Defective Card?

[Evilclive]

I have a visiontek Radeon HD4870 512mb. Ive had it over a month and every since ive had it i have had "ati display drivers have stopped responding but recovered" messages but now im getting black screens when i play games. My monitor will lose signal and then a few seconds later my computer reboots. Sometimes in games all the colors drain and the game and desktop are left in all gray.

I have tried numerous different ati drivers, have stopped overclocking my video card awhile ago, and logged my GPU temps with GPU-z. Never seen it go over 75c after hours of gaming(could sensors be wrong?).

Most of the time if i get a black screen or driver crash its in the first 5 mins of booting up the game. If i dont get it in the first 5 mins then i usually don't get it later on no matter how long i play, but the gray screen can happen anytime during games.

I am beyond stumped. I have made this same post on numerous different sites and have gotten no help. Even from the visiontek support forums and AMD forums.

 

[Jonathan_King]

Hello,

Seeing as you got no help elsewhere, hopefully that can free me up to do a bit more trial-and-error with you.

Try this test: take the card to another machine, and play those games on it. If the same thing happens, I believe we can assume it is a hardware issue.

Good luck!
~JK

 

[an4rew]

I've seen that message before when i did a bad bios flash, so it could be bios related... if you have not played about with it i would RMA it.

 

[Evilclive]

Hello,

Seeing as you got no help elsewhere, hopefully that can free me up to do a bit more trial-and-error with you.

Try this test: take the card to another machine, and play those games on it. If the same thing happens, I believe we can assume it is a hardware issue.

Good luck!
~JK

Unfortunately i don't have another computer to do that. I sold my old one.

I've seen that message before when i did a bad bios flash, so it could be bios related... if you have not played about with it i would RMA it.

I have had the driver problem for a long time but i did update my bios for my motherboard a few weeks ago before the black and gray screen issues. Maybe i should use an older bios version?

I have not updated the bios for my video card. I wouldnt even know how to go about doing that. The video bios version i have now is from the end of 2008. I didn't see a video card bios update on visionteks website.

 

[NinaJay]

Hello,

Seeing as you got no help elsewhere, hopefully that can free me up to do a bit more trial-and-error with you.

Try this test: take the card to another machine, and play those games on it. If the same thing happens, I believe we can assume it is a hardware issue.

Good luck!
~JK

I second this advice (having gone through a faulty card issue myself recently. Do you have a friend's computer you could try it on? The quickest way to see if it is your card that is faulty is to test it in another machine, otherwise trying to single your card out as being the problem is quite difficult (as you have already seen).

Do you get any dump files with the black screens?

 

[blackroseMD1]

What size power supply do you have? Is it enough to run the card, plus all your other hardware?

 

[Frostmourne]

What size power supply do you have? Is it enough to run the card, plus all your other hardware?

I'd second that, 500w isn't enough - ideally you'd want an 80+ efficient modular PC with stable voltages and 650 wattage for a standard PC. What are the amps on the 12V?

 

[Evilclive]

What size power supply do you have? Is it enough to run the card, plus all your other hardware?

I'd second that, 500w isn't enough - ideally you'd want an 80+ efficient modular PC with stable voltages and 650 wattage for a standard PC. What are the amps on the 12V?

The minimum for a HD4870 is 450 watt so i would think with 500 it would be enough.

Newegg.com - OCZ ModXStream Pro OCZ500MXSP 500W ATX12V V2.2 / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply compatible with core i7 - Power Supplies

Here is the PSU i bought from the website i bought it from.

 

[blackroseMD1]

You have to remember that that power supply is also supplying power to everything else in your comp. Just because it meets the minimum requirements for the card doesn't mean it's beefy enough to run your comp.

 

[Evilclive]

You have to remember that that power supply is also supplying power to everything else in your comp. Just because it meets the minimum requirements for the card doesn't mean it's beefy enough to run your comp.

Probably too late to return my power supply for a refund? lol

 

[blackroseMD1]

lol, probably. You could get a 600W pretty cheap though...although, if you can afford it, I would go 650-700.

 

[thefabe]

Also you always have to remember it's not the wattage as much as it's the Volts delivered on the 12v rail(s) that is the main thing. Fabe

 

[LPDad]

LOL...Just to clarify here:

It is the amps that will kill you not the volts. ... It's the amps, but you need to have a high voltage to actually push those amps through

Oh wait...what were we talking about???

Watts, Volts, Amps.
(Potato, Po-Ta-Toe, Tomato, To-Ma-Toe):sarc:

 

[Evilclive]

Well i posted my PSU, you guys tell me if it has enough amps or volts lol

 

[bobkn]

I'd take this with a grain of salt, but see here:

eXtreme Power Supply Calculatorhttp://extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine

This suggests that you need over 350W.

However, if you search for power consumption benchmarks for the Radeon 4870, you'll find system level full loads like 233W, so maybe it's a good estimate.

Looking at it a different way, the 4870 has two PCI-E 6 pin power connectors. The maximum theoretical power draw by the card must be less than 225W (75W through the graphics slot, 75W each for the 6 pin PCI-E connectors).

Your PSU has two +12V rails, each rated at 18A. As long as you don't add that second 4870 in Crossfire or go too crazy overclocking your CPU, you ought to be fine.

 

[Frostmourne]

I'd take this with a grain of salt, but see here:

eXtreme Power Supply Calculator

This suggests that you need over 350W.

However, if you search for power consumption benchmarks for the Radeon 4870, you'll find system level full loads like 233W, so maybe it's a good estimate.

Looking at it a different way, the 4870 has two PCI-E 6 pin power connectors. The maximum theoretical power draw by the card must be less than 225W (75W through the graphics slot, 75W each for the 6 pin PCI-E connectors).

Your PSU has two +12V rails, each rated at 18A. As long as you don't add that second 4870 in Crossfire or go too crazy overclocking your CPU, you ought to be fine.

Whatever that site recommends, double it. For me it came up to around 625w, so 650w is enough.