Sapphire Radeon 7850 1GB Consistant "Blue Screen Of Dead"

[Augman11]

i recently purchased a Sapphire 7850 1GB OC edition along with a new corsair TX650 to power it. my other specs should be listed elsewhere. the issue is that is seems a little unstable. noticeably in games that max out my card. (BF3 on ultra, and TombRaider maxed out)

when in thw windows environment, or doing very easy applications that do not require the GPU, OR when i play games such as NFS shift 2 which the 7850 runs at capped 60FPS (where usage is around 80% and temps are around 50-55 degrees Celsius.) the card runs stable, with very few hick-ups.

However when running games such as BF3 on ultra, OR tombraidier on ultra (40-50FPS with 100% usage and temps around 60 degrees Celsius, which is within reason) i get BSOD within a couple hours, if not more. a couple CTD (crash to desktop) and a couple Bluescreens within a couple hours of maxed out gameplay has proven to be quite the pain in the arse. its annoying, and i see no reason for it.

Before anyone says drivers, i have catalyst 13.4 (the latest drivers OTHER than BETA drivers, which i have not tried) so even if the drivers are the cause, it shouldn't be, because they are the new refined ones, and i don't have many options otherwise.

The ONLY other thought (other than drivers) i had, was an un-stable overclock from the OC edition card. however, its only running at 900MHZ compared to the stock 860MHZ Core clock speed, and the memory clock speed was left untoched over the OC edition, which is a very minimal overclock, and i don't see how it could cause issues. i COULD downclock it a bit back to its non OC state of 860MHZ just to see... but it just seems wrong that such a minimal overclock could be the cause, but i have seen it before.

All drivers are up-to-date as far as i know, and i uninstalled my previous catalyst before re-installing 13.4.

Any help is appreciated.

 

[popatim]

900 is the factory clock speed and sapphire should support that but it certainly cant hurt to back it down to non-OC and see what happens.

 

[Augman11]

900 is the factory clock speed and sapphire should support that but it certainly cant hurt to back it down to non-OC and see what happens.

Thx for the reply, I just tried lower clock speeds (after stock failed, i tried even lower than stock) with the same results .
So i think we can rule out unstable overclock as an issue. What else can i do? Thanks in advance to everyone!

 

[Augman11]

Did you run driver sweeper or do an equivalent manual uninstall of your old drivers like this:
http://www.overclock.net/t/988215/how-to-properly-uninstall-ati-amd-software-drivers-for-graphics-cards

If you did and you're getting GPU-related BSODs at stock, you may need to RMA your card.

Thanks for the link, i had previously just done an uninstall of catalyst and its drivers via revo uninstaller, and i never went as in-depth as the sweep that your link presented. I did the sweep according to your link and left my card clocks at its stock factory OC settings.

today i have had multiple blue screens BEFORE i did the driver sweep, and after the sweep i have not had one tonight yet *knock on wood* sometimes they didn't happen right away, so im going to give it some time, and report back once i know for sure its gone or not. if its not fixed by this, then i will RMA the card as you suggested. thanks again for the help.

 

[Xavier Tan Sync]

Did you tried to change to your onboard card and see if theres BSOD coming up? And if you got any spare RAM's , try to change and see if there's any BSOD prompting.

 

[Augman11]

Did you tried to change to your onboard card and see if theres BSOD coming up? And if you got any spare RAM's , try to change and see if there's any BSOD prompting.

I had the previous rig setup with the exact same parts except the new videocard. i had an old 5770 in it with no BSOD ever.. i changed nothing but the videocard so i am pretty certain the new videocard has something to do with it lol (or drivers of course)

however i have done the driver sweep suggested to me above and it has been working so far *knock on wood* but its only been last night and this morning, so im going to keep using it until im sure its gone or not.
Thx for the reply

 

[Xavier Tan Sync]

if there's any problem, it would your gpu problem.

 

[Mouldread]

I know you pointed out that your GPU only gets to about 60 degrees under stress but I still think your problems are related to overheating. I just think that those 60 degrees might not be the actual readings.

Have you tried removing the heatsink from the GPU cleaning the old themral paste and reapplying new one? Give it a try and let us know if it helped.

P.S. I'm running a HD6950 2GB on my system and after 2-3 months temps start to rise due to build up fluff bunnies (open case next to a open window) so I have to clean the fan and the radiator using a brush and a can of compressed air.

 

[Augman11]

^ This makes no sense at all given what OP said and given that a clean driver install seems to have helped. 60C is downright cold by GPU load temp standards.

OP, do NOT mess around with remounting your cooler. It voids your warranty (yes I know sometimes you can do it and get away with it anyways) and is almost certainly not an issue.

Yeah i believe the full driver sweep fixed the GPU issue, afterwhich i had just a couple lock-ups (NOT BSOD) which required a re-boot, but i think that was separate from the original problem, zero blue screens in 3 or 4 days of moderate usage, so i believe the problem is gone, and i would like to thank you BigMack70.