HD 4870 HELL!!

[Saxito Pau]

While many of us have switched to the HD 4870 since its launch and have been seemingly enjoying really great performance for price,  I have not been so lucky.


For a month now since I got my Diamond HD 4870, I have hardly been able to enjoy a proper gaming session.

At seemingly random point during gaming, my display suddenly goes blank and the audio goes into a loop, but you still hear the game effects. This is unrecoverable and always requires a reboot. Sometimes I can play for up to a couple of hours well, other times it can only be 5 mins. but eventually it happens.

When I look at Event Viewer under system Logs I see the following which seems to correspond to each crash:

Event Type:   Error
Event Source:   ati2mtag
Event Category:   SDTV
Event ID:   49170
Date:      10/28/2008
Time:      3:48:02 PM
User:      N/A
Computer:   GDSTECH
Description:
MODE: GXO Execute BIOS Table Error
Data:
0000: 00 00 00 00 01 00 5a 00   ......Z.
0008: 30 00 00 00 12 c0 00 c0   0....À.À
0010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........

Event Type:   Error
Event Source:   ati2mtag
Event Category:   GCO
Event ID:   44043
Date:      10/28/2008
Time:      3:48:02 PM
User:      N/A
Computer:   GDSTECH
Description:
GCO failed to execute AtomBios
Data:
0000: 00 00 00 00 01 00 5a 00   ......Z.
0008: 2b 00 00 00 0b ac 00 c0   +....¬.À
0010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........

Games I have attempted to play thus far:

Crysis Demo
Half Life 2
Bioshock
Need For Speed Most Wanted
Far Cry 2

Oddly enough, TrackMania Nations Forever is the ONLY game which has not seen this failure occurring.

Methods employed in my attempts to to fix:

- I initially used Catalyst 8.8, then went to 8.7 which seemed to work, but it came back. I am currently using 8.10 (minus far cry 2 patch)

- I set various manual fan speed profiles while gaming thinking it was heat. I usually run at 50% rpm wen gaming though i tend use higher. nothing doing.

- I even underclocked the card to 750/850. That seemed to work for a while but same BS eventually.

I am fed up now of this card to the point of selling and going back nvidia. But, I say I will give my fellow gamers a chance to try their hand at a resolution before I do such.

I have a headache as it is cause today is a holiday and some customers feel that I have no MC life. Just took it out on a customer who needed back his precious Outlook Express contacts... after he open a bad email and f*up his system requiring a reload. then he demands i 'helphim' out by manually rebuilding his addresses by extracting them from FIVE YEARS of messages 

Someone help me before i make one of NEO's rants a reality... 

[Philosophical45]

think this probably is the same problem someone was talking about with diamond's cards. sorry to hear your misfortune, hard to spend money on something that is crapping out on you like that. honestly if i go for an ati card, i would swear by Sapphire, that's just me.

*off topic* i'm going to satisfy a want in a week or two... and i'm not going to be a gpu lemming.. hehe, arcman know what i talking bout.. lolz

[Arcmanov]

Hahaha...yeah boy Philo.

I remain convinced that this problem is software/driver related.

You need to test each driver with a clean Windows install, all latest drivers and Windows updates. No other software.

Then...install games one by one and test em out.

[Kraeoss]

odds of a bad card... 1 in 1500.

errr...

[Spazosaurus]

Sax, Drop the card by me. I'll tell you for sure if its got a problem or not.

[Redfish]

Bummer dude....I'll be staying away from diamond, Philo really warned me about that brand but Sax let the Cap tinker with it and see if it's really the drivers.....cause I rem the ATI fly boys(lol) having to revert to older ones if I'm not mistaken

[Saxito Pau]

Well I finally managed to make time to do a clean OS install and try the HD 4870 in XP with just latest chipset, video and sound drivers:

Tried Crysis demo and the display failed at an expected point.

Arcman will get the card Tuesday to do testing followed by Capt. Awesome. In the meanwhile Arc has loaned me his 8800GT to use and no problem whatsoever with any game.

if they confirm is a card issue, RMA one time and the replacment will be sold..

[Arcmanov]

I will LOLz so much if it turns out to be a mobo/compatibility issue.  I might just keep it and pay you the difference...

[Spazosaurus]

Arc, yuh eh find you done already have nuff cardds boy? Mam practicallly like the Al Capone of the video card world oui.

I wah the card is sit turns out to be a compatibility issue.

[Saxito Pau]

hmph... typical Arcman.
Well if it does turn out to be a board compatibility, I go have to toss a coin to see who get the card.

I will look at one of the following:

HD 4870 1GB
HD 4870 512MB with modified cooler (like the Sapphire Toxic HD 4870)
GTX 260 core 216

at a budget of US$300 max

[Arcmanov]

Arc, yuh eh find you done already have nuff cardds boy? Mam practicallly like the Al Capone of the video card world oui.

I wah the card is sit turns out to be a compatibility issue.

Very well...I concede that 'dibs'.  Lets hope for the best though.

[Arcmanov]

Testing has poceeded without incident so far.

Ran Grid at max settings, with 4XAA @ 1680 x 1050
Ran Far Cry 2 at max settings, with 4XAA @ 1680 x 1050
Ran Crysis demo on 'High' settings, AA off @ 1680 x 1050

So far the card has run all these games with nary a hitch.

I will run Grid again, but this time I will leave a replay of a race looping over and over again,
for a few hours.  If it doesn't fail there, then I can say (not conclusively though) that the card itself is fine.

[Redfish]

Card - 1        Saxman - 0

let's see what Saxman has up his sleeves for the next round. Looks like the card is laughing at him right about now......could it be he was a big to eager to engage it without checking what he could handle.

Join us next time on HD 4870 fight night!!! it's one hell of a situation!!

[Saxito Pau]

Card - 1        Saxman - 0

The return leg will be played at the Captain Awesome stadium...


When the 2nd leg is over, then I will decide what I am dong with the HD 4870.

[Saxito Pau]

well it seems that Arcman has found no issue with the card, now is Capt. Awesome to do his round of testing, starting today.

[mailman166]

lol hard luck saximillion... how much that card goes for now btw???

landed in a person's hand price

[Arcmanov]

Yeah, I ran a very punishing, looping replay of Grid for FIVE HOURS with all settings at their absolute max.
Then I promptly ran some Crysis, Far Cry 2 and COD4 after that, and I didn't get a single issue.

No hitching, freezing or crashing.  Nada.

I hereby declare this card 'ARCMAN APPROVED'

[Saxito Pau]

 ^^

[Redfish]

After recently finding out about 12V rails and how much Amps are required on a rail to have there newer gpus run problem free....what PSU do you have Saxman? and how many Amps are you running per 12V rail??

Suggested for a 4870 is 32A per 12V rail and if you want the Nvidia core 216 the required Amps per 12V rail is 36A.

Maybe you'vresearched that before and it's just a compatibility problem but just giving you a heads up to save you more headache lol

[daniboy79]

I honestly don't think that the PSU is the problem in Sax PC, he pushin big guns in that dept.