Gta 4 crashing constantly

[BradleyKZN]

Sup everyone, i seem to be having a very annoying problem. I purchased gta 4 recently and i installed it and it runs quite well, my system is listed in my specs. The problem with the game, is that about +/- 5 minutes of playing, the screen gets funny coloured squares and my whole pc crashes. I have xp sp3 installed. I have tried numerous things like clocking my cpu back to stock but to no avail. My pc is not overheating, thats for sure, i dunno. My mate just told me that it might just be a bug, but it seems strange that i bug in the game would cause my whole pc to crash. Any suggestions?

 

[Nick89]

Your 4870 is overheating. Funny coloured squares on your screen usually means your video card is overheating. What video drivers are you using BTW?

 

[AsRock]

You checked if your video card is overheating or not ?.. Try GPU-Z and for a + that will tell you the reg temps too which can be the issue and not the ram or GPU.

Maybe update your v card drivers ? or even try different versions just in case of a incompatibility issue.

Personly i think it might be the ram on your v card overheating just becouse thats when i seen those kind of things happen mostly.


Your v card overclocked ?. if so try clocking it down and check if it's the ram or gpu if that sorts the problem out.

 

[BradleyKZN]

My temp is 47 degrees at 60% at idle. So this sounds fine. I tried with 8.12 and with 9.1 but to no avail. Crysis runs at high with 2x AA with no problems at all. I had a problem with crysis when i first got my pc, but that was because i was using the 2 six pin adaptors from the psu. I am now using one from the psu and one of the 4 pins connected to a six pin for the power

 

[mrhuggles]

regardless of if your at stock clocks, back off on your video memory clocks a little bit, like say 100mhz or so then it should stop doing that.

 

[BradleyKZN]

K will do, Ive got riva tuner open here, and my shader core is at 49 and my memory i/o is at 57, is that normal at 60% fan speed?

 

[mrhuggles]

its fine. but under load i bet the memory is gonna get too hot, thats the problem i had on my 2900xt which caused the exact same crashes, they dont supply good enough ram cooling on alot of their stuff.

 

[RadeonX2]

mine does crash when my GPU is OC'ed too far specially the memory constant lock-up bsods you name it. Just don't push the CPU and GPU to far. I've finished GTA IV the other day without any crash anymore and don't use to much memory make sure its on the green numbers you'd be fine

also update your GTA IV to the latest 1.0.2.0 patch it greatly improves my overall FPS and stability.

 

[BradleyKZN]

So all i need 2 do is underclock it while playing gta then, cause its the only game that does it?

 

[Shou Miko]

the patch shouldn't do much, but insure to have the newest ATi Catalyst Control Center and Driver that should fix more then the patch, and u can delete GTAIVsomething.dll to get better performance aswell this located with your game exe file in the same folder (just backup it or move it out of the folder to be sure u have it if something goes wrong)

 

[BradleyKZN]

Absolutely nothing has worked got the patch, underclocked the v-ram by 100mhz but 2 no avail :-(

 

[RadeonX2]

did u underclock the gpu clock or only the memory clock? u should underclock both and see if it helps

 

[AsRock]

its fine. but under load i bet the memory is gonna get too hot, thats the problem i had on my 2900xt which caused the exact same crashes, they dont supply good enough ram cooling on alot of their stuff.

Yeah i've noticed that but there was a bigger issue with the 2900XT and that was the voltage regs were if they hit 90c-100c the card would show issue's all though the GPU and ram would be at way safe temps.

 

[mrhuggles]

Yeah i've noticed that but there was a bigger issue with the 2900XT and that was the voltage regs were if they hit 90c-100c the card would show issue's all though the GPU and ram would be at way safe temps.

hmm, can you give me a little more info about that? ive done all i can and fallout 3 REQUIRES the memory to be underclocked a little else it crashes like crazy, voltage regs?

i hadnt actually checked the memory temp or anything i just assumed it was overheating since the cooling on the memory consists of that giant black umm, heatspreader? which actually seems to make things worse and since setting it to 900mhz made it run flawlessly i just figured thats what it was, i didnt have that problem in GTA4 but... it was the same thing, screen would get corrupted with little squares for like a couple seconds then bsod

EDIT: voltage regulators?

 

[AsRock]

hmm, can you give me a little more info about that? ive done all i can and fallout 3 REQUIRES the memory to be underclocked a little else it crashes like crazy, voltage regs?

i hadnt actually checked the memory temp or anything i just assumed it was overheating since the cooling on the memory consists of that giant black umm, heatspreader? which actually seems to make things worse and since setting it to 900mhz made it run flawlessly i just figured thats what it was, i didnt have that problem in GTA4 but... it was the same thing, screen would get corrupted with little squares for like a couple seconds then bsod

EDIT: voltage regulators?

I use heatsinks on top of that black plate with a 120mm fan on top of them as well. Been meaning to remove the plastic part of it and just place 2 120mm fans on it but not got around to it yet lol.

Here's the pic it shows the regs are getting near 20c more than any other part of the card if i could find a way to cool them down more by air the GPU could be clocked higher.

http://forums.techpowerup.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=19371&d=1224251707

O yeah not had any issue's with FO3 at all or any other game and the cooler i am using is a the Artic Cooling one.

 

[BradleyKZN]

Where are the voltage regs on the 4870 with a reference cooler? Would it be a good idea to just send the card back?

 

[AsRock]

Where are the voltage regs on the 4870 with a reference cooler? Would it be a good idea to just send the card back?

Run GPU-Z and look at the VDDC temps. You could try putting a fan on the top of the card to cool the other ram chips and PCB. Then see if it still happens.


You could try touching one of the ram chips hehe. it's when i knew mine were to hot.

 

[phanbuey]

GTA IV is the only game that does this? (GTA IV = the least stable game i have ever played)

 

[BradleyKZN]

Yeah only gta4, even crysis works 100%

 

[BradleyKZN]

What part of the card has the voltage regs? My card has the reference cooler why isnt this cooling the regs off?

 

[BradleyKZN]

Well, it wasnt the temps or anything like that, i sent an email to sapphire this morning and it appears i have the bad bios version thank goodness. So im on my way home now, ill let everyone know how it goes wen i hav done it

 

[AsRock]

Well, it wasnt the temps or anything like that, i sent an email to sapphire this morning and it appears i have the bad bios version thank goodness. So im on my way home now, ill let everyone know how it goes wen i hav done it

Sweet Good Luck! .

 

[BradleyKZN]

Awesome, it worked! My first bios flash! Anybody with a sapphire 4870 with the same problem should email them. Now, before i did the flash i found out how to enable ati overdrive, yes i know, im stupid, surely the key should have meant something! Now i ran farcry 2 maxed out and did 15 runs of the ranch long bench and it successfully completed with no artifacts at 800 core and 1000 memory up from 750 and 900. Is it a safe bet to say its stable? When i get home from work today ill overclock with the new bios and see if it makes any difference. Ati overdrive must be smoking its shader socks again, auto tune set my card to 845 and 1100!

 

[BradleyKZN]

Thats strange. A 50 mhz increase to the core and memory resulted in no performance increase in 3dmark06 or farcry 2.

 

[jagass]

Maybe it's just not compatible...