x850xt problems

[hondacr123]

Hey guys I just bought a x850xt and im having some problems with it in game. When I play css or cod2 after about 5 minutes the whole system crashes. I dont really think its overheating because its running a about 70c while at load. I tried underclocking it but that didnt work either. Then I tried reinstalling xp changing drivers and nothing. Should I just send it back and get a better card or try to get some better cooling for it?


The Card

my specs: p4 @ 3.5, 1gb corsair @ 800mhz, ultra 550w

 

[frank43]

I have the same card.
I had issues like yours it turned out to be two things.
One was cooling and the other was my power supply.
I went from a 400 watt cheap power supply to an ocz-600 watt supply and my problems went away.

On the cooling I just made sure my case was getting thee proper airflow.


Later
Frank

 

[TSIMonster]

I have the pe ver. of the same card and had a similar problem. From the factory sapphire sets the fans to run at 5% at all times. Downlod ATI Tray tools and set the fans to run at 100% from 60*C and up. This should help, plus, its a good tool to monitor temps and such. Also, is you CPU OC'd at all? Your RAM could be causing the crash as well as many other things...

Try to up the fan speed first and then report back. PM if you have questions about ATI Tray tools, I can also give you some mem timings for it that will make it fly (equivelant to a 40mhz overclock according to my test benches)

 

[TSIMonster]

His PSU should be fine. I actually have an ultra 400 watt running my system now, it runs flawlessly for such a cheap psu. Still a good idea to check you PSU from within the BIOS to see if its giving the proper volts. What series is the PSU? and is the P4 a prescott?

(Sorry for being so inquisitive)

 

[hondacr123]

I have ati tray tools. I forgot to say I also tried running the card with 100% and it still crashed. I even tried changing the paste on the core but my artic silver failed me . So I think I may just return it and also get a arctic cooler for it.

 

[hondacr123]

oh and btw my processor is overclocked. its a 3.0 and its overclocked to a 3.5 . FSB is at 920 instead of 800. But ive been running that for quite some time now. Its a 630 presscott btw.


ps. its the x2 550w psu

 

[gm0n3y]

I have that exact card an at stock settings, it works fine for me. I'm not sure what temps it runs, but I have overclocked it as high as 560 / 610 (520 / 540 stock) and run it through 3dmark05 a few times and it hasn't crashed.

I recently installed an actic cooler and it does run noticably cooler (about 5-10 degrees at load). The main difference is that the stock cooler is ridiculously loud at 100%. The arctic cooler on the other hand, even at 100% is inaudible over my other case fans / cpu fan.

IMO, you probably have a bad card, I would RMA it if it won't get better and I recommend picking up the arctic cooler, even if its just for the noise.

 

[mcain591]

LISTEN TO ME!!!!!

I just had the SAME problem with the same series of card.

IT IS YOUR PSU.

TRUST ME. for me, this problem escalated, untill finally my system wouldn't boot.

ULTRA PSU'S ARE PIECES OF SH*T. as you can see from my sig, i have, or had one. Trust me, it aint pretty.

The mobo connection on the PSU is blown, the mobo is shorted, along with my ATi x850xt, and I will soon see what else is, after i am finished RMA'ing them.
Try to buy one of these: THERMALTAKE TR2 500W Power Supply ATX12V V2.0 - Retail http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817153028

Its not to fancy, but it'll be stable power. You know that your psu is a piece of sh*t when frys elec. is selling it for 10 bucks after rebate, and in you case, when they are selling it for nothing after rebate.

After this, my moto is: DONT SKIMP ON THE PSU.

If you dont turn off your computer now, and rip that b**** out, you will be hating it.

 

[trinitron64]

I had an elcheapo 500watt psup and it ended up causing a minor flash-fire (if there is such a term) on the videocards 12v connector.

make sure you have enough amps... perhaps check a review of your psup and see how close it runs to 100% efficiency or whatever... i think my Enermax scored the highest thus far (or whatever, couple reviews said it was uber efficient)

 

[hondacr123]

yea im in the process of rma'ing it right now and I purchased the arctic cooler. Hopefully the next card will be better. Oh and to whoever said my psu was bad thats just you man not all ultras are bad you must have had a part it the problem. It can def handle this card no problem.

 

[mcain591]

im just tellin u. if what happened to me happens to you, it will make your life a living hell.
whatever. its your stuff, just giving a proven suggestion. if u dont want to listen to me thats your problem

 

[frank43]

Most likely is your power supply.
Measure the voltage rails with a digtal voltmeter while running under a load.

If any rails are below voltage specs then its your power supply.
X850 either agp or pci-e draws a lot of current thus the lower voltages on the power rails.

Owning a pc shop here in Fl, we run into this a lot with the x850 cards.

A 400 watt power supply, with that card, will not cut it.

Here is the link to show you how.
http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?t=137886

Frank

My system

Dfi-Lanparty nf4 ultra-d latest bios
cpu is athlon x64-x2 3800 overclocked to 2.80 ghz (stock 2.0 ghz)
1Gig Ocz Platinum rev 2 ddr-400 ram overclocked fsb 280 at 1 to 1 cpu ratio.
Ocz 600 watt continuous powerstream power supply 700 watts peak
X850xt Sapphire 256 meg video ram pci-e
2 sata-2 segate hd's in raid config.
cdr burner
dvd burner
Sound Blaster audigy 2


Temps
cpu temp under a full load is 105 to 110 deg f depends on room temp
video card temp under a full load 110 to 120 deg f depends on room temp
Cpu and video is water cooled

 

[TSIMonster]

Just so you know.. I am using an Ultra V-series 400 watt PSU and have plenty of 12v amps left over...

According to this http://extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine my entire system with everything running at full blast uses A WHOLE LOT OF POWER!! A WHOLE 222watts lol

 

[TSIMonster]

Oh, and yours at full load still uses less then 285 watts accourding to the calculator. Remember its not only that watts that are important but what rails the watts are allocated to.

For example if you have 20A on the 12v rail that equates to 240 watts on that rail. Its really simple. Now, given that he should check his psu to make sure it isn't a dud it is plenty powerfull enough

 

[s4fun]

Assuming this is an AGP board on AGP system. I'd try disabling fast-writes.

Trying cranking up the AGP voltage on using the bios. Something a bit higher than 1.6 volts.

ATI cards are just such a pain to get stable.

Tell me, is the motherboard using a VIA chipset? ATI and VIA just doesn't get a long.

 

[MCMONOPOLY]

Oh, and yours at full load still uses less then 285 watts accourding to the calculator. Remember its not only that watts that are important but what rails the watts are allocated to.

For example if you have 20A on the 12v rail that equates to 240 watts on that rail. Its really simple. Now, given that he should check his psu to make sure it isn't a dud it is plenty powerfull enough

This is true, until you factor in the efficiency factor (which in most case won't go over ~70-75%), then you will get ~168-180 watts effective on that rail, instead of your stated 240..
Also, i currently own a X850XT PE and before i put my Antec 550W in there, i was having stability issues when using a generic 450w PSU. So ruling out his PSU from the get go without analysing the situation further is a mistake.

And BTW i used a 70-75% efficiency factor as an example, but be aware that this can be worse with some PSU brands.

 

[frank43]

the 12 volt rail in the power suppy is the most important rail.
This is the one that needs the most amps.

Another factor in power supplys is the noise single level.
Lower the noise ripple in the power supply the cleaner the dc power will be, and it makes for a stable system.
Cheap power supplys do a real bad job at this.

He needs to start at the power supply.
Starting at the power supply will save you money and headaches in the long term.

Here is a good link to read
http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?t=136602

Frank

 

[gm0n3y]

I would recommend either getting a tool to test the PSU or RMAing the card. At least with RMA it doesn't cost a thing and you get a new card. Then if you are still having problems you can look into the PSU. BTW, I have an x850xt oc'ed to 570/625 and my CPU is oc'ed from 2.2 -> 2.8 and I am running on 'only' a 450W PSU, so the total watts is not an issue. Just get a tool to check the rail like these other guys have been saying.

 

[TSIMonster]

Oh, and yours at full load still uses less then 285 watts accourding to the calculator. Remember its not only that watts that are important but what rails the watts are allocated to.

For example if you have 20A on the 12v rail that equates to 240 watts on that rail. Its really simple. Now, given that he should check his psu to make sure it isn't a dud it is plenty powerfull enough

This is true, until you factor in the efficiency factor (which in most case won't go over ~70-75%), then you will get ~168-180 watts effective on that rail, instead of your stated 240..
Also, i currently own a X850XT PE and before i put my Antec 550W in there, i was having stability issues when using a generic 450w PSU. So ruling out his PSU from the get go without analysing the situation further is a mistake.

And BTW i used a 70-75% efficiency factor as an example, but be aware that this can be worse with some PSU brands.

I forgot to consider that, thanks for the correction. I would suggest testing the PSU, but since its a 550w Ultra PSU and mines a 400w Ultra PSU unless it was faulty (highly possible). I don't think the power of the PSU is whats holding him back unless he got a bad one as stated earlier.

 

[hondacr123]

Im gonna test it in a minute here ill give you guys my full system specs:
550w ultra x2 psu
P4 630 3.0 @ 3.5
asus p5nd2-sli mobo
corsair 800mhz 1gb
2 cd drives
2 120mm fans
1 80mm fan

 

[hondacr123]

Yea im running 12.20 on my 12v rail and 5.2 on my 5v rail. So now that my good psu is out of the equation what is left? Could the card need more power or something help me out plz guys.

 

[hondacr123]

oh yea its pcie too. What are good voltages to try in my bios?

 

[mcain591]

since u apparently don't want to have anything of what i am saying, get a friends powersupply and throw it in ur rig for a bit, or get someones pci-e card and throw it in there.
THAT is how you'll find ur problem.

 

[frank43]

Have you at least tried to run the system at stock mem and cpu speeds without overclocking to see if the system is stable?

If the system crashes like totally shuts down it is usually the ps or ram and or incorrect ram timmings.
You get a memory dump in windows if the system shuts down ?

Does the system just crash back to the windows desktop ?

Whats the cpu temp under a load ?
Whats the video card temp under a full load?
How long does it take while playing games for it to crash ?
Have you done a fresh install of windows ?

You need to start at stock mem, cpu speeds, and voltages play the game and see if it crashes.



There is so many factors to cause your system to do whats its doing.
Frank

 

[hondacr123]

guys guys it has nothing to do with my system overclocking. I run super stable and have never froze up till I got this new vid card. My cpu temp is 30 idle and at load 36. If you had read the whole post you would have seen this already is not a problem. Also my psu is not the problem just to clarify. My system is fine and I need advice on fixing the video card. Yes I also did a fresh install of xp like I said before. After playing games for about 2 minutes the whole system freezes and stays with what was last on the screen until I reboot. temps for the vid card are 30 idle and 70 load with fan @ 100%.