XFX 4890 Causing Reboots

[VXBlade]

I have a new XFX 4890 board. The one clocked at 875mhz core. The card I used to have is a 4870 1g from powercolor clocked at 800mhz. When putting the new card into the PC, the system will reboot during gaming after anywhere from 2 to 30 min of gaming 100% of the time.

The reboot itself sounds like a power outage, the computer shuts down fully and then restarts.

TESTING DONE:
*Single Channel Mushkin RAM tested for 18 hours straight with Mem86+ with no errors with Current settings.
*Dual Channel Mushkin RAM tested with mem86+ WITH REBOOTS occurring when timing settings and voltage settings off in BIOS (NOT SET with MUSHKINS tech support settings for the RAMPAGE formula Board)
*Old 4870 Played for 5 hours, no errors
*New Card left Idle for 12 hours, no reboots or errors
*Game playing for 5 min, REBOOT

PC
ASUS Rampage Formula BIOS 9020
Temps under load 60 - 65 NB, 50 - 60 SB, Board in the 40's
Mushkin 996599 1066 RAM with BIOS settings set from Mushkin Forums by direction of Mushkin Tech
Thermaltake W0116RU 750w (18w to the 2 PCIe plugs)
Core 2 Duo E8500 Clocked at 3.16 (Stock) (Thermaltake crazy huge heat sink and fan)
TEMPS 60c under load
Fatat1y Soundblaster Card with front bay
2 320 Western Digital HD in RAID 0
1 320 WD HD in SATA port 3
1 CDR/RW in SATA port 6

Everything in the BIOS is set stock except the RAM timings that where given to me via Mushkin specifically for my motherboard. I have a few questions to help me hopefully fix this problem. All benchmarks and burn ins for the CPU and RAM are stable with the 4870 in the machine. reboots are occurring with the 4890 in the machine.

Do the RAM timings have to be messed with for stability with this new card?
Is the POWER supply 18w to the 2 PCIe RAILS too low? Or is the Power Supply possibly faulty?
Do the NB, Processor or RAM voltages need to be increased with this new card?
To the Mhz or STRAP settings need to be messed with?
What is the opperating temp of this card, under full load (Freestone Stability Test and HDR IBL running at the same time) 99% GPU use this card sits at 72c with 30% fan. Is that too hot?
Is the Ambient heat too high from this board? I did get a OPT3 TEMP too high warning one time after a reboot, but when I quickly went into the BIOS within 45 seconds of the shutdown reboot, the OPT3 TEMP sensor was at 23c.... seems kinda low...

Any other ideas?

Thanks in advance.
David

 

[daedalus685]

Sounds like it is overheating or just plain faulty. Start the RMA...

 

[VXBlade]

But the temps report 70c ish on the card... that seems fine, the old card gets to 75c under load after hours and hours of play... Unless the RAM is becoming unstable due to heat....(From increased ambient temps from this new card)...

 

[VXBlade]

I'm a pc tech.... I know all the easy answers which is why I'm finally coming to you. GPU temps are 72c stable at load with CCC keeping fans at 35% normally. RAM, CPU run Prime 95 and 86+ for 24 hours with no errors or reboots.

I just RAN Freestones Graphics Stability test for 10 hours no reboots. So what I'm thinking it is, is the Soundblaster Fatality 1 X-fi card drivers. This happened with a PC when Vista first came out and I had forgotten about it. But apparently, some way the soundblaster drivers work with the 4890 ONLY cause a reboot... weird.

When Vista first came out, the CCC and the Soundblaster would cause the same thing to happen, it was so long ago I had forgotten. I'm doing one more wave of tests but at the moment, it appears the windows 7 beta drivers from soundblaster do NOT work with the Catalyst drivers from ATI correctly.

I just played Crysis with no sound drivers loaded for an hour with no reboots... will respond again after testing with sound drivers loaded again.

 

[VXBlade]

Added sound drivers, reboots started occuring again.

Something about Soundblaster Fatal1ty and this XFX 4890 card specifically are completly incompatible in windows 7. At least with my motherboard / RAM combination. I'm going to bite the reinstall bullet and go back to Vista and check to see if the issue follows the hardware or the drivers (I only own the Soundblaster card for sound so I need to find a way to get these to work together) Its frustrating the poop out of me.

Anyone else with a Fatal1ty Soundblaster card (PCI release from 2 years ago or so) and a XFX 4890 card having troubles in Windows 7 or vista? Or is it just that I'm super lucky....

 

[VXBlade]

FINALLY solved this... and its super stupid and probably a faulty motherboard in some way shape of form, but it turns out it was the J-Micron SATA controller. I had enabled it just before a clean reinstall of my system thinking I would be using it for a SATA CD drive, I never did use it for that, but I left it enabled in the BIOS. Wasn't even thinking or dreaming that could be the controller for the J-Micron SATA..
Anyway, here is what I did, if I'm way off on the problem solution, let me know..

RAM tests = FINE
CPU STRESS = FINE
GPU ALONE = FINE
Full system stress testing outside of 3D = FINE
In testing in Crysis and Fallout 3 = Reboots
Disabled Soundblaster Card = Crysis fine for 30 minutes or so, Fallout won't boot without sound
Re-Enabled Soublaster x-fi Fatal1y PCI card = Reboots
DISABLED J-Micron SATA controller I wasn't using on the motherboard = EVERYTHING FINE

I'm not sure if there is a BIOS workaround, or a maybe I have a faulty motherboard, but apparently The J-Micron SATA controller + 4890 + Soundblaster X-FI = Reboots for me.

Also, on the Rampage Forumuls Motherboard in Windows Vista 64, the J-Micron controller driver is detected as emulation software by Fallout 3 and Farcry 2's SecuROM check... when I turned off the J-Micron Controller, my SecuROM error's that I didn't own the original disk went away as well...

Go figure...

 

[VXBlade]

Just to follow up. I replaced the computers power supply and all the problems went away, J-Micron Controller turned on or not. I had a Thermaltake 750, but replaced with an Earthwatts 650 from antec and everything is good now.

 

[EXT64]

Good to hear. Just out of curiosity, what are the amperage(s) on the 12V rail(s) of the new PS vs. the old? I guess the old one could have just been faulty too.

 

[VXBlade]

The old had 16 amps on the rails, the new one has 22.