HD Radeon 4850 Issue

[Rellikard]

Recently purchased an HD Radeon 4850. Worked great for the first week and a half then suddenly, it would randomly shut itself off and the VPU recovery would start. Each time it does this, it shuts off FFXI. This has happened before when I just booted my PC and clicked on Firefox. I never had any issues with my PC until I got this card. I have the CCC 8.9 drivers, did the same w/ the 8.8 drivers. I thought it was the card, returned it to the store, and the new one is doing the exact same thing. I initially had all the settings maxed (no OC), now I'm running on the defaults and 10 minutes after I installed the new card, VPU error again.

PC Specs:
=============
OS: Windows XP Home SP2
PSU: Raidmax 500w
CPU: AMD Athalon X2 3800+, 2.0GHz
RAM: 2GB
GPU: HD Radeon 4850 512MB with 8.9 CCC drivers

Any thoughts?

[Isiolia]

Do you have sufficient power going to it (extra connector, etc)? Any way to test it in another machine?

[Rellikard]

I have the extra connection cable connected to it properly. PC won't post without it. And no, I don't have a second machine to test it on but I spoke to someone else who has a 4870 and they're having the exact same problem. Driver issue maybe? If so, ATI hasn't released any updated drivers to correct the problem...

[Blabj]

Sounds to me this is happening during load (you mention closing FFXI)

It could be that your card is running hot due to poor circulation of air inside your case. There are a few options open to you, as a minimum I would suggest buying a couple of case fans and installing them, buy some zip ties and try to clean the cables out of the way of the airflow as best you can, and speed the fan up a little bit by following the post here.

If none of these solutions work for you, as a last ditch attempt I would suggest you either buy an equivalent fat nVidia card or try change the heatsink on the card itself. Zalman make a few good coolers that will fit the 4850.

[Blabj]

I should mention, I had a similar problem with WoW, where after about 15-20 minutes of gameplay my monitor would show "No Signal" as an error message.

[SamanosukeShiva]

did u plug in extra power supply for the new vid card? big vid. card sometimes need more powah

[Xanthe]

My first inkling is overheating as well. Make sure your case has proper airflow and that your ambient room temperature is not too high.

[Epical]

Following the temperature being the culprit, download GPU-Z and see what your idle and load temps are. If they are astronomically high, that's a good indication. I don't have one myself, but I thought I read the 4850s run REALLY hot out of the box until you apply a software profile patch fix? Something like that...

[Blabj]

Yeah Epicals right, essentially the fan is underclocked to keep noise down, though unnecessarily since the card is inaudible (atleast in my case) up to about 65% when you change the fanspeed.

[Rellikard]

Temperature stays around 70c. And yes the extra power cable is plugged in. My PC won't let me even get to the BIOS without it plugged in. Highest the card's temp has been was around 74c. I was uninstalling a program earlier and it restarted again...

[Kiira]

that temp of 74c you mentioned, is that while the GPU is under full load? It could be hotter when you're running FFXI (if you run in windowed mode keep the ati overdrive menu open and see if the temps shoot up). I dont think the latest catalyst drivers fixed the fan control issue with the 4850s...it doesnt throttle up the fan speed as temps go up.

Check out that link Blabj provided.

[Darwinion]

I had numerous problems with my new PC with 4850 installed. VPU recover, random resets, monitor switching off, software crashes etc.

Turned out to be a stick of RAM that was faulty. The company just replaced both sticks (matched pair of RAM) and all those problems disappeared instantly.

Run Memtest86+ on your system and see what you get. I had errors in dual channel mode but in single channel mode each stick passed the test . The company that supplied the machine tested though them and they found a faulty stick.

[geno]

I have a 4870, and wow that fan fix posted earlier is crazy. I tried a couple settings, 65 was like a lawnmower, 50 wasn't bad, but even setting it at 40 brought the GPU temp down from 80ish to 50ish (with no load). I wish I had known this when I was messing around on Crysis and would have to stop playing every now and then to let my system cool down lol.

[Rellikard]

Well, I installed Rivatuner and changed the factory state fan speed from 25%>65%. And max FFXI was putting out at peak was around 82-84c. The 65% fan speed drops the temp down to around 56-65c. Working so far but we'll see.

[Blabj]

Yeah 85'c is quite hot, it's not surprising it was making the VPU recovery start. 50-60 is more acceptable.

[geno]

Yeah 85'c is quite hot, it's not surprising it was making the VPU recovery start. 50-60 is more acceptable.

40% is no louder for me than whatever its stock was (10% idle, I read on the forum you linked). But it changed the temp from 81-83 to 46-48 idle. I don't understand why it was set so low for stock speed

[Blabj]

I know, I have mine running at 55% now and it's sitting at 58'c with two instances of WoW open at full graphics settings in dense wooded area (lots of ground fauna etc. to push the polys up.)

I hear they overclock really well with a new heatsink on them, something I may look into in the future.

[Rellikard]

I searched around a bit more and apparently there's a problem with the ATI Catalyst 8.9 drivers revolving around my issue. And I'm assuming it's due to the GPU overheatting. The card stopped working all together after crashing once I had changed my fan speed to 65%. Stopped after around 3 hours.

One thing I noticed, I put in a nVidia 8800 GT and the MOBO had a few soft beeps. Nothing displayed. Put in my old nVidia 9600 OC and the PC booted up fine. Now requirements for both of my nVidia cards says a 400w PSU with 26 or more on the +12v. I checked my PSU, it's a 500w with only 22 on the +12v... Would that be a problem? Should I buy a new PSU? And yeah, I think I'm done with ATI cards for now after the shitty 8.9 drivers.