fan.
All currently sit at:
Front temp: 16.0°C
Rear temp: 29.02°C
HD4890 -
GPU temp (DISPIO): 78.5°C
GPU temp (MEMIO): 84.5°C
GPU temp (SHADERCORE): 82°C
VDDC Phase 1/2: 62°C/63°C
(Roughly 140°F(60C) - 180°F(80C))
Anyway, after setting that overclock for about an hour, the screen started being flooded with artifacts (glitchy coloured pixels everywhere) and would crash forcing me to reboot. Just after the bios, these artifacts would reappear (but only at the very top of the screen) before the windows logo pops up and just hang forcing me to reboot again. I also tried running in safemode but these artifacts would again appear just after the last system driver was loaded.
So I had no way of accessing my computer with that graphics card, I tried my old graphics card which is quite broken and has a horrible fan. I couldn't get into normal mode with this one (black screen hangs) but after a few attempts I could get into safemode with networking (the artifacts still showed at the top of the screen just after bios with this card, but I'm not sure if that's because some other hardware is damaged or if this card is also failing.. it is old and use to black/blue screen on games). However, the artifacts this time didn't make the computer hang and I could get into safemode with networking and the artifacts would dissapear.
I searched google for answers to this problem with people saying to uninstall all ATI software and run Driver Sweeper after to remove ATI completely.
I was incapable of uninstalling ATI/CCC through safemode due to there being no windows installer active but I did run Driver Sweeper and I also deleted the ATI related dll's in the System 32 folder, I also prevented ATI/CCC from starting at startup using msconfig.
I switched back to the HD4870 graphics card and had no problems booting into normal mode, I then uninstalled ATI completely and attempted to reinstall the full ATI package (Tried to revert the overclock using CCC but it said I had no ATI graphics card installed or something so wouldn't load so I uninstalled that again. I'm assuming I would have to reboot to get the ATI driver working then revert these options), I rebooted and was back to square 1.. artifacts at top of screen forcing it to hang.
So I switched back to the old card and again deleted the dll's and used Driver Sweeper then switched back to the new and uninstalled ATI again. It appears as if whenever I try to update to the ATI display driver, my overclock settings are saved at startup? Is there something I'm forgetting to remove? Would it be possible to get the newer driver with the default clock settings?
This time I just rebooted with that card to get the default windows driver (Standard VGA Graphics Adapter), some artifacts still show at the top of the screen when booting into normal mode but they dissapear just before windows logo and I don't seem to have any other problems unless I try to install the updated ATI display driver again.
With this windows default driver I'm at the default 750MHz Core, 900MHz Mem. but the temp is still a little too high for the graphics card when idle which makes me assume it's damaged in some way.
I'm thinking about upgrading to the HD6870 (open to suggestions of other cards), the only thing stopping me from this is the case of whether this problem is the graphics card or could it have damaged some other hardware? (Because my old graphics card also gets the artifacts at the top of the screen just after bios, but I'm not sure if this is due to it just being old and broken-ish).
Edit:
I updated the driver through Windows device manager then rebooted, still getting the artifacts just after bios but it seems okay now. I then downloaded CCC again which now detects the device correctly due to the updated drivers and set the fan speed manually to 50% to cool it down.
The temp is now between 35 - 44 which I think is quite a fine drop, I'm not quite sure how to automatically change the temp depending on the load in order to keep it cool but I suppose a steady 50% would do anyway. Still planning to upgrade, thinking about the Sapphire HD6870.
I'm using Windows 7 Home Premium if that's relevant.
After foolishly messing around with the overclock settings in CCC, it appears my graphics card (or other hardware possibly) has been damaged somewhat.. I'm not sure to what extent.
I set my HD4870 card to roughly 800MHz Clock, 950MHz Mem. after doing a few tests which apparently passed with a stable temp. of roughly 85°C.
(Default is 750MHz, 900MHz, average 60 - 75°C)
My actual case temp. is very low averaging around 15°C at the front fan and 30°C at the rear fan.
All currently sit at:
Front temp: 16.0°C
Rear temp: 29.02°C
HD4890 -
GPU temp (DISPIO): 78.5°C
GPU temp (MEMIO): 84.5°C
GPU temp (SHADERCORE): 82°C
VDDC Phase 1/2: 62°C/63°C
(Roughly 140°F(60C) - 180°F(80C))
Anyway, after setting that overclock for about an hour, the screen started being flooded with artifacts (glitchy coloured pixels everywhere) and would crash forcing me to reboot. Just after the bios, these artifacts would reappear (but only at the very top of the screen) before the windows logo pops up and just hang forcing me to reboot again. I also tried running in safemode but these artifacts would again appear just after the last system driver was loaded.
So I had no way of accessing my computer with that graphics card, I tried my old graphics card which is quite broken and has a horrible fan. I couldn't get into normal mode with this one (black screen hangs) but after a few attempts I could get into safemode with networking (the artifacts still showed at the top of the screen just after bios with this card, but I'm not sure if that's because some other hardware is damaged or if this card is also failing.. it is old and use to black/blue screen on games). However, the artifacts this time didn't make the computer hang and I could get into safemode with networking and the artifacts would dissapear.
I searched google for answers to this problem with people saying to uninstall all ATI software and run Driver Sweeper after to remove ATI completely.
I was incapable of uninstalling ATI/CCC through safemode due to there being no windows installer active but I did run Driver Sweeper and I also deleted the ATI related dll's in the System 32 folder, I also prevented ATI/CCC from starting at startup using msconfig.
I switched back to the HD4870 graphics card and had no problems booting into normal mode, I then uninstalled ATI completely and attempted to reinstall the full ATI package (Tried to revert the overclock using CCC but it said I had no ATI graphics card installed or something so wouldn't load so I uninstalled that again. I'm assuming I would have to reboot to get the ATI driver working then revert these options), I rebooted and was back to square 1.. artifacts at top of screen forcing it to hang.
So I switched back to the old card and again deleted the dll's and used Driver Sweeper then switched back to the new and uninstalled ATI again. It appears as if whenever I try to update to the ATI display driver, my overclock settings are saved at startup? Is there something I'm forgetting to remove? Would it be possible to get the newer driver with the default clock settings?
This time I just rebooted with that card to get the default windows driver (Standard VGA Graphics Adapter), some artifacts still show at the top of the screen when booting into normal mode but they dissapear just before windows logo and I don't seem to have any other problems unless I try to install the updated ATI display driver again.
With this windows default driver I'm at the default 750MHz Core, 900MHz Mem. but the temp is still a little too high for the graphics card when idle which makes me assume it's damaged in some way.
I'm thinking about upgrading to the HD6870 (open to suggestions of other cards), the only thing stopping me from this is the case of whether this problem is the graphics card or could it have damaged some other hardware? (Because my old graphics card also gets the artifacts at the top of the screen just after bios, but I'm not sure if this is due to it just being old and broken-ish).
Edit:
I updated the driver through Windows device manager then rebooted, still getting the artifacts just after bios but it seems okay now. I then downloaded CCC again which now detects the device correctly due to the updated drivers and set the fan speed manually to 50% to cool it down.
The temp is now between 35 - 44 which I think is quite a fine drop, I'm not quite sure how to automatically change the temp depending on the load in order to keep it cool but I suppose a steady 50% would do anyway. Still planning to upgrade, thinking about the Sapphire HD6870.
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