- Oct 18, 2009
- 72
- 0
- 18,640
So, I recently built my very own computer in January, with the following specs:
Asus P6T
Intel Core i7 920
ATI Radeon HD 5970
Corsair 850HX PSU
Creative X-Fi Titanium
Corsair 6Gb DDR3 RAM @ 1333Mhz
all of it running Windows 7 Home Premium x64 in a very nice Cooler Master HAF 932 case.
From day one of using the computer, I have had constant crashing and freezing, both in 2d and 3d usage.
At first, they were only happening in 3d, and would start a hard lockup, requiring the computer to be totally reset. These freezes were solved by correctly setting the RAM timings in the BIOS.
Then, while using the catalyst 9.12 hotfix drivers (the first driver set I installed), I was getting random 2d crashes, where the screen would suddenly be filled with artifacts, and then the screen would go blank, come back and give me the message "ATI Display Driver has stopped responding and successfully recovered". This would happen even if I wasn't doing anything at all, and just letting it sit at the desktop. These were solved by manually editing the .xml files for the catalyst profiles, to turn up the idle clock speeds for the card, as they were originally too low to be stable.
When I installed catalyst 10.2, it was complete bliss. No crashes or freezing at all, I could play or do anything I wanted and it would work perfectly. Finally, after months of total frustration, this stupid, stupid graphics card was finally working! However, this was not to last long.
Lured by the extremely high improvements in benchmarks for the games I play, I decided to install catalyst 10.3a. This was a mistake. Now, I get a hard lockup one minute or so into playing ArmA 2. Battlefield Bad Company 2 will crash into colored stripes within 30 seconds of playing. Almost every 3d application freezes the entire computer and requires a reset.
Sometimes, if I fiddle with the Catalyst Control Center settings, I can get some games to work. Sometimes, I can use the same settings, and a game will crash every single time I try it all day, but the next day it will work perfectly with no changes.
These crashes happen at stock graphics card clocks. I only use ATI Overdrive to set the idle clocks higher (but still underclocked) and to set the fan speed higher, because the default fan speed is so slow that the card idles at 50C.
These crashes happen whether my CPU is overclocked or not (default is 2.66ghz, I have it at 3.2).
Neither the card nor the CPU is overheating.
Could it be that my system is unstable because I haven't increased the voltages for the CPU when I overclock? X-Bit labs did a very nice paper on overclocking the 920, and they said that they could take it up to 3.5ghz without adding any voltage, so I highly doubt it.
I haven't tested the RAM with memtest, but I have tried each individual stick by itself and the system booted fine (did not test any applications though). Even then, I doubt it's my RAM, but it's the second most likely cause.
The first most likely cause is that I have a defective graphics card. I got it from HIS, and I could just RMA (they have a one year warranty) and be done with it. I have found users with similar problems by googling and most RMAed the card and said they haven't had a problem since doing so.
I tried uninstalling the graphics drivers, running driver sweeper, and installing 10.2 again. That makes Bad Company 2 work great no matter what settings I use, but ArmA 2 locks up the computer just as it did before.
Could this be caused by the graphics card having a bit too much dust around it? The HAF 932 is a dust magnet, and I haven't cleaned it out recently.
I'm trying to do everything I can to fix this on my end. RMA is the last resort (4 weeks before I get a new card back!). Please help me. I have used Nvidia cards forever, and this is my first ATI card. The performance is great, but the card just doesn't work, the drivers are terrible (however, I knew that one going in), and it's just so frustrating trying to troubleshoot the card.
Please help!
Asus P6T
Intel Core i7 920
ATI Radeon HD 5970
Corsair 850HX PSU
Creative X-Fi Titanium
Corsair 6Gb DDR3 RAM @ 1333Mhz
all of it running Windows 7 Home Premium x64 in a very nice Cooler Master HAF 932 case.
From day one of using the computer, I have had constant crashing and freezing, both in 2d and 3d usage.
At first, they were only happening in 3d, and would start a hard lockup, requiring the computer to be totally reset. These freezes were solved by correctly setting the RAM timings in the BIOS.
Then, while using the catalyst 9.12 hotfix drivers (the first driver set I installed), I was getting random 2d crashes, where the screen would suddenly be filled with artifacts, and then the screen would go blank, come back and give me the message "ATI Display Driver has stopped responding and successfully recovered". This would happen even if I wasn't doing anything at all, and just letting it sit at the desktop. These were solved by manually editing the .xml files for the catalyst profiles, to turn up the idle clock speeds for the card, as they were originally too low to be stable.
When I installed catalyst 10.2, it was complete bliss. No crashes or freezing at all, I could play or do anything I wanted and it would work perfectly. Finally, after months of total frustration, this stupid, stupid graphics card was finally working! However, this was not to last long.
Lured by the extremely high improvements in benchmarks for the games I play, I decided to install catalyst 10.3a. This was a mistake. Now, I get a hard lockup one minute or so into playing ArmA 2. Battlefield Bad Company 2 will crash into colored stripes within 30 seconds of playing. Almost every 3d application freezes the entire computer and requires a reset.
Sometimes, if I fiddle with the Catalyst Control Center settings, I can get some games to work. Sometimes, I can use the same settings, and a game will crash every single time I try it all day, but the next day it will work perfectly with no changes.
These crashes happen at stock graphics card clocks. I only use ATI Overdrive to set the idle clocks higher (but still underclocked) and to set the fan speed higher, because the default fan speed is so slow that the card idles at 50C.
These crashes happen whether my CPU is overclocked or not (default is 2.66ghz, I have it at 3.2).
Neither the card nor the CPU is overheating.
Could it be that my system is unstable because I haven't increased the voltages for the CPU when I overclock? X-Bit labs did a very nice paper on overclocking the 920, and they said that they could take it up to 3.5ghz without adding any voltage, so I highly doubt it.
I haven't tested the RAM with memtest, but I have tried each individual stick by itself and the system booted fine (did not test any applications though). Even then, I doubt it's my RAM, but it's the second most likely cause.
The first most likely cause is that I have a defective graphics card. I got it from HIS, and I could just RMA (they have a one year warranty) and be done with it. I have found users with similar problems by googling and most RMAed the card and said they haven't had a problem since doing so.
I tried uninstalling the graphics drivers, running driver sweeper, and installing 10.2 again. That makes Bad Company 2 work great no matter what settings I use, but ArmA 2 locks up the computer just as it did before.
Could this be caused by the graphics card having a bit too much dust around it? The HAF 932 is a dust magnet, and I haven't cleaned it out recently.
I'm trying to do everything I can to fix this on my end. RMA is the last resort (4 weeks before I get a new card back!). Please help me. I have used Nvidia cards forever, and this is my first ATI card. The performance is great, but the card just doesn't work, the drivers are terrible (however, I knew that one going in), and it's just so frustrating trying to troubleshoot the card.
Please help!
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