ATI 5850 Win7 Driver Issues?

[69Rocket-Joe]

OK I am about to start pulling my hair out because I am at a loss. I have this specific card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150455 installed in a brand new build based on a AMD Phenom II x4 965 with a MSI 790FX-GD70 MB.

The build went together absolutely headache free and was up and running for almost 24 hours before I tried to install the driver for the video card. At that time Win7 Pro 64bit would pop up and error that read "Video Display Driver stopped responding and has successfully recovered" but then it just does the same thing a couple more times and then the system just locks up.

I thought I screwed something up the first time with trying to D/L the driver. I ended up re-installing Win7 and started over with a clean D/L of the newest driver from XFX's website. Everything seemed to work fine and I was playing around with STEAM and D/Ling the Dirt game that came with the card. The system ran stable for maybe an hour or so and now it started the same thing and locks up shortly after reboot displaying the same driver error.

Any ideas on what I should try? Should I find a driver straight from ATI? It looks like the driver IS from ATI and XFX is just distributing it. I downloaded what should be the proper driver. It was for Win7 64bit and I downloaded the file marked display driver only. I don't think it is a hardware issue as it ran fine with a generic VGA driver when Win7 first installed. I believe it is a software issue.

Thanks,

-Joe

 

[The_Prophecy]

I never download video drivers from the OEM I bought the card from. I always get them directly from Nvidia or AMD.

I would consider the possibility of a heat problem. Download HWMonitor from CPUID and start a game up. Play around for about 10 minutes, then close the game and check the maximum temperature of your video card as recorded by HWMonitor. Post the results here.

 

[69Rocket-Joe]

I never download video drivers from the OEM I bought the card from. I always get them directly from Nvidia or AMD.

I would consider the possibility of a heat problem. Download HWMonitor from CPUID and start a game up. Play around for about 10 minutes, then close the game and check the maximum temperature of your video card as recorded by HWMonitor. Post the results here.

The problem is I can't even get get it to run for 10 minutes. I just went and turned it back on, it had been sitting for almost 2 hours, and it locks up right on system boot. I get the error maybe it recovers for 30 seconds then it errors again and then it locks up. The card is still iced cold to the touch. I can't run long enough to get heat readings. If I start in safe mode it runs fine.

-Joe

 

[The_Prophecy]

The card is still iced cold to the touch.

That's likely the issue then.... if the heatsink isn't drawing heat off of the video chip, that would easily explain why it's locking up so quickly.

 

[69Rocket-Joe]

That's likely the issue then.... if the heatsink isn't drawing heat off of the video chip, that would easily explain why it's locking up so quickly.

The back side of the card is still cold as well.

-Joe

 

[69Rocket-Joe]

I just got the drivers downloaded from ATI, will be trying those shortly.

-Joe

 

[Whitebuffulo]

hey Joe how did you go with the drivers from ATI???

I have had the same issues with my sapphire 5850, crashing on botts flickering screens with all the colours of the rainbow, saying it has recovered from a serious driver error!!! I tried system restore different slotts in the mobo, driver cleaner different drivers including the latest from ATI, and it all started after I installed Dirt 2 and it was the first game it failed on so I uninstalled it from my steam account and it still happens so i'm at a loss, brand new build too. I spoke to a techie and they said it's probaby the memory in the actual card failing and needs to be sent back to place of purchase so thats what I am doing after a month of trilaling different scenarios?? have you tried another card in your system to see if it's anything else besides you GC??
Will let you know how I get on with it, hope you have some luck as I know how damn frusterating it is especially with a new rig.

 

[69Rocket-Joe]

hey Joe how did you go with the drivers from ATI???

I have had the same issues with my sapphire 5850, crashing on botts flickering screens with all the colours of the rainbow, saying it has recovered from a serious driver error!!! I tried system restore different slotts in the mobo, driver cleaner different drivers including the latest from ATI, and it all started after I installed Dirt 2 and it was the first game it failed on so I uninstalled it from my steam account and it still happens so i'm at a loss, brand new build too. I spoke to a techie and they said it's probaby the memory in the actual card failing and needs to be sent back to place of purchase so thats what I am doing after a month of trilaling different scenarios?? have you tried another card in your system to see if it's anything else besides you GC??
Will let you know how I get on with it, hope you have some luck as I know how damn frusterating it is especially with a new rig.

I RMA'd mine to Newegg and the replacement should be here this coming week.

-Joe

 

[69Rocket-Joe]

OK Now I am getting frustrated. New card arrived from Newegg today. Installed it and the same thing is happening. It loads up Win7 and then the driver recovery thing starts up right away. I don't know what to do now. I'll have to track down another PCIe card to try to see if it is the MB. After all this screwing around I don't know if I can RMA the MB if it is. What a PITA, any other ideas?????

-Joe

 

[isamuelson]

This might sound stupid, but you did hook up the power connectors to the card, right? I know the first time I purchased a video card that required an external power connector from the motherboard, I had problems with the card not working until I discovered that's what I needed to do. I guess if I would had read the instructions, I would have known!

One more thing, what is your power supply rated at? Looking at the video card you purchased, I noticed it requires two 6-pin power connectors.

 

[69Rocket-Joe]

This might sound stupid, but you did hook up the power connectors to the card, right? I know the first time I purchased a video card that required an external power connector from the motherboard, I had problems with the card not working until I discovered that's what I needed to do. I guess if I would had read the instructions, I would have known!

One more thing, what is your power supply rated at? Looking at the video card you purchased, I noticed it requires two 6-pin power connectors.

ha ha, yeah the power is hooked up to it, otherwise I'd get no display at all I imagine!
PSU is a corsair 750tx.

-Joe

 

[69Rocket-Joe]

OK well I just spend about another hour dinking around with the thing. This is what else I tried. I tried different wires from the PSU, I tried the adapter things that came with the GPU, no difference. Tried the second PCIe16 slot, no change. Then for hits and giggles I tried a PCIe8 slot and had the same results. All three slots couldn't be bad on the MB could they?

This is what I am thinking I will try this weekend:
Flash the BIOS
Tweak the RAM timings
Download drivers all over again to make sure I have the newest and a clean DL
Try another fresh install of WIN7
Maybe try an install of XP?
I think I can get another computer that has a single PICe16 slot as well as a 9800gt. I think the 9800gt is fried though as the last time I worked on it I had to use the onboard graphics because the display just died. I can try the 9800 in my system or the 5850 in the other system.

Anything else I could try???

-Joe

 

[69Rocket-Joe]

Well I think I have eliminated the card itself as the issue. I borrowed a 9800GT and it is doing the same thing, only not as frequent. I was able to run Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool which displayed no memory errors. Now what? I have a 450 watt PSU, should I try that? Will that even be enough juice? I suppose if I leave the 9800 in there it should be?

-Joe

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

yes 450 will run a 9800!

 

[tomw1971]

I'm having the exact problem as well. New build ATI 5850, GSkill 4gig, i7 860, and a gigabyte p55m-ud2, win7 x64.

While using windows explorer I frequently get the ati driver to crash and attempt a recovery. However, I played Dragon Age for about an hour w/o any problem.

I've installed the latest Catalyst Drivers as of today.
I'm going to try turning off aero mode in Win7 to see if that's the problem.

-T

 

[isamuelson]

According to a recent article on Tom's Hardware (and other sites), the 5700 and 5800 series of ATI cards have issues that ATI is working on.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ATI-Grey-Screen-Fix-5870,9549.html

I know that it has more to do with grey lines and such, but I wonder if that could be the source of your problems?

 

[FeX_IronC]

same here...one crash per day keeps my Action centre busy. I have a Saphire Radeon 5870 with Windows 7 64bit. Thanks isamuelson for the link, even though I have still no idea what to do.... at least I'm not alone

 

[isamuelson]

same here...one crash per day keeps my Action centre busy. I have a Saphire Radeon 5870 with Windows 7 64bit. Thanks isamuelson for the link, even though I have still no idea what to do.... at least I'm not alone

Unfortunately, I don't think there's much you can do until ATI fixes the issue. However, I suppose the good thing is they are saying it's a software issue and not a hardware issue.

 

[core i7 ownage]

I have HD 5850 running in windows 7. It is a XFX one. I never had issues with them, not even drivers.

 

[69Rocket-Joe]

Unfortunately, I don't think there's much you can do until ATI fixes the issue. However, I suppose the good thing is they are saying it's a software issue and not a hardware issue.

I'll have to try again with 8gb RAM whenever new drivers come out. For now I am happy to be running, even if it is with "just" 4gb RAM.

-Joe

 

[The Hankinator]

Ok, I am having the exact same issue. I'm running windows 7 64 bit. My system will be fine for about 5-10 minutes and then everything locks up, occasionally i will get a driver error message, "the driver AMD has stopped working but has recovered..." But other than that I have to do a hard reset because nothing is responding, not even the mouse. I turned off all Aero functions and that seemed to work for a bit but the lock ups have gotten progressively worse as the day has gone on even without Aero. I can disable the driver and that keeps it from locking up but it makes my card obviously useless. I just built my new machine, I'm using an HIS radeon 5850 in a gigabyte 790fxta-ud5 mb with a phenom II 965and 4gb of g.skill ripjaw series. I tried the hotfix which was posted on 2-5 and that didn't work AT ALL! I've tried reducing the ram speed and that didn't work. It's something in windows 7 but at this point I'm about ready to return the card to newegg for a refund and buy nvidia. HOW DO I FIX THIS!?

 

[al2suarez]

I own Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 Toxic 1GB Video Card as of Friday(3/27/2010). Since then I have been experiencing flickering on my screen constantly. I have already requested an RMA from NewEgg. It seems to get worse when I am scrolling or when I open a game. I am currently running ATI's Driver 10.3. Today I noticed that when I opened CCC's ATI Overdrive that the 'Enable ATI Overdrive' checkbox was CHECKED. That caught my attention because I had not manually checked this checkbox. In the Group Box titled 'Current Values' it states GPU Clock: 240MHz and Memory Clock: 300MHz. Mind you that the flickering is constant. The moment I uncheck the checkbox the flickering instantly STOPS and the Group Box titled 'Current Values' changes to GPU Clock: 400MHz and Memory Clock: 1125MHz. So it appears that the idle settings for the card being that of voltage and other stuff might be TOO LOW. Should I continue with the RMA or could this be a Driver fix??? But wasn't this supposed to have already been fixed on Driver 10.1/10.2?

 

[BlokeUK]

Sounds like everyone here is having same problems as I had.

I tried everything to resolve my problem, RMA was pointless as there is nothing wrong with the hardware it is a driver issue, I would bet that the card will run fine, if not a little slow using the stock Windows 7 VGA driver.

It is also not a Windows 7 problem, I had the same problems running 64 bit Ubuntu.

I am unsure if the problem lies solely with 64 bit Operating system/drivers.

This problem does seem to be more prevalent on Asus motherboards and Sapphire GFX cards, both manufacturers abdicate any responsibility each referring me to the ATI drivers as the problem.

10.3 still does not solve the problem and I have had enough now and will be going to NVidia for my graphics solution.

Amazingly ATI say there is not really a problem as they have not had many reports of this kind of error, sounds like they too want to abdicate responsibility.

This is a shame because ATI cards are priced well and looking at the 5870 against the new NVidia GTX 480/470 cards is able to hold its own drawing a lot less power when idle and at max load.

I would be interested to hear from anyone having this problem on a non Asus mother board running an i7 Lynfield core.

 

[al2suarez]

From AMD...

Dear Customer,

Your service request : SR #{ticketno:[8200297226]} has been reviewed and updated.

Response and Service Request History:

We understand you're having a flickering issue withe the Sapphire HD5850. You have mentioned that the problem goes away if you increase the clock speeds. This shouldn't be the case as the issue should have been resolved with Catalyst 10.2. We would suggest going with warranty service as this could be a hardware issue.

In order to update this service request, please respond, leaving the service request reference intact.

Best regards,

AMD Global Customer Care

From Sapphire...

Sounds like hardware issue with the card, please provide a copy of the purchase receipt and send it to tech@althonmicro.com for RMA service.

To post a response please go to the link below.

Link: http://www.sapphiretech.com/us/support/respondtoticket.php?t=1S53102G52858S53102G1-52858S53102G4835721S53102G2

To create a new topic please go to the link:
Link: Create New Topic.

Thank You

Sapphire Tech Support

Both AMD and Sapphire responded by stating that it is definitely a Hardware issue. I RMA'ed through NewEgg and should be getting my card this coming Monday. I will post my findings but I am positive that it is a Hardware issue.

 

[exm]

Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 / G.Skill Ripsaw 4 Gb / Gigabyte P55A-UD4P / i7 860 / W7 64bit. Same/similar issue. Computer randomly freezes, sometimes with 'display driver crash'. Am running the latest ATI drivers and installed all hot fixes.