PROBLEM WITH 3870 X2

zan78

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Mar 11, 2008
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18,510
Hi guys, my specs are the following:

Thermaltake 750 Watt Toughpower, Gigabyte P35 DS4, Core 2 Duo 6600, 2 x 1 GB GSKILL RAM, Creative X-Fi Extreme Music, 250 GB Western Digital, 1 DVD, 1 external DVD-RW, Windows XP Pro SP2.

My previous graphics card was a Gecube 1950 XTX. I downloaded and installed the 8.2 drivers from ATI site and the PC ran without problems.

Recently I bought a Sapphire 3870 X2, so I uninstalled the 8.2 drivers from my system, removed the 1950 XTX card, and plugged the 3870 X2 card in. When I turn on the PC, it boots normaly but when it logs on to Windows a blue screen of death appears with the following message:

" A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer. An attempt was made to execute non-executable memory.

If this is the first time you've seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Check to make sure any new hardware or software is properly installed. If this is a new installation, ask your hardware or software manufacturer for any windows updates you might need.

If problems continue, disable or remove any new installed hardware or software. Disables BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing. If you need to use Safe mode to remove or disable components, restart your computer, press F8 to select advanced setup options, and then select safe mode.

STOP: 0X000000FC (0XB4116C40, 0X29F95963, 0XB4116B7C, 0X00000001)

Beginning dump of physical memory. Physical memory dump complete. Contact your system administrator or technical support group for further assistance."

Every time I restarted the system the above blue screen appeared. Then I decided to remove the 3870 X2 and put the 1950 XTX back in. No blue screen appeared, so I nstalled the 8.2 drivers with no problem. Then again I switched the cards so my system had the 3870 X2 in it and turned on the PC (the only difference was that unlike the first time, this time I had the 8.2 drivers installed already). The blue screen appeared again, but after one restart I didn't see any blue screen, and the only message I got was that there was an unknown PCI device (a yellow questionmark in device manager under "Other Devices - Pci Device"). The computer was running fine, I played a couple of games and for about a week I didn't have any blue screens (just the message for the unknown PCI device).

Recently, the 8.3 drivers were made available. I downloaded them from ATI site, I unistalled the 8.2 drivers, but when I restarted the blue screen appeared again. I resolved the situation following the same steps described in the previous paragraph.

It seems to me that every time that ati drivers will be updated, in order for me to install them, I will have to switch to my previous card, install them and then put the 3870 X2 back in again. Can you suggest any way to overcome this problem?
 
It's under "Other Devices - PCI Device". When I go to properties, it prompts me to install drivers for this PCI Device (I don't know what device this is since the only PCI card on my system is my X-Fi extreme music sound card). I try to find them automatically on the internet, but in vain. I have installed all new drivers from Gigabyte (motherboard), but still I have the PCI device message.

 
yes it could be the HDMI sound drivers. I haven't downloaded them from ATI , cause I don't want to have any incompatibility issues with my creative extreme music drivers. Anyway I have disabled that unknown PCI device with no problems.

My problem is that every time I want to install new ATI drivers I cannot do it with the 3870 X2 on. I have to switch back to the 1950 XTX, install the drivers and then put the 3870 X2 back on. If I try to uninstall let's say the 8.2 drivers in order to install the 8.3 drivers with the 3870 X2 on, I get a blue screen as soon as I restart the PC. I have never faced such a problem!
 
Hi zan78,
I've got the exact same problem with exact same card. It drove me to some conclusions. 1- The video card is defect (it's on transit now). 2- This card is a piece of junk and even a working one faild to offer fair price/performances ratio. 3- From the point AMD buyed ATI, ATI died and let place to something ugly. Belived it or not, It's cost me 80$ to get a replacement for a card less than one year old. Amazingly, It takes now more than one month to get it replaced because it has to be sent to Hong-Kong what is probably, with Sidney the furthest cordinate point form Montreal in the entire world. For that reason I am still waiting and for sure I'm not over yet.

At this point I want to explained what I mean by ATI is turned into something ugly. On the market it's nearly impossible to find authentics ATI products. Sapphire, Diamond, His are distributor of some kind of ATI's products. They buy OEM products build by ATI, put their name on it and sell to the wide market as they where their own product. Nvidia does the same from the very begining and I have no problems with that. But, a friend of mine once have problems with ATI's 9800pro (yes I hear you on this) and it took an unbelivable three days to him to have an advanced replacement. no one of ATI's resllers can claims such service. I ask this, what ATI was built from? Service, High end products, Reaserch and developpments. If there is still research and devellopments at ATI's lab i'm aint sure about all other aspect of good marketting.

In the other hand, all of my friends have buy Nvidia multi-GPU solutions (8800gt to be exact) I was the only one to get ATI product and guess what, They just keep laughing at me. With half the money they get more power and less problems. Honestly, I really hope that I can laught back at them with an hypothetical tri-3870 GPU config but for now on I am feeling like I keep throwing money into an evil adequacy. Normally, when you make up your mind on a product you have to chose between thoses factors: price, quality, performance, reliabillity and service. Addmiting that, I've really been fuc***. For sure, my next videocard won't be an ATI's one. At the end I'll be back with updates as soon I'll received my exchange.

 

Hello Zan78
I am also experiencing this issue but in my case was attempting to upgrade from a NVidia 7950GT to an ATI HD4800. I have reset BIOS to its defaults, also set driver to ATI but could not run Catalyst Install Manager as BSOD came up before I had a chance in normal mode and could not be run in safe mode. I had to revert to using the NVidia in the end and am using the ATI card in an AMD PC and there it had no problems, do not understand. Question I wanted to ask is if you ever managed to find out what the problem was / did you manage to sort it in the end?