Problems with Visiontek 4850 HD

E

Eihli

Gawd
Joined
Nov 20, 2003
Messages
610
I replaced my 8800GTX after receiving the nvlddkdm.sys error in Vista-64. I re-formatted my hard drive, installed the 4850, installed the corresponding drivers, and booted up.

I've been using it for around a week...
I also have been crashing repeatedly in almost any game I run with the ATI card. I'm talking about every 5 minutes, or sometimes even before I'm able to log on. It's absolutely ridiculous. And my 8800GTX got better frames per second and was able to run higher AA/AF playable, there's no doubt about it.

I've tried ATI's 8.9 drivers, their 8.8 drivers, their 8.7 drivers, and their 8.5 drivers. None seem to have any effect.

Even more strange is what happened when I tried to overclock my 4850. I open CCC and notice the idle temps are 80c*+ which is supposedly normal at stock fan speeds, so I increase the fan speed to 38% causing temps drop to the low 60c*s, but even then I was unable to get even the smallest overclock on that card.

I tried increasing the clock speed by 5mhz and the screen would go green/black and lock up. When I say no overclock worked, I mean no overclock. Anything I did made the card even more unstable.

It's not my PSU as I've got a 700w and had no problems running the 8800gtx which takes more power. I doubled checked to make sure the 6 pin molex plug was in snug, and it was. It was seated properly and I checked my RAM and it's fine. My motherboard is a nForce680i with the latest drivers.

Anyhow, I've gone back to my nVidia 8800gtx and all the crashes have stopped. It'll probably be the last ATI card I buy because I'm even more frustrated with it than having my entire system get wiped by the nvlddkdm.sys error with the 8800gtx, because at least the 8800 worked for almost a year before screwing up. And from what I've seen, in-game when the 4850 actually ran something for more than 15 minutes, it was just plain inferior to my old video card.
 
This is so weird. It's stable at 500/993 (Default speeds) but as soon as I overclock to 505/993 I get a straight blue/green screen on both monitors. Sometimes a pure black out.

There's no minor artifacting or anything, it just skips straight to a completely blackout.. and over such a miniscule overclock to. I'm really lost here... Something has to be wrong, somewhere.

Temperatures don't have any effect on it either.
It's stable at 500/993 at 80*c but unstable at 505/933 at 55*c if I increase fan speed.

Like I said, I've flashed my BIOS, tried every driver including the leaked ones. It's still not taking this overclock. Had 8gb of ram, took 2 sticks out and knocked it down to 4...and still unstable.

I have absolutely no idea what could cause this.
 
The main concern is the " nvlddkdm.sys " under windows with your 8800GTX. I had a 8800GTX and now Visiontek 4850 and I never experienced that issue nor am I experiencing those symptoms is Vista 64.
Both problems can be caused by system memory. Are you overclocking the rest of your machine? What memory, type, settings, voltage are you running at? Have you tried running memtest?
Not to burst your bubble but 8800GTX to a HD4850 is more of a side upgrade. In many of my games the performance is close but when I crank up the 8X AA I noticed the HD4850 does a better job of keeping up. However, I grabbed the HD4850 for a 100$ (Bestbuy 149-50$ gift card) and sold my 8800GTX so it was a wash for me.
A better upgrade would have been a 260 GTX or HD4870. However, you need to correct your current problem before I would recommend another card.
 
It's possible the .dll error with the Nvidia card and the crashes with the ATI card are related.. Maybe the cards just react differently to whatever the underlying problem is.

I mean, if I started getting weird error messages or crashes with my 4850, I wouldn't run out and buy a 9800GTX and hope it would go away...then blame the Geforce card if I still encountered problems. I'd try to find out what's actually wrong before swapping any hardware.

Fan speed of 38% is fine for 2D mode, but in 3D mode you need more. The fan is temperature auto controlled by default and by locking it at 38%, you're preventing it from reaching the higher 45%+ that might be needed when running games. You need to set up a dynamic fan profile in Rivatuner or manually increase the fan speed to something higher when running games.

However, you should leave the card at its default speeds and leave the fan in Auto mode until you've solved the problems! By overclocking the card when the system is already acting weird you're just making it harder to troubleshoot. Same if you're overclocking the CPU or using more aggresive memory timings than those specified in SPD.

Check the stability of your system - in particular, RAM and CPU. Stressprime should be able to run overnight on all cores without crashing or encountering any problems. Bled is good for testing RAM, though there are also specific programs for testing RAM for errors.
 
Nothing is overclocked. The 8800gtx just started causing me problems out of the blue when nothing in my setup had changed.

I had 8gb but then downsized to 4gb. I also swapped the ram out to test for faulty RAM and there was nothing there.

I bought the 4850 because it had looked like it fried, it started acting weird and blinking/flickering and then the BSODs every 5 minutes happened. I did quite a bit of research and nvdlddkdm.sys is a driver error caused by nvidia's drivers clashing with vista x64.

I think I started getting the error when windows auto-updated me to the latest nvidia drivers, or somewhere around that time. The ATI card isn't like that though, it only gets finicky when I try to overclock and it's crashing in Warhammer Online which is known for its crashes.

Just disappointed because with the 8800 I never crashed in WAR.
 
I had the same setup 8800GTX in Vista 64 and never had that issue. I have seen other people indicate they had that same error but it was resolved with a memory change for some people. I also had a friend with a 9600GT experience the same issue but after I asked what memory he was running it turns out he was running Ballistix, same stuff as I had, but only at 1.8V vs the 2.1v recommended. Since that change he hasn't seen the issue.

What type and settings do you have your system memory at? SPD? Stock Volts?
 
Everything is stock. BIOS is still at default.

Memory is 1.7-1.9v but keep in mind that this comp was fine for well over a year and I built it the day 8800Gtxs were released.

I never had a problem until now, and I'm more concerned with getting this 4850 running smoothly which it isn't. unfortunately.

I bought the 4850 just as a replacement, not an upgrade. I'll invest a ton of money into a video card whenever I feel I need to upgrade... and I think the 4850 is plenty for now.
 
What other memory settings are you running? Typically high performance DDR2 memory requires 2.0V, but I do understand your probably running 2GB Sticks, still you should double check your memory settings.

As you mentioned you started having nvidia driver reboot issue prior to the video card replacement, so it could be very well that you had a problem from day one or your memory is becoming less stable over time.

I understand your frustation but from your post I read:
Eihli said:
I replaced my 8800GTX after receiving the nvlddkdm.sys error in Vista-64. I re-formatted my hard drive, installed the 4850, installed the corresponding drivers, and booted up.

I've been using it for around a week...
I also have been crashing repeatedly in almost any game I run with the ATI card. I'm talking about every 5 minutes, or sometimes even before I'm able to log on. It's absolutely ridiculous. And my 8800GTX got better frames per second and was able to run higher AA/AF playable, there's no doubt about it.

I've tried ATI's 8.9 drivers, their 8.8 drivers, their 8.7 drivers, and their 8.5 drivers. None seem to have any effect.

Even more strange is what happened when I tried to overclock my 4850. I open CCC and notice the idle temps are 80c*+ which is supposedly normal at stock fan speeds, so I increase the fan speed to 38% causing temps drop to the low 60c*s, but even then I was unable to get even the smallest overclock on that card.

I tried increasing the clock speed by 5mhz and the screen would go green/black and lock up. When I say no overclock worked, I mean no overclock. Anything I did made the card even more unstable.

It's not my PSU as I've got a 700w and had no problems running the 8800gtx which takes more power. I doubled checked to make sure the 6 pin molex plug was in snug, and it was. It was seated properly and I checked my RAM and it's fine. My motherboard is a nForce680i with the latest drivers.

Anyhow, I've gone back to my nVidia 8800gtx and all the crashes have stopped. It'll probably be the last ATI card I buy because I'm even more frustrated with it than having my entire system get wiped by the nvlddkdm.sys error with the 8800gtx, because at least the 8800 worked for almost a year before screwing up. And from what I've seen, in-game when the 4850 actually ran something for more than 15 minutes, it was just plain inferior to my old video card.
Click to expand...

Hence from this post I'm reading you had a problem with your former card, bought a HD 4850 hoping it would fix a different issue, and you are not satisfied with the performance.

My conclusion is you have underlying system issues outside of the video card, which causes you stability problems with both, and your expecting to much from the HD4850 if you think once working it's going to knock the socks of your 8800GTX.

I agree the 8800GTX is an old card but at the same time it was high end at one time and your buying midrange today. The 8800GTX still keeps up with the 9800GTX and etc which is the competitor to the HD4850. So if you went and swapped out for a Nvidia 9800GT/X you would still not see a big boost in performance. You need to look at the higher end cards if you want to see a big boost in performance.

Either case I'll let this thread go as you appear you isolated your problem to the ATI card and want to only make changes to that specifically, and as you noticed changing drivers isn't doing you any good.



Good luck.
 
Igestle, my memory is G-skill and is meant to be run at low voltage (1.7-1.9). I could raise the voltage a bit, if it's safe.

I don't feel like reformatting again, which is the only way to get my 8800gtx to work. I reformatted last time, I plugged the 8800 back in and it worked fine for two days then the problems started re-appearing.

Either all my memory is bad, or none of it is, because I've tried the different DIMM slots and the different sticks and the issue persists.
 
Yes I flashed my bios yesterday.

It's funny that I can overclock in Rivatuner and get stable at pretty decent speeds, or that's what it looks like. I've yet to run any intensive benchmarks.

However, I can't even get a 5mhz overclock in CCC using ATI overdrive. It has to be a problem with x64 compatibility or something with CCC, if Rivatuner is working fine.
 
Did you manually enter the memory timings in the bios? If so what are they configured as?
If your memory is designed at low voltage keep them there at spec. On intel boards you occasionally need to add additional voltage to the northbridge to handle the extra sticks but I'm unsure about the nvidia chipset boards.
I'm running vista 64 and CC and I ran autotune and it picked up 700/1140. As others have mentioned don't start overclocking the card until we correct your stability problem.
I have seen systems pass memtest but still have memory issue. Same goes for CPUs passing prime but failing in certain games. It's a great place to start but we need to continue in that area.
Might help if you post your hardware.
 
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