ATI 4850graphics card temperature and drivers

[cactusjack]

The thing is, it's not necessarily the display driver, or even anything related to the card which is causing it.

In theory bad memory or a slightly underrated PSU could be causing the graphics card to glitch, triggering the driver to restart itself.

My memory is bad - but I think the last glitch happened after coming out of sleep mode. I have turned sleep mode off and will see if I get a crash today. Dell's PSU for this machine is 360W - although apparently Dell are good with the design of their PSUs.

[Pob255]

From my experience with dell laptops, they'll send someone out who will swap out the fauly part with a new one it really doesn't take much indepth knowledge.
When you turn on your pc there should be a key you can press to enter the diganostic system (or the drive boot menu, it'll be on there)
This is a very nice little program on a hiden hard drive partition and has some very comprehensive tests.

in windows if dell has a hardware monitor program or if not download a copy of speedfan, that will be able to tell you the voltage numbers
have that running and play wow, when/if you get the driver restart, alt-tab to it and check what the +12v is actually giveing at the time, if it below 11.5 then it would indicate that the psu is the problem.

[cactusjack]

From my experience with dell laptops, they'll send someone out who will swap out the fauly part with a new one it really doesn't take much indepth knowledge.
When you turn on your pc there should be a key you can press to enter the diganostic system (or the drive boot menu, it'll be on there)
This is a very nice little program on a hiden hard drive partition and has some very comprehensive tests.

in windows if dell has a hardware monitor program or if not download a copy of speedfan, that will be able to tell you the voltage numbers
have that running and play wow, when/if you get the driver restart, alt-tab to it and check what the +12v is actually giveing at the time, if it below 11.5 then it would indicate that the psu is the problem.

Thanks for that - currently with WoW on its giving 13.31V

if I get another driver restart, I will check it out.

[cactusjack]

My current temps and voltages are as follows. Do these voltages look stable to you Pob255?

[Pob255]

Umm if anything that's high and I'm confused
infact looks like thoes numbers are wrong, 1.9v on the +3.3v

[cactusjack]

Umm if anything that's high and I'm confused
infact looks like thoes numbers are wrong, 1.9v on the +3.3v

Oh dear should I be worried?

Could it be an issue with speedfan and hwmonitor reading the voltages wrong?

[aidanjt]

Oh dear should I be worried?

Could it be an issue with speedfan and hwmonitor reading the voltages wrong?

If your PC is running, then obviously either the sensors are faulty, or the sensor application you're using is miscalibrated.

[cactusjack]

If your PC is running, then obviously either the sensors are faulty, or the sensor application you're using is miscalibrated.

I see - so if it were really running 1.9 on the 3.3V, then the PC would not run or go boom?

[aidanjt]

I see - so if it were really running 1.9 on the 3.3V, then the PC would not run or go boom?

It would lock up, yes. Because the PCI bus draws power from the 3.3V rail, and most components rely on the PCI bus for communications.

[lostforever]

Also, some guy posted on the last post of the last page that by ringing then you could get £50 off?? What do you to get that, could I then put a 10% one on top of that if there was one at the time? (Cheapskate )

I created the system i want on the web and i called Dell to find out if its possible to change the PSU and case (you can't do that on the web) but they won't change it.

Anyway the person who delt with me asked if i want to place an order and i said i had seconds thoughts. He said let me see if I can give better price than the web and he did. Reduced it by £50.

[cactusjack]

I created the system i want on the web and i called Dell to find out if its possible to change the PSU and case (you can't do that on the web) but they won't change it.

Anyway the person who delt with me asked if i want to place an order and i said i had seconds thoughts. He said let me see if I can give better price than the web and he did. Reduced it by £50.

The PSU seems fine so far and the case is small but thats a good thing I think.

Providing you alter the Catalyst profile to vary the GPU speed, it runs very cool.

[lostforever]

The PSU seems fine so far and the case is small but thats a good thing I think.

Providing you alter the Catalyst profile to vary the GPU speed, it runs very cool.

That's good to hear.

Thanks for all your info cactusjack. Please keep on posting your good/bad experiencing with this system.

My system should be arriving anytime this week and I will do the same. It will help us and other to track/solve any issues

It seems that the price of this system has gone up on now...

[cactusjack]

That's good to hear.

Thanks for all your info cactusjack. Please keep on posting your good/bad experiencing with this system.

My system should be arriving anytime this week and I will do the same. It will help us and other to track/solve any issues

It seems that the price of this system has gone up on now...

Yes, a week after I bought it, I went online and Dell had changed the online system a bit to raise the price. Things like the blu-ray drive cost something like £100+..., where as when I bought it, it was much less. Still very good value for money though.

[cactusjack]

Quick update: Dell XPS technician replied back to me (I will commend Dell on their fast e-mail reply times), and thanked me for the info regarding using profiles in the Catalyst Control Center!!

"I really appreciate your cooperation, patience and the information about to use a different profile in the Catalyst Control Centre to resolve the heat issue. I will escalate it to the Product group department to update the same on our support site."

WoW!

[cactusjack]

Quick update (may be of use to you lostforever incase you get a display driver crash too):

Since turning off sleep mode for the PC and ensuring that the hard drives don't go to sleep, I have not yet had an ATI display driver crash.

Just to check the other hardware, I also ran the PC through Dell's hardware tests over the weekend - and it passed.

So all is ok so far...

[Pob255]

You know you could try turning it off rather than leaveing it in sleep over night