problems with new HIS 4850 iceq4 turbo 512.

[loopylulu]

I just received my new HIS HD4850 512 iceq4 turbo card today from newegg. I am really getting quite tired of computer problems lately. I am not a diagnostician.

I had a x1900xt 512 card that was artifacting all the time without high temps. I thought maybe it could have been my PSU but very unlikely. I have 2 gigs of ram and an AMD athlon 64 2.4 compaq, this motherboard should be fine for this card right? the motherboard is an ASUS A8M2N-LA. My PSU is a 500W Antec NEO_HE which I purchased used a year or two ago. I am running windows XP. I am using catalyst 9.6 as someone on this forum suggested these are the most stable for the HD4850 in windows XP. Can I trust these drivers?

I installed this card no problem. It is dead silent when I start the computer which is great and I opened to make sure the fan was actually running which it was.

It says on the box turbo edition, 650 and 2000 Mhz memory. When I run rivatuner it says 650 and 1000 for the memory so does that mean I can OC without any problems whatsoever to 2000 MHz. What is the best way to safely OC this card, I do not want any problems at all. Is CCC good enough to overclock should I just use autooverclock.
My first concern is that atitool and ati tray tools does not register the clock speeds and I cannot manually control the fan using these programs since it does not recognize the card.

When I load Ati's CCC I go to the overdrive section. It is locked currently but in the greyed out areas it says the current speeds are 500 and 1000 for the core and memory clocks. It then shows a possibility of OC'ing to 650 on a scale from 500-700 and 1000 with a scale between 1000 and 1200 ( On the box it says 2000 so how come that is not in the greyed out areas ). It also lists the fan speed in the greyed out area as 34%.

I also notice that in the first box of the hardware monitoring for rivatuner the core clock speed switches every second between 500 and 650 Mhz. What is going on? argghhh.

I load rivatuner and I can control the fan, I turned it up to 100% and the air coming out was nowhere near the amount of air that was coming out of my x1900xt. Should I be concerned that I cannot feel a lot of air with the fan on 100% compared to my old card.

My other concern is that with the fan at 25% default on my new card I tried street fighter 4 which ran on my old x1900xt at 1680x1050 ( of course it had a lot of spiking artifacts but it ran very smooth ). Street fighter crashed with my new card and I just get a black screen on the monitor but if I can remember I believe there is sound.

I try to run furmark at 1680x1050 with no MSAA and a stability test and it crashes to a black screen just like in street fighter, it crashes furmark regardless of whether I set the fan to 25% or 100% using rivatuner. My old x1900xt would run furmark at the same settings very smoothly but again there were spiking artifacts in furmark.

What on earth is happening. I bought this card thinking it would solve my problems and I thought for sure it would be much more powerful than my x1900xt. Maybe I am giving up way too early. It could be something simple.

I installed the 9.6 catalyst drivers.

One last thing I noticed. With my old x1900xt I left the side of the computer off all the time to minimize artifacting and always ran the fan at 100% during gaming. The temps when not gaming were less than 50 degrees and less than 70 when gaming.

With my new card I thought I would be able to keep the side of the tower on since it was an iceq with all these cooling features but as I sit here the temperature while doing nothing is 58 degrees according to rivatuner with the side of the computer left on not taken off.

I just ran street fighter 4 again with the fan set to 100% using rivatuner and the game runs very smoothly maxed out, I then went back into windows to check the temps of the GPU and they were around 53-55 degrees according to rivatuner which was great, I went back into the game and then it crashed and made a horrible sustained beep sound. Seriously I have had enough and would greatly appreciate some help. You have all been very good to respond so far.

My PSU should be sufficient right? 500W.

It would have nothing to do with pci-e versus pci-e 2.0 would it, I do not understand that anyways, what the difference is but I was told on this forum that my old card was pci-e and this new one is pci-e 2.0 but that it would still work.

I wish I was technical but I would greatly appreciate any help you can throw my way.

thank you.

 

[hajalie24]

the reason the card shows a 500 clock and jumps to 650 is that when idle it will stay at a lower clock.

also it has nothing to do with the pc being 16x and your psu should handle it

my guess is it's getting too ho, try checking your temp under load

 

[loopylulu]

I am saying it constantly changes from 500-650 and back and forth every second when idle using rivatuner. 500-650-500-650 etc...when idle.

 

[CharlieCS]

I am saying it constantly changes from 500-650 and back and forth every second when idle using rivatuner. 500-650-500-650 etc...when idle.

Does Catalyst control center exhibit same behavior ? If not its likely just a RT bug .

Well your memory is properly clocked. "GDDR " stands for Graphics Double Data Rate , double being the key word here .1000 mhz x 2 is 2000 mhz . When you PC crashes do you by any chance have set max value in the Caatalyst Control if so , thats your problem right there , you are trying to run the memory 400 mhz over spec . If it is crashing at stock settings ,check whether you have properly connected the card to the PSU 6 pin Pci-e connector is required , if adapters were used make sure all connections are good . Also roll back your drivers to 9.4 if that doesn't work.

 

[Alien432]

When in CCC, Click on the Lock (to the left of "Select GPU to configure") under ATI overdrive section to unlock it. Then the "grey out" will go away and you can then OC and set fan speed.

 

[loopylulu]

please help me I tried everything suggested so far

I checked CCC, I am not sure what you mean by is it maxed out? where do I look for that option.

I tried oc'ing the card from 500-650 Mhz and I ramped up the fan to 100% but it still crashed. Again the fan feels so much more weak at 100% than my old x1900xt. I hardly feel anything coming out of the back of the dual slot card when the fan is at 100%.

Please help me. I cannot keep shutting down my computer like this and possibly destroying this new card.

 

[hajalie24]

All I can suggest so far is to try using a different power supply if you can. But first try to underclock it to 500mhz and see if still crashes.

 

[loopylulu]

thank you for your continuing help. I really do appreciate it. I am just so afraid I am going to fry this card by constantly hard rebooting this computer after a crash.

I called ATI tech, they suggested installing chipset drivers for mobo which I recently did a fresh reinstall of windows xp, I did this and no effect. They also suggested trying one stick of my ram at a time but it crashed no matter which stick I used so it does not seem to be the ram and I have run memtest86 in the past and it was fine.

furmark crashes no matter what resolution I use, it crashes on 640x480 in windowed mode, I see it run for a second and then I hear the cards fan ramp up and then black screen.

I wish I knew more about computers as you can imagine this is very frustrating.

I changed the drivers from 9.6 that I installed to the supplied 9.2 drivers that came with the card and no effect.

I notice even in catalyst control center that when I go to use a webpage or type something the core clock changes from 500-650 in the greyed out area of overdrive, I thought it would only change to 650 when I am doing something really intensive like a 3d game.

I asked so many questions before I bought a new GPU as everyone said it was not the PSU, the PSU would not cause artifacts.

 

[hajalie24]

Did you try underclocking it in catalyst control center?

 

[loopylulu]

how do I underclock?

how do I underclock to 500?

 

[hajalie24]

in catalyst control center, enable ati overdrive and move the slider, then hit apply.

 

[loopylulu]

I did what you recommened but what about ati powerplay?

I tried underclocking but still the same effect.

I notice now with overdrive in CCC that even though I can move the slider for the fan it does not change the speed whereas rivatuner can change the fan speed. I heard there is also a fan fix where you edit your CCC profile to change a value to 75000, what is that all about?

I have been reading about ati powerplay causing lots of problems in terms or running in low 3d mode during gaming so the clocks actually decrease causing crashing.

it would be great if this was the problem and there was a way to fix it?

would you be able to help me with that.

I checked and I have .net framework 3.0 and service pack 3 installed because I thought maybe I was missing some software.


http://www.gamereplays.org/community/index.php?showtopic=348152&pid=4198980&st=0& this link explains how to stop powerplay from causing black screens etc....it asks you to change not only the clock speeds and fan speeds but also the voltage, I do not like the idea of changing the voltage as I have heard that can fry your GPU. Can I change the core and memory and leave the voltage the same?



The only other thing I can think of is to update my BIOS, is that the same as flashing the bios, I do not want to flash or play around with anything, can I just update my BIOS? would that help.

thanks again

 

[hajalie24]

if you think its because of the clocks changing download radeon bios editor, and wherever you see the clocks are at 500 just change it to 650, you can leave the voltage how it is. Then you can flash using atiwinflash to aiflash.

 

[loopylulu]

Thanks again for all your continued help.

I talked to a guy at ATI and he thinks it could be my onboard video and I need to update my motherboard BIOS, I went to ASUS website my model is ASUS A8M2N-LA but I could not find anything there. Any ideas how to find an update for my motherboard, again many people say be careful updating ( flashing the bios ) so what do I have to be careful with as it just seems to be an update I am downloading.

I have read to be very careful flashing the BIOS if you do not know what you are doing? Is what you recommended a safe procedure and what should I be careful with when flashing the BIOS?

thanks

 

[hajalie24]

I flashes my bios through windows a long time ago and everything went fine, although it is recommended to do it using a floppy disc or cd. I completely forgo you were running onboard video before, check your bios and see if there is an option to disable onboard video.

 

[loopylulu]

when we bought this computer it had onboard video but then I installed an x1900xt and I was sure I disabled it then, cannot remember how, maybe through the device manager.

Recently I did format and reinstall windows xp so I am not sure how that affected my onboard video but I did use my old dying card after the fresh install and it still worked as it did previously with artifacts.

I just updated my motherboard bios but furmark still went to the black screen immediately and street fighter 4 crashed as well. I installed my monitor driver and soundblaster audsigy drivers but nothing is working.

I looked in the bios but could not find anything to disable onboard video and I do not think there is a switch on the motherboard as I would have remembered doing that. I could be wrong. In my device manager there is no listing for integrated or onbaord video so not sure whether I am missing something.

I do not want to give up, I have been staring at this bloody computer all day.

 

[loopylulu]

The only reference to on-board video was in the bios and it simply said primary graphics adapter and you can choose between pci, pci-e and on-board. If I choose pci-e will that automatically disable the on-board or do I have to do something else?

Now this is way out there, but the little clip that holds the inner part of the graphics card to the slot broke a while ago. That should not have any effect on the card am i right? It just holds it in place even tighter. It is held on one side by the screw and the other side has a little plastic clip, that clip broke off. I am just trying to think of anything and everything.

thanks again.

 

[EarthDog]

Make sure its on PCIe, but that wont disable it. Im shocked a board with an onboard GPU doesnt have a disable on it. First I personally have heard of it I will admit.

Try pushing it in, does it move?

 

[hajalie24]

yea try pci-e, and it won't matter about the little plastic clip.

 

[EarthDog]

Use Furmark to test GPU....