HD 4870 Artficating and crashing

S

Scintir

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 29, 2008
Messages
475
Okay, I bought a HD 4870 a while ago and it died on me, then I RMAed it and got a new one. After installing it I also installed a fresh copy of Windows Vista X64 on the system. Since I have done this my system will every once in a while artifact on me and then crash. Recently it has gotten terribly bad and now it is just constantly artifacting and crashing when I play my games (currently L4D). I have gotten the errors IRQL_LESS_OR_NOT_EQUAL which I believe I have fixed, but now I have the error ACPI_INDEX_BREAKING or something like that (This is during a BSOD that I get these). Now my system is overclocked, but it is just the CPU and that has always been stable, I even set it back to defaults and it still does this. Earlier it seemed that my graphics card was just overheating but now I am getting these errors which I cannot seem to get passed. If anyone has any help it would be appreciated, otherwise I am just going to end up spending a few days constantly testing and possibly wasting my time when someone can just fly by with an answer :).


System Specs:
MSI K9A2 Platinum
AMD Phenom X4 9850 @ 3010 MHz
2 X 2GB Mushkin 800MHz RAM
700W Rosewill Power supply
2 X 250GB WD HDD in RAID 0
500GB WD HDD (backup/anime)
Sapphire HD 4870
Creative Xtream Audio (PCI)

Vista Ultimate X64
 
Do you have a secondary rig where you can plug the card and see if something wrong happens too ? Also, have you had hard reboots or were the crashes just to desktop ? Does this happen in all games you've played ? And do you have the latest drivers installed ?

If you are having serious artifacts, it does point to the graphics card, but since this is the second card you're trying, you should eliminate all other possibilities. The wattage on your PSU should be more than enough for your system and you did mention that temperatures are not an issue. You may have had another bad card, with faulty memory.
 
Ya, I just got a secondary rig that I can use for testing (I built this one as well so it should all run smoothly). I was just thinking about hooking it up and testing it in a bit. Also, everytime it crashes it either completely locks up or BSODs on me. This happens to all games I play but recently has been happening to L4D a lot.

Drivers: catalyst 8.11


Now on the graphics cards, my first one just died on me once I installed drivers for it (out of no where it just fried). I tested it as much as possibly but it was definitely dead somehow. Once I got this second one and it started crashing I started messing with the CPU and I set the clock back to default and it still crashed. This basically eliminated that. I reinstalled Vista a few times and it will still do the same thing to me. I assume that this is just another bad card but I hate to hear it. Going 3 weeks without my HD 4870 sucks :(.
 
Unfortunately, that does seem to be another faulty card. But do test on your secondary rig and see what happens.
 
I have done memory test a good while ago (months before) and it seemed fine. I am going to run memtest86 or something like that in a bit and test the RAM one last time, but it all points to a fault card still :(. I would prefer the RAM is bad for I can replace that with ease, but my graphics card will take weeks upon weeks to replace :mad:. So once I get home, I will tell you the results, but it isn't looking good. Thank you for the responses.
 
Make sure that your PSU is not killing your card, you can send the card back but if the PSU is faulty then your next card could as well be killed.
 
How would you suggest I test it? I can tell you the model (Rosewill RX750-D-B 750W). I know Rosewill isn't the best for power supplies, but I am of course poor and they aren't terrible from what I understand. I bought it 4 months ago and it ran my first HD 4870 just fine until at some point it randomly fried it. After that I put in a X700 just for a replacement until I got my HD 4870 back and it seemed fine. Now I am using a 7600GT temporary (extra graphics card laying in my secondary rig) and all seems fine. I guess the next and last thing I can try is to run my HD 4870 in my second rig or my fathers rig (most likely my fathers since I built that recently and it is kind of close to mine, so an easier swap (PS is Rosewill but not same model)).

If you have a way to test it without a kit or anything, that would be awesome, but other than just throwing in hardware and seeing the reaction, I seem to be out of material.


(by the way, I have pictures of the artifacting if that helps, it was the usual checkerboard artifacting and then some weird spike artifacting 0.0. I will post it when I get home).
 
artifacting2qd7.jpg

artifacting3ii9.jpg

artifacting4ge9.jpg


Here are some of the pictures. (hope this resize is fine for you all, not too sure on how small some people desire it).
 
What are your temps on the gpu when gaming BTW? Does it get over 80c when gaming? Might sound crazy but try downclocking both the memory speed and the gpu speed in the CCC panel by 100mhz and see if it still artifacts.
 
Hehe, I thought the temp might be a problem too, but then I manually adjusted the fan speed. At 30% the max it was at was around 65C. Once it started crashing I keep my eye on it and even maxed the fan speed out (temps were around 50C even on max I believe).

I just tested the card on my dad's rig and he also received the artifacting and crashed. I guess it is just a bad card. Thank you all for your responses, now only if I could get on Sapphires website (it is down apparently today -_-) and get an RMA going.
 
Scintir said:
How would you suggest I test it? I can tell you the model (Rosewill RX750-D-B 750W). I know Rosewill isn't the best for power supplies, but I am of course poor and they aren't terrible from what I understand. I bought it 4 months ago and it ran my first HD 4870 just fine until at some point it randomly fried it. After that I put in a X700 just for a replacement until I got my HD 4870 back and it seemed fine. Now I am using a 7600GT temporary (extra graphics card laying in my secondary rig) and all seems fine. I guess the next and last thing I can try is to run my HD 4870 in my second rig or my fathers rig (most likely my fathers since I built that recently and it is kind of close to mine, so an easier swap (PS is Rosewill but not same model)).

If you have a way to test it without a kit or anything, that would be awesome, but other than just throwing in hardware and seeing the reaction, I seem to be out of material.


(by the way, I have pictures of the artifacting if that helps, it was the usual checkerboard artifacting and then some weird spike artifacting 0.0. I will post it when I get home).
Click to expand...
If the X700 has a power connector and it wasn't damaged then I guess that you had a bad luck twice :D
 
Sadly no it doesn't. Pretty much all of my other graphics cards aren't really enthusiast cards. The only cards that have extra power connectors are mine and my dad's. I would prefer not to fry my dad's if possible ^^. So I assume no other way is known on how to test?
 
Scintir said:
Hehe, I thought the temp might be a problem too, but then I manually adjusted the fan speed. At 30% the max it was at was around 65C. Once it started crashing I keep my eye on it and even maxed the fan speed out (temps were around 50C even on max I believe).

I just tested the card on my dad's rig and he also received the artifacting and crashed. I guess it is just a bad card. Thank you all for your responses, now only if I could get on Sapphires website (it is down apparently today -_-) and get an RMA going.
Click to expand...

Definitely a bad card. Go ahead and RMA it.
 
My Sapphire 4850 was doing the same thing, I RMA it, it was bad memory on the card that was the problem
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top