HIS Radeon HD 3850 Causing High CPU usage

[Cabbal666]

Just bought a HIS Radeon HD 3850 IceQ3 Turbo 512mb AGP and as soon as i poped it in, no drivers no nothin my idle CPU usage went to 70 - 100 percent and is staying like that. Ive installed the drivers and no change. Graphics are corrupted too. anyone got any ideas? i got an Athlon64 3000+ on an MSI k8n neo2 platinum MB, 2 gigs kingston, and a 430 watt powertake power supply

 

[copasetic]

Did you clean out all the previous drivers before installing this one? Sounds like a software conflict to me...

 

[Cabbal666]

I did, i went to add/remove programs and uninstalled nvidia display drivers. And i deleted the Nvidia folder before i installed. HIS tech support sais i have a bad card and they want me to return it but i got the feeeling another card will do the same thing

 

[copasetic]

Well there's 4 things I know of that'll cause graphics corruption; software conflict, weak power supply, overheating or a broken card. The reason I'm thinking it's a software conflict is the CPU usage, is it still jumping to 100%?

Best thing would be to try the card in a different computer, that's the only thing I can think of right now cause if it's not a software issue the card being broken is probably the next likely candidate.

 

[Cabbal666]

I formated my hard drive and reinstalled windows and its still happening but now instead of idling around 70% - 100% its down to 20% - 50%. I also took a closer look at the box and it recommends a 450 watt psu and mnines 430 so im short 20 watts, do u think that might be whats causing it?

 

[copasetic]

What's the make and model of the power supply? I've never heard of Powertake, did you mean Thermaltake?

The PSU could be too weak, it depends more on the amps available through the 12v rails than the wattage. Though I don't know how that could cause the cpu to idle at 50%...

Your whole computer probably only uses 200W of power at peak. Manufacturers like to say you need a power supply double the size for a few reasons; smaller PSU's might not have enough amps on the 12v rails to run the card (and talking about x amps on 12v rails as a requirement is another level of complexity that would confuse people), PSU's are never 100% efficient (so 450W is really more like 360W) and PSU's deliver more stable power at around 50% of their theoretical maximum.

Do you have another computer you could use to test the card in? Maybe a friend's? I think it's still the best option to narrow this problem down. Better to make sure before you start spending money on new hardware.

 

[Cabbal666]

Your correct lol its thermaltake pure power 430 watt and i do have another comp with an agp port but the power supply in it is only 200 watts. And my 12+v cord has 18 amps.

 

[copasetic]

Well that explains it I think. 18 amps isn't enough considering that power supply only has a single 12v rail. It's trying to run the processor and the video card from that 18 amps, but it probably wouldn't even be enough to run the video card alone.

So time to do a 180 and recommend getting a new PSU

 

[Cabbal666]

Ok thats what i was thinking too. I just got an 89 watt AMD athlon 64 4000+ 2.4 ghz in the mail today what kinda amps do u recommend for that and my new radeon?

 

[copasetic]

A dual rail PSU (2 12v lines) with at least 30 amps combined would be best. Most good 500W PSU's will supply at least that much, and I wouldn't get any less than 500W since it's nice to have some headroom for future upgrades.

 

[Cabbal666]

What about this one it has 2 12v+ lines both at 18 amps and it has all the connectors i need.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2932372&CatId=1483

And how sure are you that this is my problem before i got spend 100 bux lol

 

[copasetic]

That should be fine.

How sure am I? Not very lol. I really don't think that 18 amps is enough to run everything, but I'm not sure it's causing the problem you're having. Maybe someone here can give you a second opinion.

Like I said it still doesn't make sense to me that the cpu usage would spike up like that. If you go into task manager while your CPU is grinding away what process is using it?

 

[Cabbal666]

I have a total of 24 processes goin, only ones that arent Windows default processes is: Ati2evxx.exe, CCC.exe, and MOM.exe which are all ATI. My idle cpu usage with these 24 processes is now around 30 - 55%. I installed Supreme Commader and tried playing it, the game chokes up every second or so, especially with the cutscenes. In game text is red where it should be blue (firefox and windows is doin this too) and special fx (like explosions and weapon blasts) are all messed up.
I also have another question. The card came with an adapter that takes 2 periphial connectors and has a pci express pin on the other side. I tried using that with the same results. Do the 4 pin periphial connectors (the ones that go to cd drive and ide hard drive) use the 12v+ rail too?

 

[harrycat88]

What operating system are you running?
Windows XP 32bit or 64Bit?
Windows Vista 32bit or 64bit?
Linux (DIST) (VERSION) (32Bit or 64Bit)?
Do you have the AGP setting correct in the BIOS?
Did you install the correct gart driver for your chipset?
Is ATi Smart Gart working correctly?
Did you install the GART driver before you installed the ATI drivers?

I'm running Windows XP64Bit and using the Beta Nvidia 64bit GART driver for Dual core cpu's. I'm using an old X1950PRO AGP and in Quake 4 at a resolution of 1024X768 with everything set on High Detail, I'm getting anywhere from 66 to 71 frames a second.
But sometimes when I fire up Quake my frame rates are between 9 and 12 Frames per second due to Nvidia's buggy drivers and I have to reboot the computer in-order to get it working correctly.

It all sounds like you have the wrong GART driver installed or the heatsink/fan on your 3850 is not contacting the GPU and memory.
If the Heatsink/fan is in good contact with your GPU and memory and you do have the correct GART driver installed, then most likely the 3850 is defective.

 

[rafikemd]

I didnt found another place to ask so sorry for this

I HAVE A SAPPHIRE HD3850 512MB DDR3, i'm using catalyst 8,5.

The problem is i'm getting 2d graphics performance too low. Specially 2D lines and shapes

About 100% LESS than it should be..

I tested with "performancetest 6.1"

Any tips?? any contact like skype?

Thanks a lot. Sorry for my english.

 

[Guest]

I'm going to resurrect this with a huge bump in hopes that I can get in touch with anyone that may have solved Cabbal's issue.

I have:
ATI Radeon HD 3850 AGP 512 MB
GA-K8NSC-939 (BIOS F8) w/nForce3 (5.11 drivers)
Opteron x2 w/2 GB RAM
650W PSU
Catalyst Drivers 8.10 w/AGP hotfix
Win XP sp 3

I have already RMA'd one card and the exact same issue is still happening(so I doubt it's defective). My 9800XT runs great, no problem. When I pop in my HD3850, one of my processor cores pegs to 50% of no reason. There are no processes listed in the task manager that are requesting the CPU. Even the "What's Running?" program shows nothing. Is this normal or what's going on?

 

[theripper121]

I can tell you exactly what it is and its an easy fix. I think there is some kind of problem with ati's drivers. I have a ati card as well which supports hdmi audio like your card. After I installed my 4850 my cpu idle across all 4 of my cores hovered around 20%. I tracked the extra cpu threads using a program similar to taskmanager. To make a long story short ati's latest cards are compatible with hdmi audio and there is a conflict somewhere where the cpu is constanly searching for a device or something that is not there. If you go into the device manager and click on sound video and game controllers you will see ATI HDMI AUDIO if you right click it and disable it, it will fix your cpu idle issue. I hope this helps

 

[Montezuma]

I have the follow setup:

AMD Athlon 3800+ 939
2GB RAM (believe it is Kingston, but not sure right now)
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
HIS ATi HD 3850 512 MB AGP
Audigy 2 Platinum

I installed Vista and ran into the system locking up within a few minutes of booting up. This only occured after I installed the driver. The CPU use was not near as high as when using XP but of course the system would completely lock down. While using XP, I ran into high CPU use right after installing some of the updates just after Service Pack 2(in regards to the order of availability). I first noticed the high CPU use after I installed SP3. I was unsure what the issue was, so I reinstalled XP and went up to SP2 and started installing one update at a time or rather I tried to.

There are around 113 updates from SP2 to SP3, so I am going to try and work on figuring this out. I am starting to wonder if it is a power supply issue or some type of motherboard issue. It could, more than likely, be a software issue. ATi really needs to step up and fix this. I know that AGP is not the most current platform, but there are a number of customers still using AGP and we want the same attention that the PCI-E products get.

 

[Nico1976]

Hey Cabbal666, did you ever find a solution for the high CPU usage. Did it help to change the power supply?
I have a similar problem with a AGP 2600XT.

 

[beta31]

+
-Hello All
Had the same problem with my HD4850, cpu usage was 25% at idle. I diabled ATI HDMI audio in device manager and cpu usage dropped down to 0%. MAY BE A HARDWARE CONFLICT WITH REALTEK HD AUDIO.
Hope this helps.

 

[resonantfate]

Greetings guys. this thread is the one that busted the problem wide open for me. i suffered from high cpu usage that taskmanager could not attribute to any process, like many here. i undertook the AA twelve step process to recovery and...

owait, wrong fix. rite, about that then.

seriously, i recalled that when i installed the drivers for my Visiontek HD 2600 AGP graphics card, it also installed this 'Microsoft UAA Bus Driver for High Definition Audio'. finally locating and disabling this device in the device manager under 'System devices' fixed my problem immediately. i will note that my card in fact has no audio capabilities whatsoever. only two dvi ports and a svideo port. no audio at all, which might be the problem. maybe the driver is trying to access hardware that is not there. i don't know.

in any case, problem solved for me, on my winxp pro, sp3 machine.

thanks for the help, folks.

 

[acejase66]

Dear resonantfate:

Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou.

Disabling the 'Microsoft UAA Bus Driver for High Definition Audio' solved my high cpu usage problem that I'd been trying to solve all week.

I'd just bought a Powercolor HD 3650 AGP card for my Socket 939 board (Gigagbyte K8NS Ultra 939). Even on a clean install of XP (with SP3 slipstreamed) the usage was high. I reformatted and installed again with the original CD (XP Pro SP1) and CPU usage was 0-1% at idle. As soon as I installed SP3 the idle CPU usage went to 40-50%. This was all without any hardware drivers being installed.

My AGP card DOES have built-in audio capabilities because it supports HDMI via a DVI to HDMI adapter. I don't know if this would be the same with your card.

Thanks again.

 

[resonantfate]

Dear resonantfate:
Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou.

Haha, it's nice to get some thanks, nicer to know that someone was helped!

Disabling the 'Microsoft UAA Bus Driver for High Definition Audio' solved my high cpu usage problem that I'd been trying to solve all week.

man, that sucks. it took me only a couple days, with only one night of real digging. i guess i got lucky. just happened to be paying attention to that driver installer at the right moment.

My AGP card DOES have built-in audio capabilities because it supports HDMI via a DVI to HDMI adapter. I don't know if this would be the same with your card.
Thanks again.

wow, i did not know that about that. i bet that is the case for mine as well. at least it's sorta likely. i don't have any hardware that can use HDMI capabilities yet (prolly won't for a long time ), so i'm a bit unfamiliar with the technology.

i will note this: my system tends to take like 5 minutes to log in, when it used to do it within 30 seconds. the entire desktop will freeze up for that period. icons won't even be shown, just the wallpaper. the only real solution is to let it do its thing. the deal is, it wasnt' like that before this card. had my nvidia geforce 6800 gt in there until it croaked on me. do you experience this lag when logging in also?

i noticed that sometimes zone alarm catches weird requests from 'windows driver updater framework' attempting an outbound signal. dunno if that's related at all.

i've been pondering a reinstall on and off for a while now, but have no time as iran is taking it all.

 

[Statick]

i found this thread after googling, i just installed a radeon HD3600 and had the same problem - one CPU core pegged at 95% when the system was idle

as per the above posts, i found the microsoft HD audio device under system devices, two of them in fact - disabled them both and CPU time immediately returned to normal

 

[earthink]

please refer to:
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&id=20080924002804250&board_id=9&model=AH3650%20Series&page=2&count=13

I have same problem in my HD3650 AGP, I try the following two step, and success.
1.disabled all port not in using, as LPT,com1,com2,etc.
2. CHANGE your computer driver from "ACPI ...PC" to :"Advanced Configuration and Power.." and reboot PC.