4870X2 Problems

[roque66]

Hi people,

just want some opinions about this problem of a friend that has that card i mencioned...

Q6600 Go clocked ate 3.2ghz
6G DDR2
4870X2
PSU 850W OCZ
WIndows Vista Ultimate X64

His playing and stops to desktop with a vpu error message and sometimes restarts the computer.....other thing that is complain is that he only see 1024mb of graphic memory...should be the double?

processor temps are good, between 30º idle and 45º full load
graphic cards he change on bios the velocity of fan according with the temps....changed the defaults velocity...

what you think? RMA with her?

 

[eidairaman1]

drop the CPU overclock.

 

[roque66]

he already tryed without OC

 

[Kreij]

Can you be a little more specific on what error message he is getting when it CTDs?

 

[roque66]

when his playing, the computer back's to desktop and he see a yellow triangle saying vpu recover...and sometimes it restarts the computer.... he had 9.6 drivers, and come back to the 9.5 ati drivers...has i did with mine because I had problems with 9.6 drivers....can it be the drivers? it was good before, but he unnistall the 9.6 drivers and put 9.5 again...

ha has a good case now with a huge fan on lateral, so is not bad airflow....


sorry by the bad english guys

 

[Kreij]

It could be the drivers. It never hurts to do a clean-up and reload of the drivers (see link in my sig).

I am assuming that to change fan speeds he did a BIOS flash. Is he sure he got a good flash?
He could try re-installing the original BIOS.

... and by the way, rogue, your English is fine.

 

[TheLaughingMan]

I just wanted to note that he should only see 1 GB of memory. The card has 2 GPU's and they have 1 GB of memory each. While the card has 2 GB on board, the system will see it as 1 GB.

 

[johnnyfiive]

when his playing, the computer back's to desktop and he see a yellow triangle saying vpu recover...and sometimes it restarts the computer.... he had 9.6 drivers, and come back to the 9.5 ati drivers...has i did with mine because I had problems with 9.6 drivers....can it be the drivers? it was good before, but he unnistall the 9.6 drivers and put 9.5 again...

ha has a good case now with a huge fan on lateral, so is not bad airflow....


sorry by the bad english guys

I'm going to have to say this may be a power issue. If its only giving issues when its taxed, it really seems like it is a power issue. OCZ's makes solid PSU's so that would be weird if it was the issue.. but it really does seem like a power issue.

 

[Kreij]

He has an OCZ 850W. Should be plenty of power.

 

[Yukikaze]

The HD4870X2 is a monster card, and as such it is a HOT card.

If he has one with a stock cooler, manually adjusting the fan (in CCC) to run faster may eliminate those crashes. I've encountered two cases of HD4870X2s (In rather sucky cases definitely not ventilated enough for those cards) which would lock up the system or hang and VPU recover due to overheating. Raising fan speeds and adding more case ventilation (Which in one case included a new CM690...) helped out.

Try running the fan at 50-60% or so (Noisy, but it is just to test my theory) and check if the VPU recovers continue. If they are eliminated, then find a comfortable spot for the fan where it does not crash and the fan is still bearable (For me it is around the 42% fan speed mark, but this is very individual). If it isn't caused by heat, then it might be caused by a lack of power if the PSU is dying (Not very likely, but possible).

 

[roque66]

ya, but puts on his head that he has to see 2g ... and complained with the store about that...

i see everywhere that only shows 1g but he never liked the graphic card anyway...it's says that is a bad card....imagine

 

[roque66]

he says to that one part of the graphic is not being powered...he measure the psu and he says that psu is good.....i think this is to weird...is powered or not powered...that simple i think

 

[pabloc74]

he's using a ups?, open gpu-z to see if crossfire is enabled

 

[Kreij]

Do you know what fan profile he is running. It could be overheating is he is not running tha fan fast enough under full load, as Yukikaze said.

I run mine at 100%, always.

 

[Yukikaze]

Do you know what fan profile he is running. It could be overheating is he is not running tha fan fast enough under full load, as Yukikaze said.

I run mine at 100%, always.

If I were to run mine at 100%, my computer would take off, fly around the room and then fly off to colonize mars. The stock cooler is a freaking jet engine...

 

[bpgt64]

I have the Saphirre Technologies edition of the X2 and it's pretty loud, but I use Sennheiser HD 280s and they completely mute all outside noise. Great for ignoring the Wife ...Even better for Crysis and Far Cry 2 at 1920x1080.

 

[n0tiert]

Try to remove all Ati related drivers, reinstall fresh Cat pack and check fan speed´s under cat settings, also post GPU-Z screen, try to use the log function and start a 3d game recheck log after system crashed or swap´d back to desktop....

usually u see in log: temp core speed, mem speed post here
which X2 u got ?

no noise@all ...

i can clock my sapphire to 875@core and 1100@mem without any voltmods

 

[roque66]

he don't use ups because it doens't have power enough for that...only ups 500w

after 80º he put at 100% fan velocity
tomorrow i trie to help him and i say something about that ....

thank you guys....i will say something soon

 

[roque66]

hi again....tomorrow is the big day to see if the graphic is good or not, but one thing that he says is when is turning on the computer it says that one of pci-e energy is missing...is plugged, but the computer says that is missing.....i think that really psu has problems....one pci-2 energy cable can be damage...what you think about this?
i want to go there exploring my ideias and yours too....100heads thinks better than 1

 

[roque66]

hi people,

we were on the store today with computer and we tried there another graphic card...ati hd4850 with the computer and no crash and the 4870x2 crashed playing gta iv....it goes to rma.....

thank you all by the help that you give....

 

[eidairaman1]

hi again....tomorrow is the big day to see if the graphic is good or not, but one thing that he says is when is turning on the computer it says that one of pci-e energy is missing...is plugged, but the computer says that is missing.....i think that really psu has problems....one pci-2 energy cable can be damage...what you think about this?
i want to go there exploring my ideias and yours too....100heads thinks better than 1

that or the mobo is shot.

 

[werez]

Overheating .

 

[roque66]

Overheating .

not overheating....only arrives to 80º .... fan speed changed according to temperatures.... he changed under bios like i did to mine two hd3850

 

[werez]

Vpu recover kicks in when the card is overheating , i'm not talking about the GPU itself . Lets say the vrm are to hot or the memory is to hot , or the clocks are to high ... the VPU recover resets the video card , so you wont get a bsod , other errors , system restart, or computer hang-ups .
Also vpu recover sets the default clocks if a video card is clocked to high and causes instability .
I'm not saying this is your problem , just explained what vpu recover does. I had the same problem with a hd4870 , and in my case overheating was the problem . The bios was messed up and the fan was running at low speed . I was trying to set via software , but didn't override , and vpurc reseted the card at default fan speeds clock freq. , etc.

Anyway card brand?

I heard users complaining about the XFX Radeon HD 4870 X2 and the PowerColor Radeon HD 4870 X2 ( less ) .
Also looks like the MSI card has the same problem under Vista64 .


Try to max out the fan speed , case opened , underclock speeds 10% . I guarantee you will not get the vpu recover errors anymore . And in that case , it`s overheating .
If your friend wants to ignore this isue , tell him to do a clean install , and not to instal CCC .

 

[roque66]

he already leave the card in the store for rma...they going to try tomorrow, but he already tried on saturday in the store....crashed without vpu recover or graphical problems...just restarted saying that has a hardware problem on card....