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

[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.

 

[LoWRiDeR82]

Please help...his agp 3850 problem...

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.

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

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

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

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 Cheers All will all figure these AGP issues out yet, 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

 

[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.