6850 problem

indough

Hi all, ive been having massive problems with my new build, which i suspect are down to my gigabyte hd 6850 card. The reason i think its the culprit is that it seems to keep rebooting every time i load anything even remotely graphically intensive. The computer hangs, then the screen goes black and after a few seconds it comes back on with an alert telling me that the ati driver has successfully recovered, blah blah blah...

So ive tried uninstalling drivers and reinstalling the 10.10e release, went through the process of uninstall, safe mode, driversweeper + ccleaner, reboot, reinstall. Today i even reinstalled windows but still the problem persists. Ive tried the card in another slot and no joy. Heres my full spec:

Seasonic x-750 psu
Asus P6X58D-E mobo
i7-930 (stock fan)
6GB 1333 DDR3
CM 690 II Advanced Case
Windows 7 HP x64

I'll gladly take any advice on board at this stage, thanks in advance!

indough

i suppose i should add that this is my first time owning an ati card, so bear in mind that i may have missed something basic

Solitaire

Is it possible to try it in another PCIex16 slot? Also, try underclocking the card in CCC (the GPU can go down to 600MHz and the GDDR5 to almost any speed) and see if that improves stability - if it does odds are you have a card that slipped through QC and you're owed an RMA

indough

ok thanks i will try underclocking tomorrow, unfortunately theres pretty much no chance i can test it on another machine.

really hope i dont have to rma as i bought it from pixmania and its gonna be hassle

indough

i tried setting the gpu clock to 700 and the test failed, set it to 625 and it passed. not really sure what that means but it also played arma 2 at the 625 setting whereas it wouldnt at the default 775. thanks

edit: okay its running okay on 825 now too, just ran furmark for 10 mins at 825 there, max temp of 61 degrees and average framerate of 73

Solitaire

Argh! I hate intermittant problems!! :o

indough

yeah i dont know what to do really. it seems to be working now at that overclocked speed but when i buy something i expect it to run correctly at stock speed. i know if i send it back theres a chance they might say it was okay which will be more hassle than its worth. so im a bit stumped on what i should do tbh

Solitaire

Wait for it to crash OCd then go back to underclocked settings and see if it happens again. Also try to use a wide variety of 3D games to see if the problem is localised to a few titles - the HD6850 is a new card and might still have a few driver bugs. Nonetheless I'm guessing the card has an "FSB Hole" around stock speed or has a physical stability defect. If it turns out to be the latter RMA and shout at them loudly

indough

ok thanks will do. also it is the gigabyte model which has the non reference fans, dont know if that makes any difference

it wasnt running any games before i under and overclocked it, even the windows experience index test was crashing it

Solitaire

That's just weird!

ninja 12

I had a Powercoler 5750 that would crash when playing Dirt 2 , but would play fine when underclocked . I tried it in two different computers .
The GDDR chips were too hot to touch, they were getting so hot .

In the end , I sent it back and got a refund .

If it was me , I'd RMA the card . You paid for it , you're entitled to have a fully working card .

indough

thanks for the advice guys much appreciated, i just sent it back there anyway after talking to someone from pixmania a few times. no doubt theyll give me grief but when i buy something i expect it to work out of the box tbh, well i mean i dont mind messing with drivers a bit but it should definitely work at stock speeds. i wasnt willing to chance it running ok overclocked and then maybe go wrong later when my rights would be a bit affected. anyway i know pixmania have a bad rep for support but i paid through paypal so hopefully ill be ok

indough

ok, so just to update, after much hassle and waiting ive been issued a refund for the item and shipping (including the cost of return shipping). however i used a promo code for the entire order which came to 15.43 and theyve deducted all of that from my refund despite the fact that i only returned one item of it. is this standard practice? it annoyed me a bit but i dont want to be hassling them or wasting any more of my time with it if its just the done thing. but as it stands it means i paid full whack for the rest of my order just because they fecked up, and somehow that doesnt seem right to me

Solitaire

AFAIK they can do that, once you avail of a special offer it is applied to your whole order so changing that order after the end of the offer by returning it breaks the offer :rolleyes::(

indough

yeah i figured it was just another way or them to screw the customer so i didnt say much about it, tbh they are so flakey i was just counting my lucky stars that i got everything else back