3850 AGP OC'ing, Vmods, experiences, suggestions, where to buy

[InnocentCriminal]

I've got my VF1000LED installed - 37°C idle (been up for an hour & a half now).

[blaznjason]

Nobody can tell me anything about the installer messing up/how to fix it?

[InnocentCriminal]

Ooops sorry dude, the only issue I got was that the directories names I had were too long. I simply remained a lot of folders and it installed without a hitch.

Are you getting any error messages?

[blaznjason]

Yes, it says that I do not have compatible hardware with the setup and it shuts down.

[InnocentCriminal]

Hmmm... odd!

You could always try booting into Safe Mode (F8) with VGA enabled and try installing it that way. You really need to fill in your System Specs dude.

[Fortex]

i have a asus eah 3850 and i tried to flash it with winflash and the program freezed when

flashing the bios . then i reset the pc but normally the bios goes . Yesterday i tried to flash it

to the orginal bios bu it did't work as u guess i sent it to the service Now there is a question for

u guys please answer me do u think they will fix it or do u think it is still in warranty compass ?

[InnocentCriminal]

Welcome to the forums,

Your post hurts my eyes! >.<

I presume you mean you've sent it back (RMA) to the manufacturer. I believe this would be covered under warranty, depends what you said to them about the card. When flashing your card you have to have the specific BIOS as not all 3850 are the same. For example, your ASUS could use different memory modules from a different manufacturer. Or you could have the same ASUS card but the 256MB version which would have a different BIOS to the 512MB version.

In future, make sure you have the correct version for your card and only flash it if fixes an issue, otherwise the age ol' say, if it ain't broken, don't fix it comes into play.

[intel igent]

welcome to TPU!

sorry to say but i don't think BIOS flash is covered under warranty :( if they do repair/replace it for you you would be lucky

[Ruiner]

My HIS 3850 512 (single heatpipe, dual slot OE cooler, 735 stock core clock) will do 785 core clock stable with stock cooling, at default fan speed controls.
What is a typical OC with improved cooling (say Accelero S1) before voltmodding?

[dark2099]

You may not be able to get much higher with better cooling. I have 2 3870's and one is on the stock cooler and the other has a after market cooler and they both have the same limit on how far they can overclock.

[blaznjason]

My system specs are filled in, wonder if now you can give me any insight about the setup saying I don't have supported hardware.

[Widjaja]

Interesting, Sapphire probably did another rev thing as they do alot.
Remember the amount of different Sapphire X1950pros which came out?

I still have my rev1 X1950pro in my backup PC and it's going strong and hot as usual but always without issue.

[InnocentCriminal]

Interesting, Sapphire probably did another rev thing as they do alot.
Remember the amount of different Sapphire X1950pros which came out?

I still have my rev1 X1950pro in my backup PC and it's going strong and hot as usual but always without issue.

Same! I think it's a Rev1, it must be as I got it as soon as it was released basically. Bloody good card the X1950Pro.

As for OC'ing the 3850. I've got my GPU core to 800MHz and RAM to 780MHz. Perfectly stable, however my fucking crapass motherboard won't let me push my CPU (even though I have idle temperatures below 20°C and don't even breach 40°C under load) past 2.6GHz. So pissed by that. If I could only just get 2.8GHz stable I'd be so freaking happy.

:(

[blaznjason]

Is there anyway to unsubscribe from receiving updates via email to this thread? Not helpful at all.

"Try installing them in safe mode" -- professional advice.

[Morgoth]

go to user CP

[InnocentCriminal]

Is there anyway to unsubscribe from receiving updates via email to this thread? Not helpful at all.

"Try installing them in safe mode" -- professional advice.

Someone has sand in their vagina. They were beta drivers dude, might be a flaw with them and your system. I couldn't install the 8.5 beta set. The official set (8.6) should be out in a week or so. Be patient.

[eidairaman1]

Someone has sand in their vagina. They were beta drivers dude, might be a flaw with them and your system. I couldn't install the 8.5 beta set. The official set (8.6) should be out in a week or so. Be patient.

If your Card is PCI Express, drivers will be ready, if AGP wait a few days and return, they usually have a AGP Driver now.

[InnocentCriminal]

Hotfix(es) and all that.

^^

[Fortex]

i have just informed about my eah3850 they said i'll got my card during the upcoming week :toast: But i want to flash my card more secure and the success rate must be %80 percent there is and method to do this

[Element]

Hello, All

I am new to your thread, and must say, seems like a good group of people trading Knowledge and Ideas, I will get more info on my specs when I get a chance......what got me interested is the very first post on this thread, about the HD3850 AGP, I have One, and the card is really fast, right now I have water cooling, clocked at 800 gpu and 1008 memory fx-55 clocked at 2.9 Gig, socket 939 A8v deluxe rev 2.0, bios for motherboard 1018.2 beta, via chipset driver 518a pro......gee whiz...................but here is the rub, posted by 65sweet, this got my attention:
Originally Posted by 65tweet
I have tried every cat from 8.1 to 8.4 hotfix with no luck. Here's the lowdown of my problem using BF2 for every run.

8.1 Lots of choppy game play with intermittent long lag periods...got very annoyed and stopped playing. ATI tool won't do anything for my card but it didn't find any artifacts.

8.2 no better performance but random VPU recoveries.

except I have this problem with all games, the games lightly stutter, and there is a nasty jolt or lag every 3 to 10 seconds during play, sub simulator silent hunter 4 is excellent for detecting thes anomalies, but its also driving me crazy, and it seems other people are having the same issue with drivers all across the board from 8.1 to 8.5 on AGP, other than this problem card runs perfectly 52 degrees celcius full load.... I havetried pretty much everything to fix it.....bios edit, and voltage changes, I can change voltage on my card using bios edit program, all catalyst from 8.1 including beta 8.6....NOPE didn't work, cooling is not an issue.....I love this card, but at the same time very,very frustrated........ANYBODY got any Ideas, I also read on some forums that creative X-fi sound cards can cause this problem, and you have to experiment moving sound card from pci slot to pci slot to find that right spot on board that does not conflict with AGP card.....I have not tried that fix yet, let you know how that goes..........any help and or possible fix would be greatly appreciated....... Thanks all

[Element]

By the way, the 8.6 drivers are out on ati website, but an AGP hotfix will take longer more crap to stuff into the driver.....sapphire has the 8.5 hotfix up, not sure about 8.6 at moment, the drivers are getting better with every generation, but they really need to correct this AGP card stuttering problem, yup, tried the hotfixes for those too on AMD's website......NOPE, that did not do the trick, SAME PROBLEM.......GGGGRRRRRRRRRRR !!!!!!!!

[InnocentCriminal]

i have just informed about my eah3850 they said i'll got my card during the upcoming week :toast: But i want to flash my card more secure and the success rate must be %80 percent there is and method to do this

It's good that you'll be getting your card back, but I wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. If the card works I wouldn't try flashing it again, if it isn't broken, don't try to fix it.

[intel igent]

Hello, All

I am new to your thread, and must say, seems like a good group of people trading Knowledge and Ideas, I will get more info on my specs when I get a chance......what got me interested is the very first post on this thread, about the HD3850 AGP, I have One, and the card is really fast, right now I have water cooling, clocked at 800 gpu and 1008 memory fx-55 clocked at 2.9 Gig, socket 939 A8v deluxe rev 2.0, bios for motherboard 1018.2 beta, via chipset driver 518a pro......gee whiz...................but here is the rub, posted by 65sweet, this got my attention:
Originally Posted by 65tweet
I have tried every cat from 8.1 to 8.4 hotfix with no luck. Here's the lowdown of my problem using BF2 for every run.

8.1 Lots of choppy game play with intermittent long lag periods...got very annoyed and stopped playing. ATI tool won't do anything for my card but it didn't find any artifacts.

8.2 no better performance but random VPU recoveries.

except I have this problem with all games, the games lightly stutter, and there is a nasty jolt or lag every 3 to 10 seconds during play, sub simulator silent hunter 4 is excellent for detecting thes anomalies, but its also driving me crazy, and it seems other people are having the same issue with drivers all across the board from 8.1 to 8.5 on AGP, other than this problem card runs perfectly 52 degrees celcius full load.... I havetried pretty much everything to fix it.....bios edit, and voltage changes, I can change voltage on my card using bios edit program, all catalyst from 8.1 including beta 8.6....NOPE didn't work, cooling is not an issue.....I love this card, but at the same time very,very frustrated........ANYBODY got any Ideas, I also read on some forums that creative X-fi sound cards can cause this problem, and you have to experiment moving sound card from pci slot to pci slot to find that right spot on board that does not conflict with AGP card.....I have not tried that fix yet, let you know how that goes..........any help and or possible fix would be greatly appreciated....... Thanks all

how much sys RAM do you have?

do you defrag regularly?

what is your method of removing/installing driver's?

[Element]

Hey, what's up.....

I have 4 512 MB kingston DDR pc3500 matching sets,set up in dual channel mode, I defrag my hard drives at least every week, as far as drivers go I use catalyst uninstall, then f8 to safe mode, clean using ati driver cleaner, remove adapter drivers in safe mode as well, so I get a fresh start, going back into main OS screen, forgot to mention I use windows vista service pack 1 and my hd3850 is a sapphire 512 MB GDDR 3, at this point I declocked everything, cpu and Graphics card, and set the bios to default for motherboard and stock bios for GPU card,my graphic card bios is 10.7700000 somthing like that, I bought this card when it first came out, within a couple of weeks, is there a newer bios I could try for GPU, Maybe that might help......still havn't tried X-fi, PCI swap out yet, as that will require some work, my system is packed, I am also running 6 Maxtor 7200rpm 60 gig drives 2 sets in raid array for games, a primary/my system, and backup drive, power supply antec NEO 480 WAtt constant,I am thinking X-fi sound card or all ati drivers at this point, but I need to start at all defaults, and work the problem from there.......

[Element]

on another note, the graphics card installed before 3850 was an x1950 pro 512 gddr3, and ran perfectly, no issues at all....perfectly smooth, although the HD3850 speed and performance wise blows the x1950 pro out of the water, but it need to be working smoothly......that would be a plus for many 3850 AGP Fans out there.......

[InnocentCriminal]

Element, welcome to the forums dude!

We have the same motherboard so I may be able to give you some assistance. I've recently installed a Audigy 2 ZS which I managed to get from work for free. I put the Audigy in the 3rd PCI slot if I remember correctly and I disabled Fast Writes in the AGP configuration part of the BIOS.

Weirdly given me the added stability I've been longing for and I've finally managed to beat my previous 3DMark06 score which my Shuttle held - 9125 is now 9320 and I expect I can go higher as well. ^^

Unfortunately I won't be able to find out what 2.74GHz (CPU) gives me until Saturday, when I get back from helping my GF packing up her shit from Uni.

Until then, disable Fast Writes in the BIOS before swapping out your X-Fi, if that doesn't help, try the 3rd PCI slot.

That's all I've got right now, hope that helps.

[Widjaja]

Someone has sand in their vagina.
One unsatisfied customer.

Shame on you InnocentCriminal.:p

[LoWRiDeR82]

Hello guys,i'm so happy that I came across this wonderful forum

i'm experiencing problems with my HIS 3850 ICEQ3 AGP...if you can help i would really appreciate it,take a look at the problem here

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=264473

Any suggestions for the problem?Do you think the 8pin adaptor might solve my problems?I'm desperate,don't know what else to try :( My old card works fine (7800gs+) but ofc is nowhere near the performance of this incredible AGP card.

[InnocentCriminal]

One unsatisfied customer.

Shame on you InnocentCriminal.:p

Wasn't my fault, if anything it was all of ours, or whoever posted the "try installing them in safe mode" comment.

I just thought someone might have had a little bit of sand stuck, irritating them. ;) ;)

Welcome LoWRiDeR82 - after reading your post, have you tried the CoD 4 AthlonXP patch? I know someone in this thread/forums has a link to it in their signature. I'll have a butchers for you when I'm not so busy (at work).

Oh yeah, Widjaja - I added a Audigy 2 ZS into my rig and I'm now stable at 2.74GHz. I managed to beat my 3DMark06 score (9125) I'm not at 9320, I did run it this morning and got 9424 I think... but I had to leave before I could take a print screen and won't be able to re-run it until I get home on Saturday.

Still, freakin' good I'm finally getting somewhere, really hoping I can hit 2.8GHz.

[LoWRiDeR82]

Thanks for the reply innocent criminal,no I haven't tried it since it was working fine with my previous GPU,but i'll give it a shot now hope I can find it on google!Thanks and if you have any other suggestions let me know.Do you think upping the agp bus from 66mhz to something else might do anything?

UPDATE:That athlonxp fix you said, i've already done it but it is because the game would not launch at all.Now the game starts,and as soon as I get in the actual 3d part of the gameplay where i start moving and shooting,after 2 mins the computer crashes, usually with the screen going all black for a second and then coming back with broken graphics and the frozen game screen,and sometimes the monitor goes black and it acts like if it's not getting a signal from the computer.I downloaded the latest 1.6 patch.After 2 min of gameplay my monitor went totally black and comp had crashed.Before that I played crysis for 1 hour without problems.I've only had a similar crash in crysis ONCE.I don't understand what is wrong with this card.Is it my computer,or is it the card that is faulty.. :(
Only thing I haven't tried yet is formatting but i'm not sure if this is a software problem.

[InnocentCriminal]

I'd fill in your System Spec's in your Control Panel so we know what we're dealing with. Could be the card isn't getting the required amp'age on the 12volt rail. That could be one cause. I'd suggest you back all your important documents up, especially your CoD 4 profile folder and reformat.

Before a reformat though, you could always try the spilter power cable that came with your GFX card. See if that makes a difference. If you do plan on reformatting, make sure you have the most recent motherboard drivers downloaded and backed up. You could always try updating your motherboard BIOS if a reformat and fresh install of Windows hasn't seemed to have helped.

Also, check on HIS' website, they may have had an issue with of their cards and released a updated BIOS for it. ATiFlash would allow you to update that if there is one.

So, recapping...

1.) Back up all important stuff before you do anything - including your CoD 4 Profiles folder and everything in it.

2.) Download all the latest drivers for your motherboard and all hardware that needs specific drivers such as sound cards, network etc etc. ATi should be releasing the 8.6 AGP hotfix driver set relatively soon so you might want to hold out on the reformat and try the power cable I suggested above.

Good luck, and keep us posted!

[repsol23]

Thanks for the reply innocent criminal,no I haven't tried it since it was working fine with my previous GPU,but i'll give it a shot now hope I can find it on google!Thanks and if you have any other suggestions let me know.Do you think upping the agp bus from 66mhz to something else might do anything?

UPDATE:That athlonxp fix you said, i've already done it but it is because the game would not launch at all.Now the game starts,and as soon as I get in the actual 3d part of the gameplay where i start moving and shooting,after 2 mins the computer crashes, usually with the screen going all black for a second and then coming back with broken graphics and the frozen game screen,and sometimes the monitor goes black and it acts like if it's not getting a signal from the computer.I downloaded the latest 1.6 patch.After 2 min of gameplay my monitor went totally black and comp had crashed.Before that I played crysis for 1 hour without problems.I've only had a similar crash in crysis ONCE.I don't understand what is wrong with this card.Is it my computer,or is it the card that is faulty.. :(
Only thing I haven't tried yet is formatting but i'm not sure if this is a software problem.

This sounds like similar problems that I had on my Powercolor 3850 AGP. I could never game for more than 5 to 10 minutes before I would have the same experiences as yourself. I follow a thread on another forum that mentioned something about the bridge chip being hot and using a small sink on it. So I tried it and it worked perfectly. I could then game for hours on end without one single problem. I actually placed a small vga ram sink on there and rigged a 80mm fan to blow directly over the spot and I have yet to have any of the same problems. I have been able to get a stable overlclock on my card of 837/1026 but I have since moved on to pcie and a hd3870. My kids still use my old agp setup though just fine!! Here is a link to that forum and the guys nickname is "Kohlendioxidus". Hope this helps!!

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?p=2722041#post2722041

[LoWRiDeR82]

1)that's the last thing I haven't done,formatting,i'm waiting for a 6pin to 8pin adapter from the shop that sold me the card,cause they believe it's 100% the fact that the card requires 8pin and on a 6pin line it won't work properly.I hope they are right but i'm not convinced

2)8.6 agp hotfix are already out,on the site it says 8.5 but they are the 8.6 I already tried them.no change.As for the splitter i've already tried that too hoping that 2 free 4pin molex rails attached with that splitter,would solve a possible problem caused by the 6pin pci-e line of my psu.But no,it wasn't it.

In the HIS website I haven't seen anything new,the drivers are still the 8.4 catalyst and I haven't found any bios updates :(

[LoWRiDeR82]

Thanks for the reply repsol,i've tried applying a heatsink on that chip already,though it's not attached very well cause the pad they provided the card with is a shitty one and i'm afraid that if I remove it they might not RMA the card anymore.Anyway even with the heatsink the problem persisted :(
Also I have the impression that if that thermal pad is removed,the chip underneath is not completely flat, but it has a little square that is "taller" than the rest of the chip.Is this correct?Do you have a picture of your chip with the heatsink on it?

[Widjaja]

Wasn't my fault, if anything it was all of ours, or whoever posted the "try installing them in safe mode" comment.

I just thought someone might have had a little bit of sand stuck, irritating them. ;) ;)

Oh yeah, Widjaja - I added a Audigy 2 ZS into my rig and I'm not stable at 2.74GHz. I managed to beat my 3DMark06 score (9125) I'm not at 9320, I did run it this morning and got 9424 I think... but I had to leave before I could take a print screen and won't be able to re-run it until I get home on Saturday.

Still, freakin' good I'm finally getting somewhere, really hoping I can hit 2.8GHz.

I maybe upgrading from the Audigy 2 ZS to a Xfi Extreme Gamer or Auzentech Xplosion since it looks like I'll have left over credit with the distributor after my 8800GT gets replaced with a HD4850.

They distributor offered a 9800GTX but it will not fit in my case without modifying it so I have gone back to the darkside so to speak.

Well your scores are about right for what speeds your'e at.
My brother and I are always overclocking then going back to stock speeds as we don't notice any difference in gaming.
We just overclock until our rigs are stable 24/7 and check the difference from stock and OC in 3DMark06'.

[repsol23]

Thanks for the reply repsol,i've tried applying a heatsink on that chip already,though it's not attached very well cause the pad they provided the card with is a shitty one and i'm afraid that if I remove it they might not RMA the card anymore.Anyway even with the heatsink the problem persisted :(
Also I have the impression that if that thermal pad is removed,the chip underneath is not completely flat, but it has a little square that is "taller" than the rest of the chip.Is this correct?Do you have a picture of your chip with the heatsink on it?


Unfortunately, I don't have a pic, but you are right about it being offset just a bit. This offset helped out in that it keeps the sink from making contact with any of the pins. What I did was remove the pad very gently, it came off without a single problem, so I need to I can always place it back for an RMA. Trying to put on a sink with the pad on will not work in my opinion since the sink will not make good contact with the chip. I simply used some AS5, spread very thinly with a razor so as not to have an excess, and placed the sink on the chip. I figure the "suction" created by the AS5 is enough to hold the sink in place. Like I mentioned earlier, this has fixed all the problems associated with the black screens and reboots.

[LoWRiDeR82]

so the sink only touches on that little "offest" bit?

[InnocentCriminal]

Lowrider, you have to use a 8pin connector, a 6 pin on it's own isn't enough. Oh yeah don't forget to fill in your system specs, with it being a good ol' socket A and all that.

^^

[intel igent]

Lowrider, you have to use a 8pin connector, a 6 pin on it's own isn't enough. Oh yeah don't forget to fill in your system specs, with it being a good ol' socket A and all that.

^^

i'm running the 6pin without a hitch and IIRC so is morgoth.

my card is w/c and has great airflow over it

not shure how good AGP support is in VISTA :confused:

are you guy's using drivercleaner to remove all old driver bit's and restarting PC before installing new one's?

have you guy's tried installing JUST the driver's?

have you tried turning of unecessary background programs/resource's?

guys please fill out your system spec's in the user control panel

[repsol23]

so the sink only touches on that little "offest" bit?

Yep, sits right on the chip itself. I zip tied a fan to my 24 pin power cord to blow right on it too!

[InnocentCriminal]

I just noticed...

Oh yeah, Widjaja - I added a Audigy 2 ZS into my rig and I'm not stable at 2.74GHz.

That not is meant to be now - but you gathered that.

[LoWRiDeR82]

i'm running the 6pin without a hitch and IIRC so is morgoth.

my card is w/c and has great airflow over it

not shure how good AGP support is in VISTA :confused:

are you guy's using drivercleaner to remove all old driver bit's and restarting PC before installing new one's?

have you guy's tried installing JUST the driver's?

have you tried turning of unecessary background programs/resource's?

guys please fill out your system spec's in the user control panel


I did fill in my system specs but didn't notice I had to hit the "show" option.Here they are now.Intel Igent I'm using winxp not vista, I do use driver cleaner AND driversweeper (both) each time I uninstall drivers, and I do it in safe mode, I did try installing only the drivers and ofc turning off all background programs.

Innocentcriminal I hope you are right then, i'll be receiving the adaptor soon, I really hope it works.I noticed something strange a while ago but I'm not sure yet about it.I tried to disable the "force" fan speed at 100% at all times of rivatuner,and launched CoD4.It didn't crash in 20 minutes of gameplay, didn't have time to test further.Could it be the fact that the 6 pin doesn't give enough power to the card,and when the fan goes at 100% it drains too much power from the card and sends it in "tilt"?Just a thought.

[intel igent]

this may sound crazy but do you have a soundcard you can try in your sys?

are you running the card @ stock speed's?

6pin work's good for me and a couple other's.........

[Element]

Hello,

And thanks for the welcome :toast:

Thanks Innocentcriminal for the suggestion, I will give that a try this weekend, as I know my X-fi card is not in the third slot, ;) I also have loaded up the new AGP hotfix 8.6 from AMD, but have not yet tried it yet, one could hope it will help as well :respect: Cheers All :toast: will all figure these AGP issues out yet, :pimp: I also hit sapphire and AMD up on there websites for new bios and a pleaded to help us all with the AGP STUTTERING issues and driver crashes and serious AGP support, I am not ready to give up on my HD3850 AGP sapphire 512 mb yet.......its a great card :D

[intel igent]

welcome element!

can you fill out your system spec's in user control panel

[LoWRiDeR82]

Unfortunately I don't have a PCI soundcard but I could buy one if necessary, can you explain the benefits of such a move?

[InnocentCriminal]

Where are you located LoWeRiDeR?

[LoWRiDeR82]

Im in Rome Italy, and I'm straight! ;)

[InnocentCriminal]

LOL!

I was just wondering as I could of sent you a Creative Sound Blaster if you lived in the UK. Shame.
D'you not have a friend you might be able to borrow off?

[LoWRiDeR82]

Not really,but as I said, it wouldn't be a problem buying one, but why are you telling me to do so?I've never had probs with the integrated one, generally never had probs with this rig, but now with the new GPU.

Also a small update, it did crash even with the fan not forced to work at 100%, but it seems like it can last for a bit longer now,instead of 2-3 mins,crashes after 20.Don't know if it's just a case or if the fan is conneted to the crashing issues.

[InnocentCriminal]

I don't really know why intel igent suggested using a soundcard. I've recently installed on and it's made my system far more stable at a high OC on my CPU. Maybe intel's thinking is that if you install a PCI soundcard, it'd releave some of the load the CPU gets and hopefully gives you a more stable rig.

Download Hardware Monitor from CPUID's site and keep a eye on your voltages and temps.

[Widjaja]

LoWRiDeR82
Checked your thread at GuRU3D.

I'd say your problem is not the heat.

Reason for your crashing is lack of power.
I'm guessing the artifacts are red dots?

Do this too often and your card may permanently keep on doing it.

You say your'e getting an adaptor.
Is it one of those 4-pin to 8pin jobs?
If it is, make sure you don't have too many other peripherals connected to the power cables running the card or it may still artifact.

e.g. If run my X1950pro which needs two 4-pin molex with a HDD running of one cable and a fan running off the other, I will get artifacts in GPU intesive games like COD4, GRID, Colin McRae DiRT, Bioshock and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

The most I can have running off the power cables running the GPU is one HDD or one fan.

[LoWRiDeR82]

Ok i'll get one,they are cheap anyway,which one do you guys suggest as sound card?

Widjaja the artifacts I get are not red dots,while everything is working graphics are perfect,at some point the system totally crashes,screen goes black,comes back up and all the screen is broken with white stripes of squares amidst the CoD4 graphics..something like that more or less.At the moment I have my card attached to a 2x4pinmolex to 6pin pcie adaptor,the 2x4pin rails are completely free of other hardware,only dedicated to the gpu.Some say though the 6 pin is not enough, and I'm waiting for one of those "hard to find" 6pin to 8pin adaptors to try it out.

The voltages of my psu are decent, under load the +12 is at around 12.10, +5 around 5.07 and the +3.3 at around 3.29-3.3 or so

[InnocentCriminal]

Corruption like this Low?

http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/1681/38456941xh3.jpg

My friend had this when he got his X1650.

[LoWRiDeR82]

Yes!!Very very similar,and system totally freezes

[InnocentCriminal]

Not meaning to worry you, but my friends card turned out to be faulty.

[LoWRiDeR82]

I'm starting to believe that the card is faulty as well, I've already contacted the shop,they said they'd mail me the adaptor to try it, and so I will.If it doesn't work i'll mail them back the card.thanks for the info dude.

P.S. as for the soundcard,i'm thinking of getting one anyway,since it might make my system run more stable,and maybe help me clock higher.Which one do you recommend,i'm a noob in sound cards

[InnocentCriminal]

i'm a noob in sound cards

As am I. I was lucky to manage to find the Audigy at work. I'll look into posting as my friend has a Audigy 4 which I might be able to blag off him which means I could then send you the Audigy 2 ZS.

If not, I suggest you just pick up a cheap Audigy of eBay.

[LoWRiDeR82]

Hehe ok thanks dude :)

[Widjaja]

Sound cards generally have a better sound.
I do notice the difference between say AC97' and the Audigy 2 ZS.
There seems to be a flatness to the AC97' the majority of people use.
The Audigy is also supposed to give a few more frames, something like 5. . . . .yay due to taking the sound workload off the CPU.

I should be placing the ZS in my backup rig once I get the Sapphire HD4850 and Xfi Extreme Gamer or Auzentech Xplosion.
Although my brother said he didn't notice any difference between the ZS and the Xtreme Gamer is his rig despite the Xfi having onboard RAM.
Also the Auzentech Xplosion uses the Xfi core so technically I will be buying an Xfi sound card either way.

I think the Auzentech probably the higher quality brand out of the two.

One thing about the Audigy 2's though is the age of the sound driver.
2006?

[LoWRiDeR82]

Oh that's pretty cool to hear Widjaja, I might opt for an Xtreme Gamer then as well, since it certaintly will have a better lifespan for future upgrades as well.Didn't think the difference would be that good (5fps)..that's really nice.

[Widjaja]

Wish I had the link to the benchmark showing the 5fps increase.

Also games nowadays have more support for the Xfi cards.
Codemasters GRID for example does not support Audgy 2 cards so you get no sound hardware acceleration in game but still the game run very well on my X1950pro system.
I'l probably end up with a Auzentech Xplosion, even though they are a bit more expensive.

[LoWRiDeR82]

Hehe, I will first solve the GPU problem, after I fix that, i'll pass to the new soundcard.I'm just glad that this rig still is going strong and has some potential left in it :)

[intel igent]

i suggested the soundcard so that you could offload some stress from from the rest of the system, i would reccomend getting an audigy2ZS they are decent card's and can be found used for a good price (i've enjoyed mine for ~5yrs now)

i HIGHLY doubt it's a PSU problem as i have a powerstream520 in my rig which is WAY more demanding than your's and i'm running my card off of the 6pin without any problem's, not to mention that you can adjust the rail's via the pot's on the rear of the PSU ;)

have you tried to remount the heatsink with some good TIM?

[Widjaja]

Only thing I don't like about the Audigy is the fact Creative have stopped updating the drivers for it since 06'

If it wer'e the red dot artifacts I would have suspected not enough power as my X1950pro does this in GPU intensive games if it doesn't get enough power by adding to many peripherals on to the power cables delivering power to the card.

But from the sounds of things there is something faulty with the card.
Happens unfortunatley regardless of manufacturer.

[intel igent]

the audigy is GUARANTEED to be compatible with his system.

look at my rig spec's Widjaja; do you still think it's a power problem?

i think it's a heat issue or a driver issue

[LoWRiDeR82]

i suggested the soundcard so that you could offload some stress from from the rest of the system, i would reccomend getting an audigy2ZS they are decent card's and can be found used for a good price (i've enjoyed mine for ~5yrs now)

i HIGHLY doubt it's a PSU problem as i have a powerstream520 in my rig which is WAY more demanding than your's and i'm running my card off of the 6pin without any problem's, not to mention that you can adjust the rail's via the pot's on the rear of the PSU ;)

have you tried to remount the heatsink with some good TIM?


If you mean the gpu heatsink, no i haven't touched it and will not.If it's a problem of the GPU i'll RMA it.The temps are very low though when the fan spins at 100%..max 60C under full load.Some claim that the HIS, is more power demanding than the rest because of it's factory overclock and heatsink.Maybe it's just crap, I don't know, I just hope I find a solution soon.

[LoWRiDeR82]

the audigy is GUARANTEED to be compatible with his system.

look at my rig spec's Widjaja; do you still think it's a power problem?

i think it's a heat issue or a driver issue

Cooling in my case is very good and optimized.As for the drivers, i've changed every possible GPU driver, all have given me the same problem, if the 8 pin adaptor doesn't solve my problem, I will format the comp and reinstall all the rest of the drivers from scratch.If that doesn't work either RMA...i guess

[intel igent]

how long would it take for you to remove your card, remove the HSF, clean and apply new TIM and re-install?

prolly alot less time than an RMA ;)

did you not get the power adapter in the box with your card? FYI all the power adapter does is add two ground's

good luck to you just the same :D

:toast:

[LoWRiDeR82]

I don't want to remove the heatsink cause I wouldn't want any problems with RMAing the card that's the only reason.I got the power adaptor,but its only 6pin(and I tried using it with 2 free rails but it didn't fix the problem).I really doubt it's the heatsink though,cooling seems fine judging from the temps.

I've read somewhere online that if the card recognizes only 6 pins it doesn't allow overclocking/overdrive and it sucks less power or something like that

http://www.3dgameman.com/content/view/12184/103/

I know it's just 2 grounds and it is true that it should work FINE with a 6 pin at default speeds at least...
I've tried everything and that's the only thing left and the shop that sold me the card are 100% sure it's the adaptor.I hope they are right :(

[intel igent]

well my card will clock to CCC max of 720/950 no problem using the 6pin PCIe connector straight from my PSU (which is a lower model than your's and powering WAY more accessories)

you asked for help i'm giving you suggestion's

the reason i suggested to remove the HSF and do that was because my x850xt pe used to do the same thing until i removed the HSF and cleaned/applied new TIM and reseated the HSF. i guess the HSF was not making full/proper contact with all the component's :confused:

maybe you should just RMA the card then and be done with it?

:toast:

[LoWRiDeR82]

Yeah thanks for the suggestions mate, I will probably do so.If my card wasn't under warranty I would've removed the heatsink,but I don't want to risk.Your max of CCC is 720, my default card speeds are 720/910.

[intel igent]

to ME there is no risk in doing what i suggested, but to each their own.

:toast:

[Widjaja]

look at my rig spec's Widjaja; do you still think it's a power problem?

My post above yours.

If it wer'e the red dot artifacts I would have suspected not enough power as my X1950pro does this in GPU intensive games if it doesn't get enough power by adding to many peripherals on to the power cables delivering power to the card.

But from the sounds of things there is something faulty with the card.
Happens unfortunatley regardless of manufacturer.

So no I don't think it is.
Different artifacts can suggest different causes.

[intel igent]

woop's i missed it bro :o

i also remember back in the day some card's had artifacting problem's because the HSF's were fastened to tightly, just a thought :confused:

:toast:

[eidairaman1]

woop's i missed it bro :o

i also remember back in the day some card's had artifacting problem's because the HSF's were fastened to tightly, just a thought :confused:

:toast:

you mean warping the board

[InnocentCriminal]

Anyone experiencing any BSODs with the 8.6's when you OC? I can't seem to get anywhere near my previous OC. Sucks donkey dog balls.

[Widjaja]

May as well stick with the previous drivers then.
I still use 7.12 with my X1950pro.

[LoWRiDeR82]

I was getting non stop BSODS when i launched games with the 8.6 Beta,but the 8.6 agp fix released later didn't give me those problems

[InnocentCriminal]

I've had to go back to the 8.5's as the 8.6's set just kept screwing me over. Massive fucking shame as the 35% increase in CoD 4 I was really looking forward to. :(

[LoWRiDeR82]

Innocent this is strange 'cause i've looked online and noone has had problems with the 8.6 drivers.Are you using the 8.6 normal version,or the hotfixed for agp?If you are using the normal 8.6
go here and download the 8.6 agp hotfixed..

http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=31542

the normal 8.6 gave bsod's to me as well

[intel igent]

i'm still running the driver's off of the CD without any problem's

[InnocentCriminal]

Innocent this is strange 'cause i've looked online and noone has had problems with the 8.6 drivers.Are you using the 8.6 normal version,or the hotfixed for agp?If you are using the normal 8.6
go here and download the 8.6 agp hotfixed..it says 8.5 but they are actually the 8.6

http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=31542

the normal 8.6 gave bsod's to me as well

Hotfix as the normal drivers don't work with AGP cards.

[LoWRiDeR82]

Ok then why don't you give it a shot "force" installing the 8.6 normal drivers?Maybe those will work for you

[InnocentCriminal]

I doubt it, but it's worth a shot in the mouth. How would I go about Force installing these bad boys then?

[LoWRiDeR82]

You uninstall what you have and drivercleaner and all that shit
then you launch the 8.6 normal installer,it will unpack files in some directory (C:/ATI or smthing)
then when it says "unable to detect driver blabla" you raise your middle finger towards your monitor, go to your device manager,right click the VGA adapter,update driver,select specific location,look for the INF folder in that C:/ATI directory if I remember correctly and hit ok.If it's not that folder try them all from the ATI dir,it's either driver,or inf dir.Make sure you uninstall the previous drivers totally otherwise it doesn't work :) Hope it helps

[InnocentCriminal]

You uninstall what you have and drivercleaner and all that shit
then you launch the 8.6 normal installer,it will unpack files in some directory (C:/ATI or smthing)
then when it says "unable to detect driver blabla" you raise your middle finger towards your monitor, go to your device manager,right click the VGA adapter,update driver,select specific location,look for the INF folder in that C:/ATI directory if I remember correctly and hit ok.If it's not that folder try them all from the ATI dir,it's either driver,or inf dir.Make sure you uninstall the previous drivers totally otherwise it doesn't work :) Hope it helps

You know me so well.

Arrh you mean a manual install. Might as well give that a shot in the mouth when I can actually be bothered. So far the 8.5's are working flawlessly. I'm going to push my GFX OC again now and see if I can beat my last 3DMark06 score. Which was 9320 or something.

[Widjaja]

The stuttering you are getting in COD4 may be related to the 3850 and 3870 x2 possibly at high res.
I have all eye candy on at 1024 X 768 on the X1950pro AGP with 7.12cat and have only had minimal stutter.
Worse time was heading back to the helicopter on the first mission.

[InnocentCriminal]

Well messin' with my RAM timings didn't help. :(

I'm going to have to drive a different driver set for the Audigy as well, haven't had much luck with Beta drivers recently.

Any news Low?

[LoWRiDeR82]

Still waiting for the adaptor

[InnocentCriminal]

Arrrh fair enough.

[Widjaja]

Different driver for the Audigy?
I only know of two.
I have the version which came with the ZS, which has all these extra enhancements compared to the driver you get on the Creative website but since I don't use them I just used the ones of the site since they are newer.
Didn't notice any difference though.

[InnocentCriminal]

Yeah, I was using the latest beta from their site I think. I get weird crackling and hissing sounds. I also get audio looping when I blue screen, which should be happening at all.

[intel igent]

my audio driver's workin' fine over here :confused: original one's off of the driver disc as well :o

[InnocentCriminal]

Yeah see I didn't have the original drivers so I tried the very latest which were beta drivers. I'll be trying the last non-beta set tonight to see if that makes any difference.

2.74GHz is the highest I can get, don't really want to loosen timings anymore than they already are. :(

3-4-4-10 (2T) will be the best I can get. :(

[Widjaja]

I wasn't even aware there was BETA drivers out for the ZS.
Since when wer'e there BETAs?

I don't ever trust BETA drivers anyway.

Those RAM timings are loose alright.
My ABIT AV8 motherboard has issues with running my PARTIOT LLK RAM at it's standard timings without system issues.
I have to change the CL to 2.5 to make it run flawless and can only go up to 2.6Ghz at 2.5-3-2-5 1T.

[intel igent]

innocent your RAM should hold 3/4/4/8 1t up to 250MHz........

[InnocentCriminal]

Not 1T... :( Not stable at 1T with any settings. Craptastic.

[intel igent]

have you tried the RAM in another board?

[InnocentCriminal]

Yeah, fuckin' owned in my Shuttle SN95G5. Got to 2.7GHz on stock voltage, RAM and CPU and the timings were 3-3-3-8 (2T).

I miss my Shuttle. :(

Hopefully I get my friend's Opteron 170 tomorrow. That should make a difference in my score and shit.

[Widjaja]

Not 1T... :( Not stable at 1T with any settings. Craptastic.

WTF?
That is craptasitc, my brothers system is the same, he has 4GB Corsair XMS in a ASUS P35 Deluxe.
Can't handle 1T even at stock settings, mind you his E6600 is at 3Ghz.

[InnocentCriminal]

Yeah, massively fucks me off.

I've updated (or downgraded) my Audigy drivers, hopefully I won't crap out at 2.76GHz now, going to give 3DMark06 a little run through at 2.74GHz first though.

Need to beat 9424 I think it was...

[Widjaja]

I'm hoping I'll get 10K in 06' with my Sapphire HD4850 at stock.
If I do I'm not going to overclock any of the system.

[InnocentCriminal]

D'you mean just the 4850 at stock?

3DMark06 Update: After installing these proper audio drivers, I've managed to go from 2.74GHz to 2.82GHz - I'm also pushing my GFX a bit and I've managed to hit 9597 - just shy of 9600. What a bitch, I highly doubt I'll get much higher in both 3DMark and OC'ing my CPU.

I'm so freaking pleased!

[Widjaja]

Literally everything at stock.
I was getting over 8900 with everything stock and the 8800GT.

[LoWRiDeR82]

I'm hoping I'll get 10K in 06' with my Sapphire HD4850 at stock.
If I do I'm not going to overclock any of the system.

Seriously guys,I don't understand this logic, you rely on a benchmark that is completely meaningless??Anyway this thread is going a bit off-topic making it less helpful for future "3850agpers in need of help :)

[Widjaja]

Seriously guys,I don't understand this logic, you rely on a benchmark that is completely meaningless??Anyway this thread is going a bit off-topic making it less helpful for future "3850agpers in need of help :)

No.

I can certainly tell the difference between a card which gets 5K and another which gets 10K and the majority can as well.

Anyway who with a 3850 AGP is in need of help atm who we haven't tried to help?

[LoWRiDeR82]

Don't take it personally, dude,just saying that this thread is stickied,as 3850 thread,and we ended up speaking of soundcards hehe

[Widjaja]

ROFL sorry LoWRiDeR82 I can't tell whether I'm a bit edgy or not, I've been drink WAY too much coffee.
My GF just told me I have an issue atm.

[LoWRiDeR82]

np

[InnocentCriminal]

Seriously guys,I don't understand this logic, you rely on a benchmark that is completely meaningless??Anyway this thread is going a bit off-topic making it less helpful for future "3850agpers in need of help :)

What the crap? How is this less helpful, read the thread from the beginning, there are shit loads of posts that are related to the 3850 or to systems that have a one. Nobody has moaned, until now. If intel igent has any issues (or anyone else for that matter) would say.

As Widjaja said, I use 3DMark06 as a way to show the difference in my overclocks. So what if it doesn't relate into real game performance.

[Widjaja]

Oh shit, was it me me with the issue or my GF?
Or have you been drinking to much coffee too InnocentCriminal?

My confusion and erratic behaviour suggest I have. . . .:twitch:

I'm staying out of this one.:confused:

[LoWRiDeR82]

jeeez i didn't want to offend anyone, just thought we were going off topic, that's all.peace out

[InnocentCriminal]

I don't drink coffee, I'm just easily annoyed, plus it's the tinternet, things are easier to look into too much or take in a completely different way to how they were originally intended.

I'm a complete pesimist, so I always take things in a negative way before anything else.

Saying that, the title of the thread states 'experiences' and I'm stating my issues/experiences with a system that houses a HD3850. So, stating how adding a dedicated sound card has helped my system to be stable, I think is completely relevant.

[LoWRiDeR82]

Ok I have a question,will HIS really launch a 3870 version for AGP?I found something on an article

[InnocentCriminal]

I doubt it, but don't rule it out. I'm worried parties such as Sapphire & the alike, might release a 4850. :/

Don't know if I should laugh or cry if they do.

[Widjaja]

Well there are plenty of people who are still on AGP so I don't see why not.

[InnocentCriminal]

Well it was the same deal with the 3850, wasn't expecting them to release one and they did. Now I have one, I'm just waiting for a news snippet to piss my GF off as she'll know I'll get one, rephrase that, she'll know I'll want one.

[Widjaja]

They just don't understand do they.
Just like how they are drawn to laptops.

[InnocentCriminal]

What?

LOL

[LoWRiDeR82]

http://www.guru3d.com/article/computex-2008-day-3--the-man-with-hammer/4

[InnocentCriminal]

http://www.guru3d.com/imageview.php?image=13696

Awesome, wonder if it'll actually be worth purchasing if they do release it. I mean, I have my 3850 at some stupidly high clocks. GPU @ 800+ and the RAM at 910+ - I presume it might consume less juice. Shame nobody has officially reviewed the card. Guess I could do a review (when I get a decent amount of free time) and compare it to my X1950. Would people be interested in a unofficial review? Even though we already know the card pwns.

Would they release this when the 4850 has now been released?

[LoWRiDeR82]

Well so far my HIS is giving me problems :) I wanted to test it with another game this morning, and the fact that I installed GRID and I realised that it will not work with my computer cause my cpu only supports SSE1 and not SSE2 pissed me off pretty bad..so my computer can play AoC and Crysis fine, but it's not "good enough" for Grid...goddamn developers.

[InnocentCriminal]

Arrh lame, I doubt anyone have released a SSE1 patch either, a bit like the SM2 patch they did for BioShock.

Shame, but how is the card giving problem if your CPU is at fault? ;)

I'm ordering GRiD next week when I'm paid. ^^

[LoWRiDeR82]

No patch, and there was an official answer from the customer care of codemasters saying there wouldn't be any patch for SSE1.Bah,it takes 10 mins to apply SSE1

"Codemasters Customer Service05-13-2008, 03:00 PM
If you have a 32 bit Athlon CPU (Barton core) then you will not be able to run Grid I'm afraid. The game needs an SSE2 compatible CPU to run. Older single core Athlons are SSE1.

The readme does state an Athlon X2 3800 as the minimum and there is no workaround. Sorry"

As for the GPU giving problems,I was referring to the fact it crashes during CoD4 etc,the problem I already explained to you.Not grid.

p.s. you will order grid?omg...piracy ftw!buying original software is lame! :P jk

[InnocentCriminal]

The Cat-butts.

Well, if you want a single core Athlon64 3200+ and a ASUS A8V I have them spare. However, you'd need the retention module for the motherboard as I wasn't sent one when I bought the one I'm using so I had to use the one from my spare board (that I found at work).

[LoWRiDeR82]

Neh don't worry,I won't upgrade just because 1 game does that.When I start to experience that kind of stuff more often I will.I'm not a hardcore gamer, stopped being one after realising how much I burned myself playing WoW hardcore like an idiot.I mainly use this comp for daily stuff and it's still pretty fast.The only game I really want to be able to play is starcraft2 and I believe it will be ok.Blizzard has always optimized their games for a very vast userbase.Thank you anyway.

[InnocentCriminal]

Nah it's cool.

I also have 2 AthlonXP-M's ^^

I'm contemplating getting a AsRock Core2DualSATA or whatever the hell it was called. Which has an AGP slot, just waiting for the Q6600 to drop under £100. Then again, if I do that, they're won't be any point going down the Nehalem/Bloomfield route. Which is what I'm saving for really.

[LoWRiDeR82]

Also another reason I don't want to upgrade yet is because I'd like to stay with AMD,but AMD atm is not offering any interesting CPUs.I hope they do the same thing they are doing with the 4000 gpu family, in the cpu segment.Top notch performance with a very low price.

[InnocentCriminal]

I hope so too!

It's a massive shame that the K10 (Phenom) sucked major donkey balls. The fact they're working a on completely new architecture says something. I really do hope they can bring it back, I miss the competition and freedom of choice.

[intel igent]

try and stay on topic guy's......

K10 was not a failure it is the world's first/only TRUE quad core ;)

i beleive some of the issues you are experiencing lowrider can be attributed to your CPU

if you haven't already OC your CPU and look at getting a sound card ;)

:toast:

[InnocentCriminal]

try and stay on topic guy's......

We are on topic. You only said that cos of the banter before hand. :P

I never said the K10 was a failure, just said it sucked balls. The white papers made it sound amazing.

[LoWRiDeR82]

try and stay on topic guy's......

K10 was not a failure it is the world's first/only TRUE quad core ;)

i beleive some of the issues you are experiencing lowrider can be attributed to your CPU

if you haven't already OC your CPU and look at getting a sound card ;)

:toast:


My CPU is pretty much OCED,and I got myself an X-fi xtreme gamer fatality today should be receiving it early next week,but I doubt it's my cpu.It is the GPU that gives me those problems,so it's either a power issue,or a faulty gpu issue

[intel igent]

the CPU could be bottlenecking the GPU and giving some of the problem's/stuttering that you are experiencing

your'e running a barton which is skt754?

that's 3 generation's old compared to the GPU so it is possible, that's why i suggested to OC and get a soundcard to offload some of the work from the CPU

in any event keep us posted

:toast:

[InnocentCriminal]

your'e running a barton which is skt754?

Even older, Socket A (462).

[LoWRiDeR82]

I never said I experience stuttering.Games run perfectly,I was blown away with the performance boost the GPU gave. Unfortunately, what I said is that after 5 min of CoD4 the system crashes which is worrying me quite a bit.It's also strange that I can play crysis for 2 hours and not experience a gpu crash.The only game that stutters is AoC, initially I did think it could be because of the CPU bottlenecking heavily the card. But in these two threads:

http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=25454&highlight=3850

http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=23864

one can see that even people with computers a lot more powerful,and 3800 cards are experiencing the same problem.Practically, it's a game coding/drivers issue, that won't make the gpu work higher than 20-30% no matter the rest of the system.I'll let you know how the comp runs when the soundcard gets here.

P.S. Barton is Socket A (socket 462) clocked at 12x222 (should be equal to an athlon 4000+ or so)

[InnocentCriminal]

Yeah, keep us posted.

UPDATE: I e-mailed Sapphire's tech department yesterday if they had any information on a AGP 4850 and got a reply this morning...

No we do not have any information about release AGP version of the HD4850.

So, could this be that there is an AGP version in the works and they don't have any information on the it's release, or... I'm so hungover. URGH!

[eidairaman1]

id say they have no info from AMD yet.

[InnocentCriminal]

Well, I'm not ruling out the possibility of a release, they have the AGP market by the balls, think they might milk it as much as possible before people just stop buying them.

[eidairaman1]

ya if i continue on upgrading this machine eventually there will be a bottleneck, so im thinking of starting from scratch, 4870 graphics core, and a highly overclockable motherboard.

[InnocentCriminal]

Really interesting article if you haven't read it already. (http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=1)

[eidairaman1]

always speculation on cards, but ive made decision to go with the 4870 as it will be within my price range. This Launch Reminds me of the First Gen R300 parts.

[InnocentCriminal]

w00t!

I forgot to mention, my friend gave me his Opteron 170 last night and his Muskin Redline DDR500 so I'm going to see how far I can get these buggers and see if I can get anywhere near 10K with my 3850.

Currently I'm at 9597, so I need just 403 more marks and I'll have hit 10K with an AGP card and a dual core CPU that isn't a Core 2 Duo.

^^

[LoWRiDeR82]

Very nice article indeed.I am glad that AMD/ATI decided to take the right approach for their business.And they SHOULD do the same in the cpu market.Since they have a much smaller % of the market compared to Intel and Nvidia,they should aim to conquer the mainstream segment with products like the 4000 series.I'm pretty satisfied so far with AMD...now if I only could make this goddamn 3850 work.As soon as I receive the sound card, i'll format the whole comp and see if I can work something out.

P.S. good luck with your new cpu,tweak your memory timings,give em some more volts so you raise the speed of that cpu,optimize cooling,and you'll get your 403 marks easy.

[InnocentCriminal]

good luck with your new cpu,tweak your memory timings,give em some more volts so you raise the speed of that cpu,optimize cooling,and you'll get your 403 marks easy.

^^

I've currently got my system at 2.82GHz with the tightest timings my motherboard will allow. Even under heavy load the cores don't even go over 45°C - I've never seen it higher than 43°C. So, cooling as as good as it gets. The thing I'm hoping for is that extra 512kb L2 cache on the Opteron will give me the added marks in the CPU tests so that I can push past 10K. I'll lower the HTT even more tonight before trying out the Opty,

The VF1000 heatsink that I've got on my 3850 is bloody fantastic. The highest temp I've ever seen on the GPU has been 61°C and that was after multiple runs of 3DMark after playing Crysis and then CoD 4, which was with the GPU over 800MHz and the RAM at 910MHz.

:rockout:



**

[LoWRiDeR82]

Not bad :D
The HIS cooler is awesome as well, i'm getting 60 max under full load as well,and it's frigging hot nowadays where I live

[Morgoth]

i'm starting to hate my system now :P

[InnocentCriminal]

Yeah, I don't understand why your system sucks major balls. It shouldn't be that bad really.

[LoWRiDeR82]

Any new records Innocent??

p.s. do you guys think its good installing service pack 3 in win xp pro,or not?

[Widjaja]

Thing went a bit weird for me with SP3.
I found it now takes longer to open up files on startup.
I click on a folder and the icon take a while to appear compared to before.

[InnocentCriminal]

I haven't installed SP3 as I read that there was an issue with AMD systems. I'll find it article in a bit. As for new records... unfortunately no. :(
Turns out the stepping on my friends Opteron is only good for 2.6GHz, I did manage to get 2.7GHz out of it, so there is still hope yet, it just takes a shit load more voltage than my Toledo did. :(

It's the same for his RAM, even though it's meant to be much better than my Crucial, his Mushkin sucked major dong. Completely unstable! It's most likely my motherboard being really picky but we'll see.

I've been trying to fine tune my RAM with it and current I'm running 3-3-3-8 (instead of 3-4-4-10) with this Opty at 2.4GHz voltage at stock. Hoping it can hit 2.8GHz with these timings as that would surely increase my chances in getting the remaining 403 marks needed for the holy fucking grail of 10,000 3DMarks.

^^

I don't think I've seen anyone else (in other forums) that have managed 10K with a 939 board and a AGP card. Not saying I'll be the first but it would be nice, even if 3DMark06 means dick.

[Widjaja]

The AV8 is somewhat picky with RAM but more picky with PSU.
You should have seen what timings my ASUS A8N sli deluxe auto set my PATRIOT ram too.

If the 4850 comes out for AGP then 10k is inevitable.

BTW it took 1.55v for the guy with the Opty180 to get 2.8Ghz stable.
Probably take the same for me with my X2 4800+ but it gets too hot for my liking.

[InnocentCriminal]

I want a 4850 so much, but again, I don't need one. My 3850 is the dog bollocks, so buying a 4850 would be a waste if I plan to start building around Bloomfield come next year.

I've swapped back over to my 3800+ I got to 2.82GHz at a far lower voltage so the extra 512MB cache just isn't worth it. The best I got out of the bugger with my 3850 at 830-GPU 925-RAM was 9460 in 3DMark06 so instead of going forward I went backward.

All I have to do now is try and get my 2.82GHz back but with my RAM at 3-3-3-8. Hmmm.... anyone else with a system is that isn't C2D that's willing or able to beat my pointless 3DMark score?

[LoWRiDeR82]

Guys I saw that someone cracked the physx patch for the nvidia cards,to work on ati 3850.Will it work under windows xp?anyone knows?
What do you think of installing vista 32 on my rig.Will it worsen performance?

p.s. you did good innocent.That's a helluva overclock you got there,pretty strong cpu for it's age!

[InnocentCriminal]

Thanks buddy!

You can have a bash at Vista if you want. I installed it on my old man's Shuttle that used a XP-M 2400+ and was actually better than how it ran on my rig. However, I don't like Vista, even though the performance is roughly equal to XP I still found it ate a lot more resources.

I'm not extremely bothered by that PhysX mod, I may give it a shot in the mouth if people experience anything worth wild in games that need it, hope it's not at the expense of frames though.

Update on my rig - I've installed my CPU again now temps are much lower, back at 2.4GHz but with 3-3-3-8 hoping I can get back to 2.8GHz with these timings.

[dekka]

Hi guys
I got this Club3D HD3850/512 AGP edition last week - damn, ask me if I regret about this purchase - so far, YES I DO! Actually this here is my second card, cause the first same one had a problem with the stock cooling, got overheated - GPU went sour, they replaced it ok.
My second one still lasts, overheats (and shuts down my whole rig) even in tetris, shows ridiculous FPS in multiplayer games and demands so much attention/research i NEVER paid to ANYTHING in my life! I happen to own a watercooled tower so i added a GPU water block to this crapocard - 1 problem is gone, thank GOD, i can run smth else but solitare...

Now my next concern is - how come an ancient game like RTCW runs at funny FPS? My old video handled this game flawlessly no matter how crowded the server was/how high the settings were maxed out - the FPS were stable 70 at all times. I tried and picked at every option in CCC - no result! Any ideas? Anybody? please help!

ps. here's a discussion of PowerPlay issue http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=173203
does it mean i'll have to flush my bios:eek:

[LoWRiDeR82]

Try overclocking that Cpu a bit,to 3.6-3.8ghz if possible.It will help.
Have you tried formatting?
Have you updated every driver in your system,having first removed every bit of the old ones using an app like drivercleaner etc?

[InnocentCriminal]

Welcome to the forums dekka.

To start off, the card isn't crap, looking at your picture your system's specification is massively limiting it's performance as well causing any lag issues your getting in game. I'd point the finger at your CPU. It's best if you fill out the System Specification located in your User Control Panel so that everyone can see instead of having to browse for the picture each time. I'd be interested to see what waterblock you have and if you provide any photos for this thread that would be fantastic considering many people are keen to WC there 3850.

Another guess I'd make at the lack of performance is the fact you've got 2 sticks of 512 and a single 1GB stick, which means dual channel wouldn't be enabled resulting in worse performance than if you have 4 x 512MB. Not much you can do if y'not willing to buy more RAM. However, y'CPU is definitely more of bottleneck than anything else.

When you say, RTCW, I presume you mean Return to Castle Wolfenstein right? Without trying to sound like a broken record, your lack of performance is due to your CPU being a bottleneck and the fact your system is set up as optimally as it could be.

As for the heat, well you are running a Pentium 4 - one of the hottest CPUs known to man. What would your ambient (room) temperature be? I can't help but think you've got some stagnant air flow in your rig. Even if you're WC'ing you'll still need some air going through the case.

[lemonadesoda]

^^ +1

Why dont you run a couple of benchmarks and see where you are failing. The AGP 3850 really is an excellent card. If you are overheating... maybe you have a case cooling problem. Attach a photo of your rig, and complete the specs in your profile so we can all see what you've got.

Compare your PC performance to these benchmarks:

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=59445&highlight=agp+benchmark
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=57401&highlight=agp+benchmark

[Widjaja]

Yes this is the down fall of the 3850 AGP cards.
The only way your'e going to get the performance expected from them is with a AMD X2 939skt or one of those odd AssRock DualSATA motherboards which you can use a Intel Dual or Quad core CPUs.

[eidairaman1]

Doesnt look like he read the manual on what powersupply he should run, the x1950 pro i have recommended a 450 watt powersupply, i have a 500 watt which is fine. Also another point being is you dont know how these middlemen store the computer components.

Hi guys
I got this Club3D HD3850/512 AGP edition last week - damn, ask me if I regret about this purchase - so far, YES I DO! Actually this here is my second card, cause the first same one had a problem with the stock cooling, got overheated - GPU went sour, they replaced it ok.
My second one still lasts, overheats (and shuts down my whole rig) even in tetris, shows ridiculous FPS in multiplayer games and demands so much attention/research i NEVER paid to ANYTHING in my life! I happen to own a watercooled tower so i added a GPU water block to this crapocard - 1 problem is gone, thank GOD, i can run smth else but solitare...

Now my next concern is - how come an ancient game like RTCW runs at funny FPS? My old video handled this game flawlessly no matter how crowded the server was/how high the settings were maxed out - the FPS were stable 70 at all times. I tried and picked at every option in CCC - no result! Any ideas? Anybody? please help!

ps. here's a discussion of PowerPlay issue http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=173203
does it mean i'll have to flush my bios:eek:

[eidairaman1]

Thing went a bit weird for me with SP3.
I found it now takes longer to open up files on startup.
I click on a folder and the icon take a while to appear compared to before.

thats why i did a fresh OS install, prevent any problems

[Widjaja]

thats why i did a fresh OS install, prevent any problems


I did a fresh install.

[eidairaman1]

well, i guess i got lucky then with OS install.

[LoWRiDeR82]

I installed SP3,i didn't see any slowdowns or problems so far,it also solved some BSOD problems I had with windows.I am planning to format ofc and reinstall all clean cause something was/is wrong with my windows.

[InnocentCriminal]

Yeah, I'm not happy since installing my friend's Opteron. It's balls'd my rig up and now it's constantly blue screening over 2.6GHz, which is crap, I want my 2.82GHz back. I'll miss the extra 1MB cache, maybe I could find a cheap Opteron 180 or something on eBay. I'll keep trying, I might even try my DDR600 again.

I've got an empty 300GB HDD I might use for a fresh install of XP32 and XP64 if I can a quire a copy.

[LoWRiDeR82]

How does vista 32 behave under heavy overclocks?

[Widjaja]

maybe I could find a cheap Opteron 180.

Ha!

Cheap high end 939skts. . . . .

Good luck.

[InnocentCriminal]

I dunno, I saw a 165 go for £30 on eBay. I'd be willing to pay £40 at the most for a 175 or 180.

[dekka]

thanks for support guys, you have just mentioned all the components that were begging for upgrade lately - the CPU (which as I read is not the best choice to OC), the memory and I guess now the PSU too... I also thought of this new card as of smthg a little too much my current tower could handle - I cannot even put the video under stress for too long- i know for sure its not the temps (at least not GPU t) - when auto tuning in CCC I see GPU being stressed out for a minute or 2 then the whole rig suddenly shuts off, and i cant switch it back on without resetting PSU - same applies when i try to heavy load it with in-game settings maxed out - it seems to handle it for a few minutes then goes shutdown.

I made a few pics (sorry for the quality) of GPU watercooling its from thermaltake heres the link

http://www.thermaltake.com/product/Liguid/Upgrade/cl-w0088/cl-w0088.asp

- i know its a little crappy thing made in taiwan but its cheap and it does its job pretty good - i never seen the temps go above 55C since i installed it. Attached a few pics of my whole tower-not sure if it helps

Heres the summary:
the card craps out on me when:
-GPU load set @ max for more than few min
-ingame options (AA+AF+vertsync on) set @ max + basic options are set to ULTRA
-single player FPS are stable and acceptable, but multiplayer FPS with openGL renderer are ALWAYS crap

Updated every driver in the system, run XP home SP2, tried official CCC v.8.4-8.6 + AGPHotfix from ATI, current driver is OMEGA.

Comments, questions, advices :confused:

UPDATE:
When trying to benchmark with Ozone3D FurMark ( http://www.ozone3d.net/benchmarks/fur/ ) see the beginning of the test for a split second then my PC shuts off...

[InnocentCriminal]

Sounds a lot like your PSU can't deal with the increased load. Usually when a system shuts down like that it's a power or heating issue. I suggest, finances allowing to pick up a Corsair HX520 (http://www.corsair.com/products/hx.aspx) or any Corsair PSU tbh, I wouldn't be surprised if the VX450W (http://www.corsair.com/products/vx.aspx) could handled it perfectly.

That's my opinion.

UPDATE: I'm going to try my luck with an nForce3 based motherboard. I know I'm stupid spending money on old hardware AGAIN, but if my Shuttle is anything to go by, then this will allow me to attain a much higher OC. Fingers crossed I can get it cheaper than £35.

http://global.msi.com.tw/uploads/prod_2f25f16aabf00f03cf9be07b63c6933d.jpg

Love the colours on this board!

[dekka]

you think a 520w PSU should do it? its only 40w stronger than the one i have... i'll go for a little overkill and buy a 700w just to make sure its not a power issue in the future

[LoWRiDeR82]

lol innocent,you are crazy

[InnocentCriminal]

I'm using a HX520W and it's more than capable. Don't make the same mistake 99% of PC users do and go on Wattage rating alone. A crappy, 700W could be massively inefficient compared to the HX520 or even the VX450.

I can't recommend the HX520W highly enough, it's a fantastic PSU and I'll still be using it when I move over to a Nehalem/Bloomfield based set up in the next year, if I don't get this nForce3 motherboard.

^^

lol innocent,you are crazy

I am, I am indeed - just look at my picture. ;) I know it's a completely e-penis thing, but I seriously want to be able to reach 10K in 3DMark06 - plus I don't need a new PC, guess you could argue I don't need a new motherboard. :P I'll only get it if I can get a really decent price. I mean, I paid £35 for my A8V and it's good, but not great. This board offers me a lot more (from my experience based on my Shuttle - same chipset) for instance, the RAM slots will be directly behind the intake fan of my case so they'll be cooled excessively, which is fantastic.

I'm a sucker for board aesthetics as well so that alone is making me want it profoundly! Call me crazy, call me stupid... I know I am. ;)

[Widjaja]

Yes I was stupid and bought a ASUS A8N SLi Deluxe and the XFX 8800GT xxx VF830 based primarily on Aesthetics and they turned out shit in the end.

Since then gone back to my ugly Orange Foxconn motherboard with no hassles and not too bad looking HD4850 except for the ugly vrm heatspreader.

[InnocentCriminal]

Sweet, you've got your 4850 - how are you finding it?

[Widjaja]

Will know once I have put it in.

Seriously I can't be bothered since all the hassle with the 8800GT.
It's right there next to my backup PC.

I'll install it once the 8.7cats comeout so I don't have to use the hotfix.

[InnocentCriminal]

Arrrh fair, will you be able to hold out, I mean... I know I wouldn't. ;)

[intel igent]

stay on topic

[InnocentCriminal]

I'm done.

[InnocentCriminal]

UPDATE: Oh no I'm not!

I got home tonight, turned my rig on everything was moving along as normal albeit a little bit slower as I wasn't at my max stable OC, but as I can't seem to reach that I haven't pushed it.

So, come the time for my clans daily practise in CoD 4 and I keep getting booted back to my desktop after, I dunno about 5minutes of play, and this is without me enabling any of my OC profiles on my 3850.

After this happening for about 45minutes, I get a BSOD, reboot, get into Windows, go to load CoD 4, and same thing happens albeit with a different BSOD error message. I finally manage to launch CoD and just as I'm about to kill someone, I lock up and I get a BSOD, this time stating an ATI.sys (or similar) is the main offender. I reboot, and nothing - it'd go to load Windows, but it wouldn't get there, it'd reboot.

After it rebooted, I selected Last Known Good Configuration... same thing, almost loaded but reboots. So, after reseating my card, I go back repeat the process... Yep! You guessed it, BSOD!

Booting into Safe Mode and checking out Event Viewer told me a rather interesting story. As well as stating my GFX card drivers aren't loading, it also informs me that my CPU driver is failing to load.

Windows - I fucking hate you!

So, cutting a long story short(er), I uninstall all the ATi software, as you do using DriverCleaner Pro et al and it boots into Windows first time and asks for me to install drivers for my 3850.
So, I go through installing, 8.4, 8.5 and 8.6 both with and without CCC, both through the setup.exe and manually through Device Manager and the same thing happens. Plus, when installed manually, selecting 1680 x 1050 would make the system freeze.

I've reinstalled my motherboard AGP Gart driver to avail.

Anyone care to explain what's going on so suddenly?

[lemonadesoda]

WHATS HAPPENING?
The problem is only happening in 3D mode, right? I think this is because the electronics between the AGP slot and Northbridge are failing. Not sure if it is power related (caps, mosfets) or signalling problem (caps, resistors, northbridge), esp. on high speed DMA.

It's often the price of OC'ing a bit too far.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR/FIX

1./ Check it really IS the AGP slot. Run IGP or a PCI card. Is it stable? If so, then AGP problem. Keep looking.

2./ Check around your AGP slot very very carefully. I think I had a similar problem with my Conroe865PE... a mosfet burnt out. Look at the caps, and the mosfets, for tell-tale signs of overheating (brown flux like stuff). If so, it's an easy fix, just get your iron out and replace cap and/or mosfet.

3./ Check around your northbridge. Have you been o/cing it? Does it have sufficient cooling. Check for similar problems to 1. If North is down, you need a new mainboard.

4./ Clean your mainboard as best you can. Dust and stray objects can change impedence of signalling lines, which can piss off the northbridge communication.

5./ Too much heavy handed installing/removing of AGP cards might have strained the mainboard PCB. Micro-fractures causing signalling problems. New mainboard needed.

[InnocentCriminal]

It was my fucking Audigy card being a complete dick. As soon as I removed it, the bugger booted straight into Windows.

I so want that new motherboard.

Nice tips Lemonade, what you've mentioned is basically my daily routine, constantly having to do that at work. Obviously, not with AGP but with whatever components.

UPDATE: Completely removed the Audigy now, I'll wait until I get that nForce3 motherboard.

[lemonadesoda]

OK, if you solved the situation by pulling Audigy, there may be a workaround.

Get driver cleaner pro... and use it to remove ALL drivers, and all "control sets".

What's happened? With your constant plugging and pulling of cards, you might have used up the available memory map for i/o and DMA. (And if not *all* then at least all the ones that Audigy can handle). The registry control sets are basically locking resources for certain hardware.

By cleaning these up, pulling your cmos, and reinstalling the audigy, you might be OK.

I run Audigy 2 on my AGP rig, HD3850 and Q6600 on intel 865 with ZERO problems. (ASROCK 775i65G)

[InnocentCriminal]

Hmmm... you've got an interesting point there.

[LoWRiDeR82]

BAH UPDATE on my problem: After formatting and reinstalling everything clean, I tried CoD4 again. It made me think the problem was solved cause I managed to complete 3-4 missions in a row(about 1 hour of play) without problems at reaaally nice frame rates.Then almost the moment I was about to quit, bang, same problem....now all my hopes really rely with that stupid adaptor that never gets here (thanks to the incredible post offices we got here).If that doesn't work, I can only think of a faulty gpu.

[InnocentCriminal]

Crapass!

Massively lame - what driver set are you using? 8.6's? I can't remember if I've already told you to disable Fast Writes in your BIOS, but if you haven't, give that a shot in the mouth. Try reseating the card and making sure you don't have any crap (dust) in the AGP slot.

How are you powering the card, 6pin or 8pin? If the former, use the latter - I use the 8pin as mine has an 8pin connector - makes sense.

Keep an eye on temps when you game for, say, half an hour. Report back with your CPU and GPU temps.

Download Hardware Monitor (http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php) and take a window shot of it (holding down ALT whilst being in HWM and pressing Print Screen. That way we can see everything.

^^

[LoWRiDeR82]

driver 8.6 hotfix
6 pin cause i don't have an adapter yet
Tried with fast writes off didn't help
Temps are ok,cpu is max 53-54C gpu is max 61C

p.s. I don't know wether to laugh or cry.I just received the envelope in which the shop mailed me the 8pin adaptor, but someone strapped it open in its way here, and took the cable...so I got an envelope with just a letter inside saying "here is the cable adaptor you needed".jesus christ

[InnocentCriminal]

Fucking hell man!

I'd get on to them ASAP, give them a massive a bollocking for dicking you about.

[LoWRiDeR82]

Fucking hell man!

I'd get on to them ASAP, give them a massive a bollocking for dicking you about.


Haha I wish I could do that dude,i'd prolly beat the crap out of them.But trying to find your rights against the italian post offices, is a massive loss of time.It will be faster if I try looking for a new cable...though I don't know where else cause I can't seem to find them here in italy those goddamn 6 pin to 8 pin or 2molex to 8pin pcie adapters...

[InnocentCriminal]

That's friggin' lame.

:(

If I find a spare one, I'll send it your way, screw the air postage.

[LoWRiDeR82]

Thanks dude, let me know If you can get hold of one, i'll pay for it

[InnocentCriminal]

Just pay for shipping, depending how much it is. I swear I have a spare one. One for my X1950 Pro and I think I got one with my 3850.

[LoWRiDeR82]

Sure just let me know hwo much it costs!show me a pic also to make sure that's the one

[Widjaja]

Guessing your'e in the UK LoWRiDeR82?

[InnocentCriminal]

I'll upload one tonight if I find it.

^^

SODs law has it that you'll get the one you were meant to have received after I've sent mine off.

[LoWRiDeR82]

Guessing your'e in the UK LoWRiDeR82?

Nop, i'm in Rome, Italy.

p.s. do you guys use any kind of registry optimizers and shit,to fix any possible damage caused to the registry by system lockups?or no need?

[Element]

Hello, All

Well, I finally fixed my AGP HD3850 problem, :rockout: And let me tell you after 3 weeks of trying to figure out what the hell was going on :banghead: we figured it out..... :rockout: OK, here's the deal :cool: this is for all A8V-Deluxe board owners and anybody else that has a KT800pro via chipset running there board......:wtf: FORGET ABOUT VISTA and SERVICE PACK 1...... :nutkick: it simply does not work on this particular board or via chipset with the HD3850 AGP Card :twitch:yea that right, I figure it has to do with the new architecture of vista and service pack 1 and really, no good drivers to communicate between the card, ati and via's drivers and vista itself , as they really didnt design vista to run on older AGP boards.....:shadedshu.....I also think that via and ati are to blame for no driver support, for using vista and service pack 1 with the card, as the card was built, everybody should have worked togethor to get the proper support before they released the card onto the world.....and told people about all the issues........:banghead: ok enough rannting, now for the good news, XP PRO and service pack 3, original CD 8.1 CAT drivers for Sapphire HD3850 AGP and original CD drivers for X-FI Fatlity full install on both......NOT ONE ISSUE.......Yup, NOT ONE, all games as smooth as glass, average FPS is 50 and I am not overclocked on anything not the card,board,ram, cpu yet......:toast: I will keep you posted on my progress :D and I advise anybody who is running KT800 pro chipset boards and a sapphire HD3850 agp to trash vista and service pack 1, otherwise your in for a real bad experience......:banghead: just on a side note, this worked for me,not sure it will work for everybody, but if nothing else is working for you, try this, this is related to massive stuttering in all games and movies, and a sudden jarring every 3 to 10 seconds, I was using vista and service pack 1 with HD3850 8x AGP, A8V-deluxe, FX-55 AMD, kingston pc-3500 480 watt neo power supply.....good LUCK no longer a vista/service pack 1 user.....:pimp:

[Widjaja]

Vista sucks.
Causes issues with many older boards and games.
Who needs DX10 when it runs so badly.

GRID is a good exmaple of showing DX9 still has alot of potential.

[eidairaman1]

if i was able to stuff 2 more gigs into my current machine and make windows work with it correctly, id have Win Server 2003 in.

[Element]

Hello,

Yea, I am discovering that now, Havn't had a problem with vista till I got my 3850 AGP, then it all went down hill from there, :shadedshu I will be sticking with XP, I hope this helps other people, if XP didnt work, than I was looking at hardware issues, but there is no dought that it is all vista OS and via/ati driver issues, there are alot of people out there with this type of chipset, with many different board manufactures using AGP, this resolved all my issues, hope it does for others..... :toast:

[LoWRiDeR82]

WinXP is fine to be honest with older systems.DX10.1 isn't even working yet,and by the time you actually see a significant difference with DX9 you will already have upgraded to a better system.So for the time being,just enjoy one of the best OS so far(winxp) and let vista mature a tad,cause at the moment it sucks major balls.

[InnocentCriminal]

LoWRiDeR, y'going to hate me now, I completely forgot to look out for the cable as I had to do a repair installation of Windows last night so my attention went on that, sorry dude.

On another note, I've installed the 8.6 display driver without CCC (as of yet) and I've noticed a massive increase in performance in games, however 3DMark06 isn't attaining the sort of scores I got with the 8.5's. I'll keep trying, but for the moment I'm just happy CoD 4 is chugging along at 1680 x 1050 with 4xx and high details between 60-75 on a busy server.

As for your stuttering, I was thinking, have you tried disabling any unwanted background services. Try creating a new user account just for gaming, so disable y'anti-virus and the a-like, again disabling any unwanted services and give that a shot in the mouth.

Element, as LoW said, Vista sucks balls, however I was having issues with it before installing SP1 so I'm not sure if that would have made any difference, but with Vista (32) I couldn't keep it stable at anything over 2.6GHz. WindowsXP is, and will be for a year or two yet, the best OS - I'm intrigued to try XP64 but I can't seem to acquire a trial, which is lame.

[lemonadesoda]

For everyone playing with AGP, I re-recommend you ONLY use the drivers and stay clear of CCC. I'm rock solid and can do mammoth overclocks on the 3850AGP (Furmark = 3344).

[LoWRiDeR82]

Yeah CCC sucks, it kept VPUrecovering my gpu.Also overdrive sucks donkey balls

[InnocentCriminal]

What OC d'you have on your 3850 lemonade?

[Widjaja]

For everyone playing with AGP, I re-recommend you ONLY use the drivers and stay clear of CCC. I'm rock solid and can do mammoth overclocks on the 3850AGP (Furmark = 3344).

I never use CCC I think it's bloated.

I use ATi Tray Tools instead as it also has it's own screenshot and GPU reading in the system tray option too which shows you lowest temperature and highest temperature when you have you mouse over the temperature reading in system tray.

[InnocentCriminal]

I didn't like ATiTray Tools, see I found that too bloated. Weirdly, I use RivaTuner.

[lemonadesoda]

I use RivaTuner. I take my clocks up to 850/2100 for benchmarking only. I have cooler on it... Zalman VF1000.

I dial back to stock for regular use and gaming. (Its summer now!)

In the winter months I gamed at 750/2000. But no need to push the baby in this heat. TBH you dont really notice much difference, only in the benchmarking stats.

[LoWRiDeR82]

Speaking of ATT,i saw it has an option to select between 1.214 vgpu or 1.254.Does it actuallly work?Should it be taken to 1.254 in case of overclocks?

[lemonadesoda]

No need IMO. My overclocks are at standard volts. if anything, see if you can get stable at a low v, less heat.

[InnocentCriminal]

I use RivaTuner. I take my clocks up to 850/2100 for benchmarking only. I have cooler on it... Zalman VF1000.

I dial back to stock for regular use and gaming. (Its summer now!)

In the winter months I gamed at 750/2000. But no need to push the baby in this heat. TBH you dont really notice much difference, only in the benchmarking stats.

That's awesome, we have the same cooler - interesting to see you've got your RAM to 2100. Highest I've got so far is 950.

Once I've found my maximum CPU OC, I'll continue to push my GFX, I notice a massive increase in ePenisMark06 when I bump my GFX clocks up. It's a fantastic card for AGP, especially with a 3rd party cooler.

[lemonadesoda]

WAIT 2100 is = 1050 clock (depending on how you count "DDR", everybody, or every tool, counts it diff.)

Your 950 clock = 1900 DDR. You can go higher.

My ePM06= 11,663 (4,555 5,041 4,034 )

[LoWRiDeR82]

No need IMO. My overclocks are at standard volts. if anything, see if you can get stable at a low v, less heat.

ye but does it work?with good cooling will it allow to go higher?

[InnocentCriminal]

WAIT 2100 is = 1050 clock (depending on how you count "DDR", everybody, or every tool, counts it diff.)

Your 950 clock = 1900 DDR. You can go higher.

My ePM06= 11,663 (4,555 5,041 4,034 )

Yeah I know, I was referring to actual clock when I said 950 as I knew you'd be able to work it out. :)

[Element]

Hello, All

So far things are looking up.....:cool: The info about removing CCC was a big help, :respect: made a huge difference in massive overclocks and stability using ati tray tools.....:eek: right now running HD3850 Sapphire at 749.25/1089 completley stable no artifacts at 1.289 volts, this card is very impressive, and my FX-55 at 2.9 seems to be loving it.....now I need to download 3dmark 2006 and try some benchies....keep you posted :D

[Element]

Hello, All

My computer specs are now up....for you to view, still updating some stuff.....:rockout:

[eidairaman1]

if im not mistaken you can get more current drivers that are non CCC, but come with the old CP Despite some features not being there (they dont have a clue to encode most functions from CCC into CP)

at NGOHQ and i believe Driverheaven.net

Not to hijack, but if you have windows vista 64 and a mobility radeon card,

grab this fix to allow Vista 64 to install Modified Catalyst drivers

http://www.ngohq.com/home.php?page=dseo

[Element]

Hey AHH,

Gaming under a new user account to avoid all your shit, that eats system memory and resources like antivirus ect...., Freakin brilliant :slap: all this time and I just never thought about doing that..... :laugh: going to try that, got a question though, :wtf: most games I use when you install them say install for all users, and normally I just enter yes, but what about games that just install and don't ask you that, do I have to install those games in my new gaming user account all over again :twitch: mods,ect...... to make them work? :twitch:

[LoWRiDeR82]

I'm not sure but I don't think you have to reinstall them if you've selected install for all previously

[InnocentCriminal]

Hey AHH,

Gaming under a new user account to avoid all your shit, that eats system memory and resources like antivirus ect...., Freakin brilliant :slap: all this time and I just never thought about doing that..... :laugh: going to try that, got a question though, :wtf: most games I use when you install them say install for all users, and normally I just enter yes, but what about games that just install and don't ask you that, do I have to install those games in my new gaming user account all over again :twitch: mods,ect...... to make them work? :twitch:

Did this help at all?

An update on my situation, I've finally got hold of a nForce3 mobo and I only just got it up last night, it shouldn't take me long once I've set & tweaked Windows and had a good ole fiddle with the lovely bugger.

If it's anything like my Shuttle, I should be able to beat my previous best in ePenis06.

[Element]

Yea, it does, games run smoother, I figure the drives are not working in the back ground as much, and it frees up system memory, :D BUT, :ohwell: if you do not install for all user acounts, then you must install games under your gaming user account, plus mods and extra software for the mods to work :wtf: but the extra work is worth it for clean running games....hope this helps you :cool:

[InnocentCriminal]

Yea, it does, games run smoother, I figure the drives are not working in the back ground as much, and it frees up system memory, :D BUT, :ohwell: if you do not install for all user acounts, then you must install games under your gaming user account, plus mods and extra software for the mods to work :wtf: but the extra work is worth it for clean running games....hope this helps you :cool:

Considering I'm the one that suggested you tried it, it doesn't, but I'm glad it gave some improvement to your games, that does please me.

:rockout:

[dark2099]

Thought I would post this hear, at least get it out there maybe. There is a 8.8 Catalyst Hotfix for the AGP Cards. Don't know how the various companies are doing with updated drivers, but maybe someone doesn't know about it. Since getting direct links to ATI/AMD's tech pages working is something I cannot seem to do, I will tell ya option 2. Go to http://www.ati.com and in the search box in the upper right hand corner of the page put in 737-31625 and for site do ATI. Should be listed as a search result rather than taking you directly to the driver page.

[InnocentCriminal]

http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&tld=&task=knowledge&questionID=31542 then click AGP Hotfix.

[Sony_Fanboy]

What kind of benchmark results are you guys getting? I'm sure mine are way below average and I can't for love nor money figure out why. Anyone else getting CCC showing GPU Clock as 300 mhz?
My Results and info -

[a_non_moose]

Running a 3850 (cat 8.8 report 3800 series..meh) and so far I much say this card screams.
Fired up Bioshock (got when $15 on sale via Steam)...woof! gorgeous after using shadershock on
an X800pro.
Flatout2 sings nicely, tho ansio makes it look fuzzy for some reason.
FEAR's system test amped up the settings a bit, and wow, what a difference.
STALKER had a snit after the change, but new float32 fixed...looks great, but dang got up to 84C w/ dynamic lighting.

Noticed the fan settings when overidden are 1/2 what percentage they are set for.
Set for 30% > 60C, and ran at 60%. Set at 15% and the fan ran at 30%.

Humm, anyone else noticed this?

Running ATT 27b3.

[OlandeseVolante]

Hi all!

I have a Sapphire HD 3850 AGP 512mb, an Ati DVI-HDMI adapter, and one question: it is possible to enable the hdmi sound support in this card? I know that the Powercolor 3850 AGP has it! What if i try to flash the Powercolor bios in my card?

Thank you, i'm sorry for bad english!!

Roberto

[InnocentCriminal]

You should be able to do it through the CCC (Catalyst Control Center) I would have thought.

[OlandeseVolante]

Thanks, but there is no option about that. And Windows doesn't recognize the Hdmi Audio peripheric. It is possible that Powercolor has, and Sapphire has not audio support?

[InnocentCriminal]

You could try searching the Sapphire/Powercolor forums, I expect they'd have a thread or two on this specific problem.

Good luck, and if you find the answer, don't forget to post it here. Someone else might find that information useful.

[OlandeseVolante]

Thank you!

I'm not very lucky, it seems that not all the 3850 AGP have integrated audio!!

http://forums.sapphiretech.com/showthread.php?t=19910

[SkReEv]

Ignore this post :)

[InnocentCriminal]

Thank you!

I'm not very lucky, it seems that not all the 3850 AGP have integrated audio!!

http://forums.sapphiretech.com/showthread.php?t=19910

So I presume that your card doesn't support it audio through DVI then? :( Lame!

[OlandeseVolante]

Unfortunately not :(

However I've already bought a dvi+spdif-to-hdmi converter :)

[InnocentCriminal]

Unfortunately not :(

However I've already bought a dvi+spdif-to-hdmi converter :)

Excellent!

:rockout:

[coodiggy]

Anyone working on old windows 9x drivers for the new agp cards?

[InnocentCriminal]

Does the XP one not work?

[eidairaman1]

Well with 9X being phased out, they only work on drivers for the NT System of 2000 and XP or higher.

[InnocentCriminal]

You could try downloading the XP drivers and extracting them to a folder and try it manually through Device Manager... o.O

[coodiggy]

I thought about doing it manually. don't want to get you too far off topic, maybe I'll just get xp and dual boot :)

[InnocentCriminal]

As long as it's for a 3850 AGP card we're not going off topic - dual boot is the way. ;) Why anyone is running 9x I don't know. :P

[coodiggy]

As long as it's for a 3850 AGP card we're not going off topic - dual boot is the way. ;) Why anyone is running 9x I don't know. :PI use it for old games.. With support for my rendition verite card that i occationally fire up for some nastalgic d3d titles. Been using my x850pro with 9x drivers, I was getting strange pulsing and jittery-ness with xp and the x850pro on this machine, I tried all sorts of x850 drivers/ driver cleaner, omega's no dot net, no ccc etc.. I was hoping for newer ati cards to support dx9.0 and windows 9x, or atleast not have the weird pulsing frames with xp on old agp cards. :)

Do you know if you can run games like UT2004, or carmageddon 2 in windows 2000? are there windows 2000 drivers for this? dx9.0c?

[InnocentCriminal]

This thread is only for the 3850 I'm afraid, but as we're talking about it, might as well help. I would have thought the XP drivers would work under 2000, but don't quote me on that. As for DX9, that should definitely install.

Have you tried the AGP hotfix or just the normal driver release for your card? You might have more joy with the AGP hotfix if you haven't. You're best off starting a new thread as this is solely for the 3850 as I said. Hence the title. ;)

[coodiggy]

I'm talking about the 3850agp

driver/support, for 2000 or if gaming even works in 2000, cause the only reason I'd want to get the 3850agp is for gaming, mainly with d3d titles that use dx 6 through dx 9.0, and I don't like windows xp, or vista.. Not to ask anyone to inquire as to why I don't like it, don't bother. I don't like it, not going to change my mind, nuff said.

I've got some additional interest in finding out if there is driver support for 3850agp and gaming while using Server 2k3 R2 sp2. So pretty much, unless you know of a way to get drivers for windows 9x for the 3850 AGP, nevermind about that comment.

For now It's 2000 or server 2k3, as my main interest, cause I've read that some games work pretty good on server 2k3. I'm interested in finding out if there's drivers, for the agp3850, and game support, and what games are compatible with these two OS's mainly if UT2004 will run, but I have some other titles...

I can look up and ask about the non related OS/chipset/additional driver stuff somewhere else/ np

[a_non_moose]

Had to rma the 3850 (freaking no-script cleared out my post....grrrr).

"Driver issues" were power issues.

Rewired and tightened up connectors and all was well for over 2 weeks.

Then got pauses (A64 3700, no surprise there sometimes), then longer pauses,
then CTD's, then bluescreens, then no booting past the XP logo, or games
could not find a dx9 card or the lovely 640x480 in astounding 4 bit color.

Oh, yeah...not happening.

Thing I noticed was the card was bending downward either from the heat, or
from the power adapter (or both?).

Sigh.:ohwell: + :mad:

Maybe it is time for a dual core PCIe system? :D

[InnocentCriminal]

I'm talking about the 3850agp

driver/support, for 2000 or if gaming even works in 2000, cause the only reason I'd want to get the 3850agp is for gaming, mainly with d3d titles that use dx 6 through dx 9.0, and I don't like windows xp, or vista.. Not to ask anyone to inquire as to why I don't like it, don't bother. I don't like it, not going to change my mind, nuff said.

I've got some additional interest in finding out if there is driver support for 3850agp and gaming while using Server 2k3 R2 sp2. So pretty much, unless you know of a way to get drivers for windows 9x for the 3850 AGP, nevermind about that comment.

For now It's 2000 or server 2k3, as my main interest, cause I've read that some games work pretty good on server 2k3. I'm interested in finding out if there's drivers, for the agp3850, and game support, and what games are compatible with these two OS's mainly if UT2004 will run, but I have some other titles...

I can look up and ask about the non related OS/chipset/additional driver stuff somewhere else/ np

I don't see any reason as to why the 3850 wouldn't work in 2000 and I know it would work in 2003 - you'd just have to use the XP drivers.

Which brings me to this, they've finally released the 8.9 hotfix - fuggin' w00t!

As they don't allow direct links. (http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=31625)

Get 'em down yurh boyz!

:rockout:

[coodiggy]

Cool, I will check this out for my nephew, I think he can get server 2k3 standard r2 sp2 as part of the student software offer, and right now he's just plottering around on an x800pro

[Harlock]

Guys new record 12341!!! by overclocking a little more my HIS, WOW :rockout:

[eidairaman1]

so does it run games or does it stutter?