Asus 4870 Issues

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subbeh

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Nov 6, 2009
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Hi all, having a bit of a problem with my 4870 1gb. I can play stuff like Left 4 Dead for hours without any problem but when I play more demanding games like Batman AA, Need For Speed Shift and Crysis my machine locks up - The monitor loses signal, the last sound played repeats constantly and the system stops responding.

Ive tried with Vista and Windows 7 and have the same issue. My spec is Asus 4970, e6600, gigabyte 965p ds3, 2gig of corsair ram and a coolermaster igreen 600w psu. Ive rested the memory for hours and thats come up clean.

Anyone had any similar issues with a 4870? not sure whether its the card or psu maybe? trouble is i dont have access to another machine to test the card at the moment.

Thanks for any advice!
 
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wa1

wa1

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Mar 16, 2009
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I'm sure your 4870 had 2 power cable input, right?
have u connect them?
Cause my spec is not really far from u, my spec : e6300, GA 965P DS3, 2gig of ram, SilverStone 500W, and hd 4850...
And it play smooth, i'm play mass effect and RE5.
I know my cpu is bottlenecking my performance, but it plays well... :)
 
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subbeh

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Thanks for the replies! As for the card Ive got both power connectors hooked up. Not sure about the sound, Ive tried with and without my Audigy 2 and have had the same problem either way.
 
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subbeh

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CPU and GPU temperatures are fine, the memory temps seem to top 100 degrees though. Its an Asus card with the Glaciator fan assembly, doesnt seem to provide as much cooling for the memory as the stock/reference design as far as I can tell.

Anyway, checked out the ATi and Asus forums and found a LOT of people with the same problem but no sure fixes. In the process of RMA'ing the card at the moment, hopefully the retailer will find fault with it.
 
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thomas Suchozebrski

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Hi. Same gfx card, same problem (as do may others, as I can understand). Partial solution at the bottom.

After the crash (in crysis - yes, latest drivers, game patched) I inspected the card. Therories were hot GPU or too little power. (just got a new mobo/CPU and GPU, but still running on the old 450W PSU).

Not finding GPU critically hot I found the red "Critical Core Power Failure" d 601 LED turned on. (find them here: http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=260&threadid=97885 )

So, I thought - new PSU. Off I went, now running on a 650 Watt which should be sufficient (calculate ASUS recommendations for your system here: http://support.asus.com/PowerSupplyCalculator/PSCalculator.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

same problem, I should have around 100 Watt overhead, this should be enough, right?

So, so far no clue as to what causes this - I have however found, that by installing the "Asus smart doctor" and "underclocking" the GPU to around 725 MHz, I will get a stable system. (I think this can be done from Catalyst too). The odd thing is, that right after installing the newest GPU drivers and patching Crysis, the game played flawlessly for an entire evening without lowering the GPU clock, so I am a bit at ends here. But until someone comes up with a "real" solution, using the lower clock speed will at least let you play your games.

If anyone finds a proper solution, please post it! :)
 
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subbeh

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Thanks for that, retailer couldnt find fault with the card. Firstly i think ill try using riva tuner to setup a profile to make sure the card stays at 750MHz during games - many on the ATi forum think the crash may be occuring when the card switches to 2D mode.

If that doesnt work I'll try underclocking the card a little. If that doesnt work I'll just sell it for whatever I can get for it and cut my losses. Got a couple of games ive been trying to finish for a couple of months and Id love to finish them without constant crashing!
 
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thomas Suchozebrski

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Nov 15, 2009
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hello again. I found a topic on the AMD forum with a workaround. According to the guy there, the problem occurs when the card changes from one frequency to another during gameplay.

here's the link: http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=260&threadid=100973&highlight_key=y&keyword1=4870%20freeze

I'll try to send mine back for RMA first, see if they can sort it out, if that doesnt help I'll try the above, his thoughts seems plausible enough.

Please post if you try it out and are succesful.


Edit: Now that I read his post, it sound exactly what you are trying to do. Still, plz give a heads up if it works out.



Regards
-T
 
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theabsurdist

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I have pretty much the same problem.
And I'm running a 750 watt PSU so it shouldn't be a PSU issue.

The problem has happened twice during the intro cut scenes of COD4 (which I'm running at 1920 x 1080 res and max settings)

It seems as though when the GPU is heavily stressed that the problem occurs.

I'm still trying to figure out solutions to this problem, underclocking it might help, but I did not pay 150+ dollars for a product that under-performs to its rated specs.
 
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nchw68

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Dec 3, 2009
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I have a ATI HD 4870 that also does this to me. It's probably the VRMs overheating. Google it to find out more. I used to be able to run Folding@Home with this card no problem. After removing the stock cooling I noticed the thermal pad material contacting the VRMs was kinda dry and brittle and probably started to lose it's thermal transfer properties. But now, even with a Zalman GPU cooler and a Zalman heatsink for the VRMs the card still fails in any 3D app with the whole system locking up. I think there's permanent damage to one or more VRMs. I have an identical system to the 4870 system but with a Sapphire HD 4850 X2 in it that so far has not crashed or locked up even while folding on both GPUs. It uses a lot more old style capacitors in it's power supply section than does the HD 4870.

Google HD 4870 running Furmark for some interesting reading. Seems the card can't hang even at stock speeds.

I think these problems are mainly with the reference PCB layout designs that have only 3 of the old style capacitors. Everything I've read so far concerns this PCB and not any non-ref designs such as Sapphire's HD4870 Vapor-X and Palit's HD 4870 Sonic that use more caps - many more in Sapphire's case.
 
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GodSin

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umm i had the samething happen to me with the 4870x2 2gb and trust me 600ps isnt what you need so i went and got a 1250w ps now it works good but the drivers SUCK FOR ATI I MEAN OMG where should i start blue screens on xp pro the over heating it just sucks they should come out with better drivers but yeah as for all whats going on with you get a higher power supply id say 800 and up would do you good and yes it has a 4pin and a 6pin for the 4800 ati cards if youre only plugin in 1 it shouldnt even start up so you must be plugin in both but yeah hope this helps out god bless and have a good day :)
 
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GodSin

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yea it is the ps trust me i had a cooler master ps which was 750w it did it to me but when i got 1250w still cooler master it fixed it so if i was you go buy one and try it if thats not what is wrong with it then just take it back it isnt hard guys bestbuy does it target walmart i mean just about anywhere dont buy it online tho cos returning *** online is hard and must of the time youre going to be just siting and waiting so i would say go buy it around youre town but hope this helps :) have a good day and god bless :)
 
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