Powercolor Radeon 4670 VPU Error

[xTalon]

I had gone over to a friend's house to uninstall his old Geforce 8200 GT and install the new Radeon 4670, trying as best as possible obviously not to touch the 4670's connectors I had touched it by the edges and tried to not apply any pressure to it as it was installed. Screw in and all, turned the PC and it worked perfectly.

The computers specs are as follows:
Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 3
System Motherboard: G31M-ES2L
BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
Processor: Pentium® Dual-Core CPU E5200 @ 2.50GHz (2 Cores)
Memory: Kingston DDR2 2046MB RAM
PSU: 400w (card usually only takes 300w)

The powercolor URL to the GPU.
http://www.powercolor.com/eng/products_features.asp?ProductID=4560

The VPU errors occured while in game only. We had tried using the updated drivers from the website itself, powercolor, however after an hour or so the VPU error had kicked in. Uninstalled them and used the disc's drivers, games then went for a good 5ish hours at least before the VPU error kicked in.

We also don't have any heat issues, GPU-Z came up with 60 degrees when in game and besides that, the case is sometimes wide open (no side panel) to allow more airflow as needed.

The most updated driver ver from powercolor is:
Driver + Ver: HD4650/ HD4670 Series PCI-E & Catalyst 9.11 + Version 8.67.
Date: 26/11/2009

Now, I myself am also using a Radeon 4670 only I am using ASUS.
I have never had a single issue and my driver ver+date (dxdiag) is:
Driver Version: 7.15.0010.0176
Date: 2/4/2009

Lucky enough for me, ASUS provides the newest + older drivers unlike Powercolor, so I am unable to find any older Powercolor drivers. We also tried the ATI Radeon drivers but had installation errors, we tried again and this time currently the setup has not generated any errors.

The ATI drivers worked, but then produced another VPU error 5mins later.

Anyone got any ideas at all? This is plain frustrating.

 

[xTalon]

I believe the issue is a PSU failure. I'll run a Memtest just incase, though, I believe that's fine.

He's using a 400w "PowerTek PTI-400AR-T". Now, I haven't been able to find the exact model online but I did find one 770w version on newegg and that power supply got reviews like...

Newegg

Cons: Inserted a EVGA 8800 Ultra 768MB today. After 5 minutes of playing Crysis Warhead on GAMER settings, it smelled like burnt rubber. I sniffed around, smell was coming from a PSU. Turned it off immediately

Cons: The first one blew up and killed my $150 mobo.

Cons: Not worth $1...don’t risk buying this power supply. It has too many defects. Integrated transformers can not withstand to much head...50C? Too much heat? Yes, way too much heat for this power supply...So don’t take a change of burning your motherboard or anything else for that mater.

Cons: After about 4 months it blew up and killed my board.

Any other ideas? Anyone? =/

 

[xTalon]

Now more issues are occuring, after 2days with dealing with VPU errors - now when my friend plays at max resolution, things look a bit pixellated and graphical quality has lowered. When playing at a diff, lower, resolution - things look decent again.

Is this graphical issue with the monitor, or another effect of the PSU? I'm starting to think I bought a failed card.

Any other ideas?

 

[jagd]

Did you use driver cleaner to remove old nvidia drivers ?sometimes old drivers can cause problems uninstall ati dirvers ,run driver sweeper clean old ati/nvidia drivers http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/ reboot and reinstall ati drivers .You can use drivers from amd/ati noneed for manufacturer drivers (latest is catalyst 9.11 atm) .

Heat can cause vpu recover also , may be psu for your friend (altought 4670 is not power hungry and cool working card ) try it another system .If these are not problem RMA it.

 

[xTalon]

As I mentioned in the opening post, heat is not the issue as it is at 60* and even then the case may be opened for more airflow.

And yes, we tried powercolor drivers (from disc and updated) as well as the ATI drivers and my ASUS drivers...

Not to be mean as you are trying to help, but please read first =/

I'll try driver sweeper, I was thinking of doing it just didn't think it'd really help much, ah well.

 

[HossHuge]

If I add a new video card I will always do a fresh install of my operating system.

 

[xTalon]

If I add a new video card I will always do a fresh install of my operating system.

That's a little...extreme?

 

[3dsage]

Cant you just disable VPU recover in CCC?
Its in the overdrive tab.

 

[xTalon]

Cant you just disable VPU recover in CCC?
Its in the overdrive tab.

Even so, I don't know if that'll help. I've read that sometimes that doesn't work and you still need a hard reboot.

Also since this has happened with 4 different drivers, I think there is a bit more to it than just a driver glitch...maybe.

Edit:
Got a blue screen 15mins ago, not sure if it was in-game or not. Will need to get that info.

 

[3dsage]

Definately want to read the guide here on how to install, uninstall drivers.

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=52502

BSOD is probably your driver crashing, guessing.

 

[xTalon]

Here we go, my friend was in modern warfare 2 when the BSOD had occured.

The reason it had occurred is because he had disabled VPU recover.

 

[3dsage]

Here we go, my friend was in modern warfare 2 when the BSOD had occured.

The reason it had occurred is because he had disabled VPU recover.

Symptoms started after the Vid card install?
It has to be driver issues, do a clean sweep of the old drivers.

 

[xTalon]

Just uninstalled old drivers, tried driver sweeper and then re installed new drivers.

The results are:
VPU error after 15mins.

Edit:
He's now uninstalling the 4670 and throwing back in his Nvidia card. I'll try running his card in my PC and see what happens, blue screens and VPU errors of the like.

If it doesn't occur with me, I'll see once more about maybe a windows reinstall for him or new PSU.

And if I do have errors, time to RMA it.