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Alright, here's the deal, I've had this card since about November and I have run into various issues that I always assumed was overheating. Every once in a while I would be playing a game and all of a sudden the screen would go black sound would loop and eventually I would require a hard restart. It didn't do this in all games. For the most part I was playing BF2142 and BF2 and I never had a problem with those games so I let it slide.
However, I recently installed Bioshock, Dead Space and Mass Effect, and the problem came back, only worse. Bioshock will give me crashes in consistent places. Dead Space will allow me to play for roughly 10 minutes before crashing, and I have played Mass Effect for several hours straight with absolutely no problems.
I also recently installed The Sims 3 and I am seeing lockups anywhere between 5 minutes to 30 minutes.
Now, I know this absolutely is not an overheating problem. I ran furmark on my card and it was stable. I changed the cooler to a vf-900, ran furmark again got lower temperatures and it was still stable. However, I get crashes in all the crashy games with either cooler.
Crashes can be either a black screen, a colored screen with vertical lines or even a bsod on occasion.
I recently installed Windows 7 and I thought it could be a driver issue, however, on a whim, I tried underclocking my card to 500/700 for gaming and all my woes went away. I should not have to underclock my card in order for it to be stable. It should run stable at stock speeds if there is no heat issue (which there isn't). Is there anything else I can try other than an RMA? I have tested my memory, my cpu and everything else I can think of. My system runs every stability test I throw at it without a hitch, but put it in a gaming situation and it chokes.
Obviously, the card works in BF2/2142 and Mass Effect. All the other games cause me nothing but frustration when I realize I haven't saved yet.
Sorry if that was long and rambling. If you need any more info or I forgot anything, please let me know. Here are my system specs for reference.
P5Q-Pro
Q6600 (Overclocked to 3.2. Running at stock speeds changes nothing)
Visiontek 4850
Antec EA650 650W
2x1GB g.skill ddr2 800
2x1GB Corsair ddr2 800(computer still crashes with only one set of ram in. have tried both)
Windows 7 64bit
However, I recently installed Bioshock, Dead Space and Mass Effect, and the problem came back, only worse. Bioshock will give me crashes in consistent places. Dead Space will allow me to play for roughly 10 minutes before crashing, and I have played Mass Effect for several hours straight with absolutely no problems.
I also recently installed The Sims 3 and I am seeing lockups anywhere between 5 minutes to 30 minutes.
Now, I know this absolutely is not an overheating problem. I ran furmark on my card and it was stable. I changed the cooler to a vf-900, ran furmark again got lower temperatures and it was still stable. However, I get crashes in all the crashy games with either cooler.
Crashes can be either a black screen, a colored screen with vertical lines or even a bsod on occasion.
I recently installed Windows 7 and I thought it could be a driver issue, however, on a whim, I tried underclocking my card to 500/700 for gaming and all my woes went away. I should not have to underclock my card in order for it to be stable. It should run stable at stock speeds if there is no heat issue (which there isn't). Is there anything else I can try other than an RMA? I have tested my memory, my cpu and everything else I can think of. My system runs every stability test I throw at it without a hitch, but put it in a gaming situation and it chokes.
Obviously, the card works in BF2/2142 and Mass Effect. All the other games cause me nothing but frustration when I realize I haven't saved yet.
Sorry if that was long and rambling. If you need any more info or I forgot anything, please let me know. Here are my system specs for reference.
P5Q-Pro
Q6600 (Overclocked to 3.2. Running at stock speeds changes nothing)
Visiontek 4850
Antec EA650 650W
2x1GB g.skill ddr2 800
2x1GB Corsair ddr2 800(computer still crashes with only one set of ram in. have tried both)
Windows 7 64bit