Graphic issues with new card.

dougie j · July 01, 2010 04:05 PM

Hello folks,

My old nvidia 8800GTS died a couple of weeks ago, funds were low so i bought a XFX Radeon HD 4850 a decent card for a reasonable price i thought.

Despite my best efforts i am still having graphic issues with NTW and ETW, see pics below.

I have tried reinstalling my card from scratch and removing all old ATI drivers from my P.C, i have using forum advice amended various settings in my catalyst control centre, i have upgraded my MoBo with the very latest Bios and the card has the latest ATI drivers.
It seemed that after the latest NTW patch with ATI compatibility fixes that things were not as bad as before, but while playing MP issues were once more serious.

Most of the advice i have received has come from the card manufacturer and the company i purchased the card from.

Game running temps are for card no more than 50c
And from the MSI afterburner, GPU running at 50c WITH max temp stated at 67c

Below is a couple of quotes relating to the latest advice i have received.

""If not running RAID, it should be safe to set BIOS `setup` or `safe` defaults. Safe is better if possible, in case any overclocking options are active.

Also, it can help stability by tweaking memory setting, especially with faster RAM : relax memory timings and/or reduce frequency, by say, 266.""

I am now getting desperate so any help or advice would be very appreciated,

thanks in advance DJ

here is my dxdiag

------------------

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

irishron · July 01, 2010 04:14 PM

The best advice I've read is set the CCC to application controlled and set them ingame. Also try Shader 2 instead of Shader 3.

dougie j · July 01, 2010 04:25 PM

Originally Posted by irishron

The best advice I've read is set the CCC to application controlled and set them ingame. Also try Shader 2 instead of Shader 3.

Thanks mate, this was one of the first things i tried

Any comment on the latest advice i received that i have highlighted in my post ??

karamazovmm · July 01, 2010 04:35 PM

have you used driver sweeper?

dougie j · July 01, 2010 04:46 PM

Originally Posted by Mr MM

have you used driver sweeper?

Thanks MM,

No mate i havnt, i will check it out, any advice on using it ?

Cheers DJ

karamazovmm · July 01, 2010 05:03 PM

troubleshoot thread

dougie j · July 01, 2010 05:18 PM

Originally Posted by Mr MM

troubleshoot thread

I have had a look at the drive sweeper site, but i would like to be clear

The plan is to uninstall from Control panel any drivers listed there ? (this will mean uninstalling catalyst control centre i presume as i have no ATI drivers listed ?? ) then cleaning any display drivers listed using driver sweep ?? and then installing again CCC and latest card driver ?

I still have some Nvidia drivers listed in uninstall programs, will these be display drivers ?? i don't want to uninstall any drivers that i might need ?? i noticed in device manager i have listed under system devices some nvidia stuff ??

Please excuse my lack of technical knowledge.

Cheers DJ

irishron · July 01, 2010 05:16 PM

I'd throw that advice away, personally, unless I was used to overclocking and monitoring my temps and voltages.

It's been proven reading the threads at www.totalwarforums.com that overclocking especially cards and ram does more harm then good. Totalheadache who posts here and in forums at www.guru3d.com has had success at overclocking but he also has the experience of what to leave alone. I don't and leave mine default.

I also have had and still do have my settings set application controlled whether ATI CCC or Nvidia. Ileave my game settings default until I feel like tweaking them and then one at a time until I find my system's max or sweetspot for the game. I do my own footwork because noone else has my computer.

Have you checked the card's ingame temps?

dougie j · July 01, 2010 05:23 PM

Originally Posted by irishron

I'd throw that advice away, personally, unless I was used to overclocking and monitoring my temps and voltages.

It's been proven reading the threads at www.totalwarforums.com that overclocking especially cards and ram does more harm then good. Totalheadache who posts here and in forums at www.guru3d.com has had success at overclocking but he also has the experience of what to leave alone. I don't and leave mine default.

I also have had and still do have my settings set application controlled whether ATI CCC or Nvidia. Ileave my game settings default until I feel like tweaking them and then one at a time until I find my system's max or sweetspot for the game. I do my own footwork because noone else has my computer.

Have you checked the card's ingame temps?

I have not done any overclocking ever

Card temps are fine i have seen no more than 51c after 1 hours play.

Cheers DJ

Keiichi · July 02, 2010 10:27 AM

Originally Posted by irishron

I'd throw that advice away, personally, unless I was used to overclocking and monitoring my temps and voltages.

It's been proven reading the threads at www.totalwarforums.com that overclocking especially cards and ram does more harm then good. Totalheadache who posts here and in forums at www.guru3d.com has had success at overclocking but he also has the experience of what to leave alone. I don't and leave mine default.

Actually I don't think that the advice dougie highlighted is advising him to overclock, rather the adviser is recommending to him that he underclock the graphics card, and this is actually my recommendation as well.

The artifacts that you are seeing, dougie, are a common sign of a damaged video card (likely to be damaged Video RAM/memory in this case, if I remember my artifacts correctly). One way you can try to troubleshoot this is to lower the clock speeds of your video card. First try underclocking the memory by 300mhz or so (in other words, relaxing the memory frequency i.e. if the memory speed is 1000mhz set it to 700mhz). You can do this in the Catalyst Control Center under the 'ATI Overdrive' section.

Try running the game at these reduced speeds, if the errors are gone, then you know the memory on the card is faulty. If the errors are still present, bring the memory back to it's normal speed, but instead lower the GPU clock speed by say 200mhz. Try running the game then and see what the result is. If there are still errors, try underclocking both GPU and memory together.

irishron · July 01, 2010 05:22 PM

The best plan with Driver Sweeper is to unistall CCC, reboot, hit F8 and run it in Safe Mode for both Nvidia and ATI, reboot, and then install ATI.

irishron · July 01, 2010 06:03 PM

Try Driver Sweeper to make nothing from previous installs got left behind.

Did you check to see if you have your monitor plugged into the right one on your card? Port 1 instead Port 2? DVI? HDMI?

Have you tried installing http://www.microsoft.com/net/Download.aspx?

Have you tried installing http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...isplaylang=en?

karamazovmm · July 02, 2010 10:42 AM

this can also mean that there are too much video drivers, when there should be only one

dougie j · July 02, 2010 10:56 AM

Many thanks to you all for the advice, i will get onto trying all of your suggestions later tonight and let you know how i get on.

Cheers DJ

Keiichi · July 02, 2010 11:11 AM

Originally Posted by Mr MM

this can also mean that there are too much video drivers, when there should be only one

Great, now you've got the Highlander theme song stuck in my head.

Originally Posted by dougie j

Many thanks to you all for the advice, i will get onto trying all of your suggestions later tonight and let you know how i get on.

Cheers DJ

Best of luck to you, if you run into any troubles be sure to drop on by. By the way, is it only NTW giving you these graphical errors?

dougie j · July 15, 2010 02:01 PM

Hello gents,

I hope your still watching, this story runs and runs

Despite all your and many others very appreciated advice, my problems persisted, however it seemed there was a very good reason for it, i returned the card to the retailer for testing and they found the card had a memory fault.
They sent me a replacement which worked great for a few hours and ran NTW very well with absolutely no graphical issues like those suffered with the previous card.

However the very next day while on my PC the graphic started to break up with lots of small coloured squares appearing in any windows i opened, when i closed the windows the squares remained on my desktop which quickly became completely corrupted, on re booting my system even the initial MoBo loading screens are corrupted, basically nothing will now run with this new card.
I am now using an old ATI Radeon 1650 which is running things with no sign of any problems at all.

It sounds like i have just been very unlucky with two faulty cards, my only concern now is that some other issue in my system may have caused these cards to breakdown, the technician from the card retailer thinks it un likely.

What do you gents think ?? could some other fault on my P.C cause a new card to break down ??
Maybe something with my PSU ?? the card i am running now does not need a direct link to the PSU but the other cards do ? i am just clutching at straws i guess.

One other thing that i don't suspect is related, but i will mention it just in case.
Over the last 4 or 5 days while booting up i get an error message at my Bios screen it reads
"cmos checksum error defaults loaded"
From what i have read this could be related to the Mobo battery, anyway i have tried resetting time and date at setup but it doesn't save to the next reboot.

Anyway the card will be soon returned for testing, i am just concerned that my system doesn't end up breaking the next one.

Many thanks in advance for any advice.

Cheers DJ

Swagger · July 15, 2010 02:09 PM

have you sent your problem to the nvidia support?

it exists for a reason

karamazovmm · July 15, 2010 02:15 PM

maybe its your psu that might be overvolting the cards, but those have protection against it.

but anyway if you have the tools (i.e. voltage readers) check it

dougie j · July 15, 2010 02:54 PM

Originally Posted by Swagger

have you sent your problem to the nvidia support?

it exists for a reason

The card in question is ATI Radeon 4850

I did get support for the problems with the first new card, but as this is so severe and i cant test anything while card is installed, its just going back to the retailer.

Originally Posted by Mr MM

maybe its your psu that might be overvolting the cards, but those have protection against it.

but anyway if you have the tools (i.e. voltage readers) check it

I don't have the tools but i may know somebody who does, if a card was being overvolted what would it do as means of protection ??

Thanks gents for you responses

karamazovmm · July 15, 2010 03:09 PM

it should have a in built controller for that purpose, so that your pc only supplies what is needed, since as we know the load consumption and idle consumption are very different

Graphic issues with new card.

Graphic issues with new card.

Re: Graphic issues with new card.

Re: Graphic issues with new card.

Re: Graphic issues with new card.

Re: Graphic issues with new card.

Re: Graphic issues with new card.

Re: Graphic issues with new card.

Re: Graphic issues with new card.

Re: Graphic issues with new card.

Re: Graphic issues with new card.

Re: Graphic issues with new card.

Re: Graphic issues with new card.

Re: Graphic issues with new card.

Re: Graphic issues with new card.

Re: Graphic issues with new card.

Re: Graphic issues with new card.

Re: Graphic issues with new card.

Re: Graphic issues with new card.

Re: Graphic issues with new card.

Re: Graphic issues with new card.