What is the problem?

[HolyDoom Witch]

H!

I have a Sapphire HD 4870 512mB.
[E2140 @ 1.6ghz; 2gB; XP SP3; 17" LG Flatron = 1024x768; Zebronics 600 watt triple 12v rails PSU]

I was playing Portal with everything maxed out. I don't know what the hell it was, but the FPS in this game somehow came down to 10! The sequence was where you are finally to leave the moving platform when it's moving above the flames. Although when I restarted the game, at stock speeds, the minimum 50+ FPS in that scene was restored, I left the Auto-Tune on in the 9.7 catalyst last night. After a couple of hours, I got up and saw the test was over, and the core and memory were set to 815/1145 (from the stock 750/900).

Even after the Auto-Tune tuned the card, I got artifacts and crashes, and almost instantly. Now when I am mentioning this, I used to tune the card to 810/1065, my own tuning, when I played Crysis 1 & 2, and still the game would crash after sometime. Portal crashed too last night with the same settings.

Can someone tell why does this happen? A CPU bottleneck would not bring crashes, would it?

Thanks

 

[IH8U]

I can think of two things right off the top of my head

1. The card is overheating, download Rivatuner (or use the fan controll in CCC) and increase the fan speed.
2. The PSU is supplying "Dirty" (unstable) power, I have never heard of that brand, so I suggest picking up a QUALITY PSU.

For the PSU look for: Antec, Zalman, PC P&C, OCZ, Corsair, BFG, and Seasonic/Silverstone (unless in a 220v area)

 

[shubham1401]

I can think of two things right off the top of my head


2. The PSU is supplying "Dirty" (unstable) power, I have never heard of that brand, so I suggest picking up a QUALITY PSU.

Thats not a bad PSU.It is no international brand but only available In INDIA.
Zebronics make some good quality PSU .
May be comparable to coolermaster or OCZ(Just a RAW estimate) .

 

[Onus]

Based on an older listing, Zebronics PSUs are crap.
This sounds more like overheating though. As I read it, the games are crashing when the card is overclocked. Do they crash when the card is at stock speeds? If not, back off your overclock, and/or use CCC or Rivatuner as IH8U suggested to increase the fan speed; see if that helps.

 

[HolyDoom Witch]

@ jtt283,

See, there are two categories of products if you go to buy from ANY company. (Even Apple.) One is a "will do" type, for the masses, and the other for a special purpose, which the shopkeeper is not even likely to tell you about unless you yourself first inquire for such a thing. There are PSU's costing just 10 dollars with Zebronics, like any other company, that would come with any new computer you buy. But mine cost me above 100 dollars. It is a premium PSU made especially for gamers! (Looks like some new 'enlightenment' just got added to your life!)

Now back to crashes: I never have any crashes with stock speeds. Before this, I had XFX 8500GT, and Doom3 would crash when I would overclock.

Till now I have never increased the fan speeds. I am a little afraid of doing so. May be because I don't understand where I have to take the fan speed.

But now I wouldn't understand one thing; rather two things.

1. That if the fan speed is automatic, why should it not increase automatically since the card is overheating?
2. Now I also want to know if, suppose, I check the "Enable Manual Fan Control", and take the slider wherever you guide me to, but if this is left checked with the Auto-Tune, then would the Auto-Tune not come out with a new fan speed too after finding out the maximum working frequencies of the GPU? Because I had not checked this when I had left the Auto-Tune feature on.

Thanks

 

[shubham1401]

My card's fan speed automatically goes to 100% whenever I game.(temps near 80c at load).
So maybe yours also go that high.

Post your GPU temps .

 

[HolyDoom Witch]

And what program do I use to record the GPU temperatures?

Thx

 

[shubham1401]

GPU-Z
Speedfan
Everest

 

[HolyDoom Witch]

In here, the first section is when at desktop. I keep the card to full underclocking. The second section is when I just exited the game. (The game is Half Life 2: Episode Two.)

Thanks


Date , GPU Core Clock [MHz] , GPU Memory Clock [MHz] , GPU Temperature [°C] , Fan Speed [%] , GPU Load [%] , Fan Speed [RPM] , GPU Temp.(DISPIO) [°C] , GPU Temp.(MEMIO) [°C] , GPU Temp.(SHADERCORE) [°C] , VDDC Current [A] , VDDC Slave #1 Temperature [°C] , VDDC Slave #2 Temperature [°C] , VDDC Slave #3 Temperature [°C] , VDDC [V] ,

2009-08-21 11:59:12 , 500.0 , 450.0 , 68.0 , 22 , 0 , 704 , 68.0 , 71.0 , 67.5 , 17.6 , 61.0 , 63.0 , 62.0 , 1.2625 ,

2009-08-21 11:59:13 , 500.0 , 450.0 , 67.0 , 22 , 0 , 705 , 68.0 , 71.5 , 67.5 , 17.6 , 61.0 , 63.0 , 62.0 , 1.2625 ,

2009-08-21 11:59:14 , 500.0 , 450.0 , 67.0 , 22 , 0 ,


_________________________________________________________________________________________




Date , GPU Core Clock [MHz] , GPU Memory Clock [MHz] , GPU Temperature [°C] , Fan Speed [%] , GPU Load [%] , Fan Speed [RPM] , GPU Temp.(DISPIO) [°C] , GPU Temp.(MEMIO) [°C] , GPU Temp.(SHADERCORE) [°C] , VDDC Current [A] , VDDC Slave #1 Temperature [°C] , VDDC Slave #2 Temperature [°C] , VDDC Slave #3 Temperature [°C] , VDDC [V] ,

2009-08-21 15:20:13 , 500.0 , 450.0 , 69.0 , 26 , 0 , 979 , 68.5 , 72.0 , 68.5 , 17.6 , 63.0 , 66.0 , 65.0 , 1.2625 ,

2009-08-21 15:20:14 , 500.0 , 450.0 , 68.0 , 26 , 0 , 979 , 68.5 , 72.0 , 68.5 , 17.6 , 63.0 , 66.0 , 65.0 , 1.2625 ,

2009-08-21 15:20:15 , 500.0 , 450.0 , 68.0 , 26 , 0 , 979 , 68.5 , 72.0 , 68.0 , 17.6 , 64.0 , 66.0 , 65.0 , 1.2625 ,

2009-08-21 15:20:16 , 500.0 , 450.0 , 69.0 , 26 , 0 , 981 , 68.5 , 71.5 , 68.0 , 17.6 , 63.0 , 66.0 , 64.0 , 1.2625 ,

2009-08-21 15:20:17 , 500.0 , 450.0 , 68.0 , 26 , 0 , 980 , 68.0 , 71.5 , 67.5 , 17.6 , 63.0 , 66.0 , 64.0 , 1.2625 ,

2009-08-21 15:20:18 , 500.0 , 450.0 , 67.0 , 26 , 0 , 981 , 68.0 , 71.5 , 67.5 , 17.6 , 63.0 , 66.0 , 65.0 , 1.2625 ,

 

[HolyDoom Witch]

Okay. Got it.

Now I know to use the fan controls.

At first, I slid the slider to 100%! And with a jet engine kind of sound, guess what happened? The card started to cool so fast, I thought it would freeze!! Then I started to slid back, and it had the same effect.

Then I took the slider to 30%, and still the card temperature would not go beyond 68 degrees Centigrade.

Thanks everybody.