SAPPHIRE RADEON HD3850 PCI-E HELP!

KrAsH

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Sep 8, 2008
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this card is driving me NUTS!! to put it bluntly its as follows:

i keep getting VPU recovery in both Vista ultimate 64 and 32. and also under Xp pro SP2(Tri Boot) when i play almost any game such as Call of Duty 4, Assasins Creed, GRID and so on, the VPU recovery sometimes also fails and i am left with my monitor in standby mode with no way of getting into my system without a hard reboot via the front panel reset switch, i made sure i had an ample power supply for the card and the other components inside my system, the PSU is a Corsair 650TX, 65 watts and 52amps on the +12 Dedicated rail, i have 2 ide hdd's, my dvd drive, 2 led fans and some front panel blue led's, my athlon 64 x2 5000+ and my motherboard to power, please advise.. as this is now the 3rd ati based gpu that i have had problems with, and this particular problem is stopping me from using the card in 3D intensive apps, and it doesnt get above 70 degrees centigrade at load. i tried half life 2 on it, same thing, i tried half life 2 lastnight with the onbard geforce 6100 and guess what, i played fine for hours, somethin bad is goin on....

ive modified the fan speed with riva tuner, it sets the fan sped at 73% upon restarting of windows too, but ive noticed that after a vpu recovery the settings in rivatuner revert back to auto dection of the speed needed per the heat being output from the card, but it does this AFTER the vpu recovery so i can understand it resetting rivatuner like that, ive contacted ati support via a ticket awaiting a response, im also gonna call ccl in the mornin to see about a possible rma, but i thought id see if anyone can give me any tips on this problem, because to be honest... ITS PISSIN ME OFF THE WHOLE SYSTEM IS A MONTH OLD!!!!! LOL!!!!
 

rockbyter

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Feb 13, 2008
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create a list of your other parts. i like to read stories, but its easier if we know what you have. im thinking motherboard specifically, and if its had a bios update, any overclocking you've done, etc.
 

harrycat88

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If your motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-M61P, send it back and replace it with something else other than an NF chipset or replace your 3850 PCI-E with a 8800 GT. I replaced my Nforce 6100 chipset motherboard twice and still had the same problem with data corruption and graphic problems.
 

KrAsH

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lol ok yeah parts list right.... sorry guys wasnt with it on that side, here ya go:

Board: ABiT NF-M2SV
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5000+ @ 2.61GHz (0%)
Display: Plug and Play Monitor on ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series @ 1024x768
OS: Microsoft Windows XP Professional (5.1.2600)
HDD Totals: 596.17GB Free: 82.42GB Used: 513.75GB (86.2%)
RAM Total: 2GB Used/Free: 0.57GB/1.43GB (71.5%)

thats from l33tsig, bare in mind i only run that when i wanna get my partial list of kit up lol, the main details are:

the ram is:2x1GB of crucial pc2-5300 ddr2
psu is already mentioned above

but yeah, my chipset is the geforce 6100 based 405 nforce chipset, ya think thats the root of my evils? baring in mind that hl2 runs fine without the card, im startin to think nforce chipsets are more trouble than they're worth aswell as ati gpu's lol
 

KrAsH

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prime95 i aint tried yet, i did test my ram both together then both on their own usin memtest86 and i also did the same with vista's inbuilt crappy mem test, all passed it without issue
 

KrAsH

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UPDATE!!

i started the pc up just now, got to my desktop, got halfway through my start menu when the whole system locled up, had to hit reset... this bitch needs spankin me thinks.... im startin to miss my old amd athlon xp 3200+ system with its radeon x1650 pro agp, and its aopen ak79D-400vn... it didnt wanna run things quick enough and now look at me.. stuck with a pile of wank that keeps givin me problems when i use my new graphics card!! shame the x1650 isnt pci-e! lol!
 

KrAsH

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oh yeah, the hdd's, 2x maxtor diamondmax21 ide hdd's, identical models
1xx dvdrw LG multi dual layer drive

im new to postin in tech forums, as to be honest, ive never really needed to til now... this is my first "newer" rig too lol
 

KrAsH

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sorry, again... lol no overclocking done, everythin at stock on mobo and card, im takin it back to ccl today... will post as soon as i know more
 

KrAsH

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ccl are testin the card, i'll know within 3 working days if its faulty or not, im seriously hopin it is faulty, then it'l get rma'd etc, id rather that than gojn back to the drawing board, ffs this is annoyin lol, id get an 8800GT but for features ati cards are cheaper than their nvidia counterparts ;)
 

KrAsH

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had to rma it as a faulty card, the replacement went exactly the same way in a short length of time, i ended up changin to an asus hd3870, not only is it a better card, but it runs a lot cooler without messin with fan speeds, take my advice, if that card is under waraanty, get rid of it and get somethin else man...
 

matic3060

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Thanks for the advice. Just called newegg for an rma today. Unfortunately it has been over 30 days, so I have to settle for a replacement rather than a refund. Hopefully I will luck out on this one. The reviews are very good overall for that card, but since running into this issue, I have discovered that a ton of people are experiencing the same thing. Oh well, I threw an 8800gts 320MB into my system until I get my replacement. They seem to be very equal cards for most things. Only game I can see a real difference on is Far Cry 2 - runs a bit more smoothly with the HD3850.
 

KrAsH

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u should see that and fallout 3 on the 3870, beats the 3850 hands down, my second hd3850 was over 30 days but ccl do a 1 year warranty, i got lucky and got given a voucher towards the cost of th pile of crap, then put some extra cash towards this thing, i dont regret it one bit, as for the 8800gts, i had one in my system while my second hd3850 was bein checked out, it does a better job than the 3850 in race driver grid, but this 3870 does beat both... u should moan at newegg bigtime about gettin it replaced with a 3870 with a little extra cash that you put towards its cost, point them to the direction of this thread, and in the direction of ccl lol, they had 5 of them fail in one customers pc ;)