Sapphire HD4870 crashing maybe?

[Katar]

Okay I have 2 Sapphire HD4870s. One in my computer and one in my brother's. They both seem to cause some kind of crash where the screen turns into a grid of grey/black boxes when playing games, I can't get a screenshot of it but I might be able to get a digital pic of it later. The ambient sounds and music still plays through the headphones, and the computer doesn't restart (at least not within 1-2 minutes) before I have to power the computer off. We are both using Catalyst 8.9, and i'm on Vista 64bit and he is using XP.

Now on Sapphires website there is a BIOS update for my cards Part number and SKU only. Will trying that help? As the website doesn't list what the BIOS update does. There is also a hotfix on the ATI site somewhere but I can't find it right now, but it also doesn't list who should be using it and what it fixes beyond stabilty issues.

So the question is should I try the hotfix and flashing the BIOS or just send the cards back as DOA?

[0iD]

Well I have the same card running on Vista x64 Ultimate & never experienced this. Have you checked temps?

[Katar]

Well I can only check the temps at idle using the CCC atm, any good programs that I can use when a game is running to see the temps? The temp at idle is 66C I am also using Ultimate.

It jsut seems strange that two different cards of the same make have the same problem in two completely different computers with different operating systems.

I only found out about the BIOS update from this thread http://forums.amd.com/game/messagevi...y&STARTPAGE=30. So we are obviously not the only people suffering the problem. I am a little concerned about flashing the cards BIOS as I have never tried to do a Graphics card BIOS update (I've certainly never tired to update any BIOS on a Vista system), and my experiences with motherboard BIOS updates have been mixed to say the least.