Faulty Radeon HD 6850

[Lazar_99]

Ok so i bought a Powercolor Radeon HD 6850 for a low price of 135$ and when i installed it on my rig to test it on a few games there was a problem... The worst possible thing that anyone could have is that.... I have no performance at all. Any game which i test lags to the point of where i can't even exit the game normally and have to alt+f4 or worse restart the PC. I can't think of anything that could cause all of this. I installed the drivers from the CD which came with the card and even updated the graphics drivers and no change. The card by the looks like its working fine, fans spinning, the temp is normal. I had no problems with my old geforce gt 240 1gb gddr5 which i have about 2 and a half years. I have a 550W PSU so that couldn't possibly be the problem or then again maybe it is since i bought it in 2009 with my GT 240. My other specs are: AMD Athlon II X3 450 CPU 3.2 GHz
8gb of Kingston hyperX DDR3 ram
Biostar N68S3+

 

[reprotected]

You can try reinstalling your drivers, or checking to see if your card is overheating (use GPU-Z).

 

[Lazar_99]

You can try reinstalling your drivers, or checking to see if your card is overheating (use GPU-Z).

I already said i checked to see if it was overheating and it wasn't. i tried reinstalling the drivers and i still have no performance. I tried playing nfs most wanted and i get a miserable slow motion gameplay

 

[Plasmid]

Ok so i bought a Powercolor Radeon HD 6850 for a low price of 135$ and when i installed it on my rig to test it on a few games there was a problem... The worst possible thing that anyone could have is that.... I have no performance at all. Any game which i test lags to the point of where i can't even exit the game normally and have to alt+f4 or worse restart the PC. I can't think of anything that could cause all of this. I installed the drivers from the CD which came with the card and even updated the graphics drivers and no change. The card by the looks like its working fine, fans spinning, the temp is normal. I had no problems with my old geforce gt 240 1gb gddr5 which i have about 2 and a half years. I have a 550W PSU so that couldn't possibly be the problem or then again maybe it is since i bought it in 2009 with my GT 240. My other specs are: AMD Athlon II X3 450 CPU 3.2 GHz
8gb of Kingston hyperX DDR3 ram
Biostar N68S3+

It's either your psu or your gpu. If your gpu is defective maybe you'll think next time about buying a cheap brand.

 

[bkoop]

Some people have forgotten to plug the power connector into the top of the card, did you check that?

 

[Lazar_99]

It's either your psu or your gpu. If your gpu is defective maybe you'll think next time about buying a cheap brand.

I tried replacing the PSU, i have a 500W in my other pc so that also didn't work. If i can't fix this i'll return this and buy an evga GTX 560

 

[Lazar_99]

Some people have forgotten to plug the power connector into the top of the card, did you check that?

You mean the 6pin power connector? I did and i know that without it the card wouldn't even start let alone run a game

 

[Plasmid]

You mean the 6pin power connector? I did and i know that without it the card wouldn't even start let alone run a game

That once happened to me with a hd 4850 and the pc did not even post xD

 

[Lazar_99]

That once happened to me with a hd 4850 and the pc did not even post xD

See. the evga GTX 460 1gb was 135$ in december 2011 but at that time i didn't have enough money so why would you think powercolor is bad? oh and btw i'm definetly gonna return this card and get either the GTX 460 or the 560

 

[Soarixay]

I don't think Powercolor is a bad brand to be honest. Did you overclock the card? What are the specs on core clock, memory and voltage? Does it change while you play?

 

[Plasmid]

See. the evga GTX 460 1gb was 135$ in december 2011 but at that time i didn't have enough money so why would you think powercolor is bad? oh and btw i'm definetly gonna return this card and get either the GTX 460 or the 560

Well I usually read the ratings off the product and if there are any bad onea then I look to see how the brand manufacturer responded. If I see that the response from the card maker was bad then I usually say that brand is bad. I also look at the star rating when buying something.

For example I've seen people post in the ratings section that their EVGA card died, but almost all of them say that the RMA process very good and that they got a working replacement.

On the other hand I've seen people complain about how useless rma process is with Sapphire. Had my hd 4850 fan die while still under warranty. Contacted them and they told me that I had to pay them some random fee besides the shipping to the spot to get the card's fan fixed.

EVGA GTX 460 1gb v2 SC edition 140 dlls on amazon with shipping and taxes included

EVGA GTX 560 SC edition on amazon with shipping and taxes included for 173 dlls

 

[Lazar_99]

I don't think Powercolor is a bad brand to be honest. Did you overclock the card? What are the specs on core clock, memory and voltage? Does it change while you play?

Hell no i haven't overclocked it. In fact i suck at overclocking because i always *** up so i don't do that stuff. I remembered the time i tried overclocking the cpu and had to clear the CMOS for the PC to work normal again.
The core clock on the 6850 is 775 MHz and its memory clock is 1000MHz (4.0Gbps)
Nothing special was done to the card really. Its straight out of the box and into the PC. I unistalled the nvidia drivers and later i reinstalled my OS which again resulted in failure. I had windows 7 and i tried XP and vista and still nothing. This is definitely a hardware issue. When playing nfs most wanted with it it kinda reminded me of the film "apocalypse" The horror.... The horror.... horror. Or one of my other components don't recognize it or is rejecting it lol

 

[Soarixay]

lol, okay what is the fps your getting in game? What kind of usage % are you reading off the card while you are playing?

 

[Lazar_99]

lol, okay what is the fps your getting in game? What kind of usage % are you reading off the card while you are playing?

graphics usage 100%
CPU usage: 40%
and fps is about 15-20 its kinda humiliating since this game is from 2005. When i put the old GT 240 back it works the same as before

 

[Soarixay]

What band of PSU do you have? Downgrading the wattage doesn't really help in troubleshooting these situations. Did you try overclocking the card to meet the performance you need? Open up CCC, the 6850 usually overclocks very well, I've had mine clock up to 925/1126 1.175v in order to hit my preference for games like Arkham Asylum which is somewhat old. What games are you playing?

If I were you, I'd try for a stable 825+ core clock range and if your still having problems then return it and grab a 560 which is an upgrade anyway.

 

[Lazar_99]

What band of PSU do you have? Downgrading the wattage doesn't really help in troubleshooting these situations. Did you try overclocking the card to meet the performance you need? Open up CCC, the 6850 usually overclocks very well, I've had mine clock up to 925/1126 1.175v in order to hit my preference for games like Arkham Asylum which is somewhat old. What games are you playing?

If I were you, I'd try for a stable 825+ core clock range and if your still having problems then return it and grab a 560 which is an upgrade anyway.

like i said before i don't do overclocking.
The PSU brand is LC power. As i also said before i tried on a different psu and got same results. My friend uses it on a 350W PSU.

 

[Soarixay]

I didn't suggest another PSU but I was curious as to what brand you were using. I clearly stated that downgrading the wattage doesn't really help because you mentioned you have a 550w and tried it on a 500w. I also recognized your statement about not wanting to overclock, but it was a last ditch suggestion.

When you try troubleshooting the PSU it is best to try a higher wattage rather than a lower because your current one may not be putting out enough. If you check around there are clearly experiences where people have used 600w or greater but low quality PSU's and had problems until they used one that put out more so it is always a possibility. Then again you can use a lower wattage that is of quality brand that could work better than a generic one, it all depends. But it is best to kill two birds with one stone and check for both.
An interesting thread about LC Power (not yours but still interesting about that brand)
http://www.jonnyguru.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5172

Enjoy your 560 when you grab one, it's a good card

 

[Lazar_99]

I didn't suggest another PSU but I was curious as to what brand you were using. I clearly stated that downgrading the wattage doesn't really help because you mentioned you have a 550w and tried it on a 500w. I also recognized your statement about not wanting to overclock, but it was a last ditch suggestion.

When you try troubleshooting the PSU it is best to try a higher wattage rather than a lower because your current one may not be putting out enough. If you check around there are clearly experiences where people have used 600w or greater but low quality PSU's and had problems until they used one that put out more so it is always a possibility. Then again you can use a lower wattage that is of quality brand that could work better than a generic one, it all depends. But it is best to kill two birds with one stone and check for both.
An interesting thread about LC Power (not yours but still interesting about that brand)
http://www.jonnyguru.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5172

Enjoy your 560 when you grab one, it's a good card

what i wanted to do was to replace the PSU to see if my 550W has weakened. the 500W one was just a couple of weeks old and i was curious is the power supply bad.
i'm returning this card and taking the GTX 460 or 560. both cards are from evga and if the gtx 460 is 150$ or under i'll go with it then. and i'll only take the 560 if its under 190$