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XFX 5850..dies again

D

danlineberger

n00b
Joined
Feb 12, 2007
Messages
39
Back in January I ordered the XFX 5850 below...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150477

Within 2 days of receiving it, the card stopped working while playing BC2. Turned off the computer and I could not boot...just a red light next to the card on my MB. Put in my old 8600 and it came back to life. Paid to ship the card back to Newegg and waited for my new one. Got the new one in and it ran fine for almost a month.

Started to play BC2 and the screen froze with vertical brown bars. Could not exit out so I shut the computer off. Rebooted..lo and behold get the same red led and no graphics. Spoke with Newegg...no help as it is 13 days out of the return window. Gave me the number to XFX...off for President's Day.

I am really thinking about switching to another brand...
 
What are the rest of your system specs? You might have a dodgy PSU or something like that.
 
I'm with samuelmorris. In all my years of computer building most problems I find of toasted mobos, vid cards, ram, etc. seem to boil down to Power Supplies that are overworked or of poor quality. Not that I'm saying that's exactly what's going on in your case but might be worth a look.

The 5850's a great card, I didn't use one for more than maybe 6 months but it was a good experience overall with no problems at all.
 
Intel i5 2500k
Asus P8P67 Pro
8 gig G Skill Sniper 1600
XFX HD5850
WD 1Tb Caviar Black
Cooler Master Hyper 212+
LG Blu-Ray
Antec Earthwatts 500

1st card ran for about 2 days..this one ran about a month.
 
Ah an early SB adopter! It's funny I have this awesome Asus Pci-e Wireless N card that's been flawless since day one; after installing the p8p67 pro I have to pull it due to it dropping signal constantly.

I'd take a look at the power supply still; have anything better/bigger available?
 
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Why are you using such an old PSU on an otherwise modern system? You must be drawing at least 400W of load, since the CPU and video card by themselves can draw 300W together...
 
The 500W Earthwatts is a good unit and more than capable of running an HD5850, but if the cards are failing that quickly, something is amiss somewhere. You have presumably verified that the broken 5850 also doesn't work in a different board?
 
IMHO An earthwatt 500 is no where near enough power to run everything, i agree with everyone else. I'd upgrade your PSU. Suppying to much power and not enough power both create a heat issue. Get at least a 650+
 
power-load.gif

Factor in efficiency and that's 210-220W DC coming out of the unit, with a Core i7 965 extreme in the test system.
 
Psu degrade over time. However it shouldn't be psu fault in this case.

Should do clean format to remove all traces of nvidia drivers.
Posted via Mobile Device
 
I don't think nvidia drivers are going to be hardware failing the card :p
That's always a good precaution though when switching graphics brands.
 
Have you tested the HD5850 in another computer postmortem to see if it comes back from the dead?

jeremyshaw said:
Should do clean format to remove all traces of nvidia drivers.
Posted via Mobile Device
Click to expand...
If the card is physically dead, then I can guarantee you that won't help anything.
 
Unknown-One said:
Have you tested the HD5850 in another computer postmortem to see if it comes back from the dead?


If the card is physically dead, then I can guarantee you that won't help anything.
Click to expand...

ah, was reading on my celly earlier, I'm sorry :(
 
Please put in a support ticket on our website and shoot me a PM with the ticket ID. If you give us a ring tomorrow when the phones open up then we can get that taken care of pretty quickly for you. I obviously work with a lot of cards and can add another account that when you have cards failing back to back it is almost always a failing power supply causing it. We can get your card taken care of though.
 
I'd definitely invest in a new psu. It's rated 80+ but thats before it degrades over time. And even at 80% efficiency, you're only looking at 400w. A reference 5850 can pull around 200w at load. Add to that the fact that a 2500k at stock clocks can pull around 150w at load and you're already looking 350 of the 400w just for the cpu/gpu. I'm also thinking that the 17amp 12v rails aren't helping..

Drop the card in another rig, it's probably dead, but just confirm. If it's dead, contact XFX like the rep above mentioned, and get it rma'd. Then before you go and fire up the replacement, make sure you have a different power supply in there. I'd be willing to bet that with a better psu, you won't have the problem anymore.
 
XFXSupport said:
Please put in a support ticket on our website and shoot me a PM with the ticket ID. If you give us a ring tomorrow when the phones open up then we can get that taken care of pretty quickly for you. I obviously work with a lot of cards and can add another account that when you have cards failing back to back it is almost always a failing power supply causing it. We can get your card taken care of though.
Click to expand...

PM sent..thank you!

Tried it in my C2D....no workie.

I bought a Corsair GS700 from BB...will this be suffficient?

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Corsair+-+Gaming+Series+700-Watt+ATX+CPU+Power+Supply/1073697.p?skuId=1073697&id=1218217267616
 
It's an okay PSU. Not the best voltage regulation, and definately not the best/price, however, it's an okay unit. The LED fan light switch helps working in dark areas (if your PC is put under the desk or something).
 
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danlineberger said:
I will probably just take it back tommorrow to BB and get one of Corsair's TX-750 series.

http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-CMPSU...ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1298338480&sr=1-2

Unless someone has a better idea...:D
Click to expand...

http://www.amazon.com/Cooling-S75QB...1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1298338562&sr=1-1

Its been in my family for 3 or 4 years now(brother had it first now I have it) and let me tell you this thing is amazing. It was able to power dual HD 2900PROs(OC'ed to XT speeds) and those things were power hungry, so its def. great. Only downside is the cables since it is not modular. Aside from that, amazing quality and performance.
 
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Yeah, that GS700 should do just fine with that setup.

Edit: That TX750 price is misleading. Says $50 in rebates, but you can only use one of em, so it'll still be 89.99 after the $20 rebate..
 
WiLLiSTER said:
I'd definitely invest in a new psu. It's rated 80+ but thats before it degrades over time. And even at 80% efficiency, you're only looking at 400w. A reference 5850 can pull around 200w at load. Add to that the fact that a 2500k at stock clocks can pull around 150w at load and you're already looking 350 of the 400w just for the cpu/gpu. I'm also thinking that the 17amp 12v rails aren't helping..

Drop the card in another rig, it's probably dead, but just confirm. If it's dead, contact XFX like the rep above mentioned, and get it rma'd. Then before you go and fire up the replacement, make sure you have a different power supply in there. I'd be willing to bet that with a better psu, you won't have the problem anymore.
Click to expand...

A 500w power supply will put out 500 watts not 400. Efficiency has to do with with how much more power than 500 watts it will draw from the outlet on your wall.
 
455olds said:
A 500w power supply will put out 500 watts not 400
Click to expand...
I think the bigger issue here is weather or not his current 500w PSU is putting out amps in the right places.

Sure, the PSU might be rated for 500w of output, but it might not be distributed the way you'd hope for. Most cheap PSU's output the majority of their wattage on the 5v rail rather than the 12v rail, which inflates the overall wattage rating, but wont let you run much more hardware (most power hungry components in your PC depend on 12v, not 5v).
 
455olds said:
A 500w power supply will put out 500 watts not 400. Efficiency has to do with with how much more power than 500 watts it will draw from the outlet on your wall.
Click to expand...

no.

500watts = 500x0.8=400

That is the UPPER LIMIT of the power supply functioning at a safe level.

If you exceed that wattage, it can suffer from a catastrophic failure. Staying near 400 Watts can also do the same thing. Contrary to popular belief Electrons heat up when they move thru conductors, and believe me electrons and heat are bad friends.
 
risqu3 said:
no.

500watts = 500x0.8=400

That is the UPPER LIMIT of the power supply functioning at a safe level.

If you exceed that wattage, it can suffer from a catastrophic failure. Staying near 400 Watts can also do the same thing. Contrary to popular belief Electrons heat up when they move thru conductors, and believe me electrons and heat are bad friends.
Click to expand...
You don't subtract efficiency from a power supply's output. Read this http://compreviews.about.com/od/cases/a/PSUEfficiency.htm

A quot from the link.(a 75% efficiency power supply that generates 300W of internal power would draw roughly 400W of power from the wall.)
 
XFXSupport said:
Please put in a support ticket on our website and shoot me a PM with the ticket ID. If you give us a ring tomorrow when the phones open up then we can get that taken care of pretty quickly for you. I obviously work with a lot of cards and can add another account that when you have cards failing back to back it is almost always a failing power supply causing it. We can get your card taken care of though.
Click to expand...
Wow, we have a registered XFX Support personnel right here on [H]? I'm very impressed. Half of the companies you call nowadays you can't even get a hold of the tech support lest you have an unlimited cell plan...
 
While this PSU could be faulty, this model is more than capable of powering his system.

For real world power usage, look at something like this: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/03/25/nvidia_fermi_gtx_470_480_sli_review/7

This shows the [H] test 5850 system pulling 316W from the wall, less being output due to efficiency. The OP's system would not pull much more if any than the [H] test system did. I would feel safe running a GTX 480 on an EA500. You might be able to get such a system to output 500W but it wouldn't be under any type of load from gaming.
 
xIronCrossx said:
http://www.amazon.com/Cooling-S75QB...1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1298338562&sr=1-1

Its been in my family for 3 or 4 years now(brother had it first now I have it) and let me tell you this thing is amazing. It was able to power dual HD 2900PROs(OC'ed to XT speeds) and those things were power hungry, so its def. great. Only downside is the cables since it is not modular. Aside from that, amazing quality and performance.
Click to expand...

PCP&C is just outdated now. The corsair linked earlier is a better choice.
 
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Wattage aside, it's still only rated for 17 amps on the 12v rail(s) (Label says 12v1 and 12v2, Johnny Guru says there's only one) and that could definitely be the issue at hand with a build like that.
 
Yeah, 17a split across two rails sounds WAY low for the hardware he has hooked up to it...

That's only 204w on each rail, so something like an HD5850 would basically need one rail all to itself, then you'd have to squeeze the rest of your system onto the other rail. Not ideal, especially if the leads coming out of the PSU aren't labeled.
 
The efficiency is from the wall so 80% efficient conversion of 400W would pull 500W from your wall if it was putting out 400W to the inside of your computer. I have always thought of power supplies like engines. You don't want to run your engine at redline the entire time. It will die quickly. If your computer pulls say 500W of power, which almost noone actually does, then you want something in the 850-900W area so that it isn't being taxed so heaivly. It makes them last a lot longer. My computer uses about 500W under load in a crazy game but I run a 1250. That means that in theory if nothing is inherently wrong with my power supply it should last a long time and remain able to deliver enough power for my computer. Just my 2¢.
 
Its been in my family for 3 or 4 years now(brother had it first now I have it) and let me tell you this thing is amazing. It was able to power dual HD 2900PROs(OC'ed to XT speeds) and those things were power hungry, so its def. great. Only downside is the cables since it is not modular. Aside from that, amazing quality and performance.
Click to expand...

Power hungry by then's standards, but even the fully-fledged HD2900XT only used as much as the GTX285 and HD6970 do now. There are plenty of cards (HD4870X2, HD5970, HD6990, GTX295, GTX280, GTX470, GTX480, GTX570, GTX580) out there now that use more than the 2900XTs did.
 
samuelmorris said:
Power hungry by then's standards, but even the fully-fledged HD2900XT only used as much as the GTX285 and HD6970 do now. There are plenty of cards (HD4870X2, HD5970, HD6990, GTX295, GTX280, GTX470, GTX480, GTX570, GTX580) out there now that use more than the 2900XTs did.
Click to expand...

Well, dual OC'd 2900 will definately draw more power than any single card can, short of overclocking (and maybe the GTX480).
 
True. People do understimate how much power PSUs can actually deliver. People were all over me like a pack of wolves when they realised I was running 4870X2 QuadCF off an 850W Zalman. Since I proved the DC load of the PSU in game was only 700W, it didn't surprise me that the PSU was not the source of my problems at the time.
 
MaK2000 said:
The efficiency is from the wall so 80% efficient conversion of 400W would pull 500W from your wall if it was putting out 400W to the inside of your computer. I have always thought of power supplies like engines. You don't want to run your engine at redline the entire time. It will die quickly. If your computer pulls say 500W of power, which almost noone actually does, then you want something in the 850-900W area so that it isn't being taxed so heaivly. It makes them last a lot longer. My computer uses about 500W under load in a crazy game but I run a 1250. That means that in theory if nothing is inherently wrong with my power supply it should last a long time and remain able to deliver enough power for my computer. Just my 2¢.
Click to expand...
Where are you getting 400 watts from? A 500 watt power supply puts out 500 watts and at 80% efficiency will pull some ware around 600 watts from the wall.
 
Just because a psu is a good unit at a point it time doesn't guarantee it against failure.

PSU's fail all the time. Killing components is your first clue that the psu may be failing.
 
Well, he could break out the multimeter and check to see how stable his voltages are. If they're all over the map when the PC is under load, then yeah, time to look at a new PSU for sure.
 
455olds said:
Where are you getting 400 watts from? A 500 watt power supply puts out 500 watts and at 80% efficiency will pull some ware around 600 watts from the wall.
Click to expand...

Are you a fourth grade student? 400W power supply at 80% efficiency would pull 500W from the wall if pulling 400W. I picked those numbers be cause it was even numbers. I never even mentioned a 500W power supply. Bitch for no reason much without thinking?
 
Welcome to the club. I have the same card, and I'm on my second. Hopefully you have more fun gaming on your 8600 for the next ~3 weeks than I did gaming on my HD 4650 while I waited my three weeks for an RMA to go through.
 
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