PowerColor HD 4670 - Crash at SOME games

[papa_minhocas]

Hello everyone!

I want to ask if someone can help me with this BIG problem.
I have an ATI HD 4670 1gb ddr3 powercolor, since almost 2 years ago, i didn't put anything new on my computer, and now like 3 or 4 months ago it starts to CRASH at some games, BF2, BFH are some examples of the games that IT DONT crash, Sniper Ghost Warrior, Pes2011 are the examples of the games THAT CRASH!

So, i have tried this:

- I use diferent drivers, the OLDEST, the NEWEST and nothing happends.
- I CLEAN all the dust on the grafic card and try drivers again and NOTHING.
- I changed DVI to VGA and try drivers and once again... NOTHING... STILL CRASHESSSSS.
- I decided that my PowerSuply was poblem, cause it was only 420W and i bought a 650W TODAY... well i still get the crashes.

Well i did everything, what can i do now? Get a hammer and destroy hd4670?

I hope you guys can help me

 

[Psychoteddy]

Go into your Catalyst Control Center and use default settings for everything. Try this out first.

Next, for the games that are crashing, turn the graphics options down. Do they work?

If turning the graphics options down works then there is a certain graphical feature (ie - certain type of AA, AF, etc) that is causing your driver to crash. Try updating your drivers.

 

[wiinippongamer]

Try uninstalling your drivers and cleaning all the leftovers under safe mode with driver sweeper ( download it from Guru3D). Then install the newest drivers. If that don't solve it then try a clean install.

Is the crash a BSOD or it just crashes to desktop then show driver recovery error?

 

[papa_minhocas]

Hey guys.
Games when crash, im FORCED to reboot computer, thats the only way to i get out of the crash
At minimun settings it crash anyway... i have updated drivers i already told you guys that, i clean the oldest and install the newest... IM TIRED of this crashes guys!

 

[Psychoteddy]

I wasn't saying to turn down the graphical options in the game, I was saying to go into your driver settings in Catalyst Control Center and reset everything to defaults.

 

[papa_minhocas]

I know i did that too...

 

[Psychoteddy]

What are your system specs? Processor, Mobo, RAM, Hard Drive(s), etc.

 

[papa_minhocas]

Core 2 Duo 4400, Asus p5kpl, 4gb kingston ddr2 800mhz HyperX, 3 hardrives (500, 80 and 160gb) and the rest are gamers things like mouse, keyboard, etc.

I never get that crashes and i got card at 2 years, only some months ago he start, dont say thats my PC fault, im almost sure that is the grafic card the facult one!

 

[r-sky]

I had crashes in some games before... froze with sound in a loop. re-installed the sound driver and it went away. Don't know why this worked but it did for me.

 

[Psychoteddy]

With the equipment you're running and the power you were running, I have little doubt that you fried the graphics card. 420W is not enough power to run all of those components simultaneously, and over the course of two years it's likely that you permanently damaged the card, and possibly other things. Buying a new power supply prevented further damage but I think it's too late for the GPU.

Using a crude power calculator tool on the internet, assuming you haven't overclocked anything, you'd be looking at a peak power consumption of 489W. As most people here know, PSUs (especially cheap ones) do not always deliver near their advertised power, so you were running the system at dangerous levels of power draw. If you can, try throwing the card into another computer and see if it works. If not, then the card is fried.

Sorry to tell you that. I wish I could have caught it sooner so we didn't have to lead you on.

Use it as a reason to get a shiny new GFX card

 

[papa_minhocas]

I hate when you guys dont read what i say!
i bought a 650W TODAY... well i still get the crashes. DAMN

And please and a Information professional, dont come with stupid replys, your here to help dont say stupid things...

Card is fried omg... and only work on some games LoooooL

 

[papa_minhocas]

r sky is problably right, when my brother installed sound drivers pc start crashing, i will test that now...

 

[Psychoteddy]

Listen, I've been an IT professional for five years, buddy. It doesn't matter if you bought a new one, the old PSU permanently damaged your GPU. It's like buying new tires to fix a wrecked car.

Allow me to point out who is asking who for help here...

 

[Psychoteddy]

If you knew anything about GPU architecture you'd know that there are certain parts of the GPU die that perform certain tasks, along with other ICs and circuits on the board that assist with those functions. If the program is calling for a certain set of instructions (like a certain type of rendering), that (damaged) part of the chipset becomes active and crashes the whole thing either because it can't process what it's being told or because it puts out garbage.

 

[papa_minhocas]

I dont know why, but i put drivers 9.3 and i play for like 1 hour and a bit.
Then crash... the other times was crashing at 5 minutes of playing... is something wrong here...

 

[Psychoteddy]

is something wrong here...

You may want to consider what I'm telling you... I've been an IT guy for five years professionally, but I've been working on computers my entire life. I've seen this a million times before. People upgrading their GFX cards without upgrading power supplies is one of the leading causes of system failure among inexperienced PC modders.

The failures will seem random and without rhyme or reason in some cases, in others it will present itself under certain conditions. I had a rig one time where one of my clients had his system "professionally overclocked" and fried his GPU. It would work on BF 1942 for anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour and die, but on other games it worked like a charm. Replacing the ailing old Radeon with a new 3670 fixed the issue and made it work like a charm.

 

[wiinippongamer]

Unless the 420w is a generic one, it should be more than enough for running his entire system, I don't think that's the cause of it.

Did you try with the audio drivers already?

Try a clean install as a last resource, if it's still got the problem after that then it could in fact be the card that went bad.

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

The other thing to check, what kind of temps is the card running? Is the fan spinning on your card? It's possible the card is fried, but usually I would think the card would fail totally. Also I think the 4670 is made to be a low power card. I would consider seeing what temps look like first, speedfan is a good program for that. Also, I'd say dust out your gpu fan, maybe install a pci slot cooler fan under your card.

Have you tried a clean install of windows? May consider that too. But considering the card will run some 3d apps, I would doubt the card is dead.

 

[wiinippongamer]

Use HW monitor if you're going to check temps, SpeedFan tends to be quite inaccurate.

I don't think it's the temps because it only crashes on some games, looks more like a driver confict than anything else

 

[papa_minhocas]

Temps are max 70º

 

[wiinippongamer]

Not the temps then.

Try clean install and if still crashes your card's messed up.

 

[papa_minhocas]

Damn ATI !!!!!
I clean install i do everything but ti still crash...
I have waranty of the grafic card, but i dont have cash to go to the shop... and im sure they will test it and say that grafic card are ok and f... my life

 

[Psychoteddy]

Would ya look at that, I was right...

 

[T@MeR]

all respect to all members of tom's hardware , i have stumbled across this thread when i was googling mine , and when i found a solution i thought i should share it , its rather simple , use MSI afterburner and lower the clock to 700 MHz and it won't happen again , catalyst won't do it , so afterburner is the option , please let me know if it solved your problem , it solved mine .

 

[papa_minhocas]

Memory Clock or Core Clock?

How about fan speed?