ATI 4850graphics card temperature and drivers

[lostforever]

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...

Thanks for the heads up. I used to have similar issues with "sleep" mode in other PC and I no longer use it. I will turn it off in the new PC as well.

[lostforever]

I finally got my dell studio xps yesterday! Very fast deliver i must say. It took about 5 days from the time I placed the order.

This is slightly off topic but since cactusjack play WoW here is question for him,

I am using the same monitor from the old PC (and the old PC had a Nvdia Geforce 6800GT card) but colours in WoW looks bit darker. Did you find that as well cactusjack?


I like the look of WoW in the old PC so I am trying to reproduce it here as well Changing the brightness does not help since things looks "washed" out.

Another question releated to WoW, what is FPS like in places like Outlands and northrand please?

[cactusjack]

I finally got my dell studio xps yesterday! Very fast deliver i must say. It took about 5 days from the time I placed the order.

This is slightly off topic but since cactusjack play WoW here is question for him,

I am using the same monitor from the old PC (and the old PC had a Nvdia Geforce 6800GT card) but colours in WoW looks bit darker. Did you find that as well cactusjack?


I like the look of WoW in the old PC so I am trying to reproduce it here as well Changing the brightness does not help since things looks "washed" out.

Another question releated to WoW, what is FPS like in places like Outlands and northrand please?

To be honest I didn't really notice any difference in colours. I went from using a Samsung 20 inch monitor to a Dell 20 inch. But then I don't really have a great eye for such differences. This could just be the design of the ATI4850 card which causes darker colours. May be in the world of graphics, this is considered to be better? - I have no idea.

Have you fiddled with all of the WoW settings, ATI Catalyst Control Centre settings and monitor settings? Would installing a monitor driver make any difference at all here - may be someone else can provide advice on this? Also, what is the brand / model for your monitor?

For me FPS is maintained at 60FPS in Outlands and Northrend. I am playing on a 1680 by 1050 resolution. In Dalaran, I sometimes get 45-55 when it is really really busy. But then if I move to a more quiet area it shoots up to 60 again. I am pleased with this - since people in my guild get 2 - 20 FPS :-)

[Webby]

The new card is just interpreting the colours differently (or your monitor is either way) easily resolved play with the brightness and contrast of the monitor or if its only in WoW then alter the in game settings (it might be that you had altered them previously and with the reinstall they have reset to default values).

[cactusjack]

Lostforever - if you get a chance could you please see what +3.3v voltage value you get? Mine reads as 1.09V which is odd. Just wanted to confirm if you had the same.

I use Hwmonitor (http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php) to check (remember the 64bit version if using Vista64 :-) )

[lostforever]

To be honest I didn't really notice any difference in colours. I went from using a Samsung 20 inch monitor to a Dell 20 inch. But then I don't really have a great eye for such differences. This could just be the design of the ATI4850 card which causes darker colours. May be in the world of graphics, this is considered to be better? - I have no idea.

Have you fiddled with all of the WoW settings, ATI Catalyst Control Centre settings and monitor settings? Would installing a monitor driver make any difference at all here - may be someone else can provide advice on this? Also, what is the brand / model for your monitor?

For me FPS is maintained at 60FPS in Outlands and Northrend. I am playing on a 1680 by 1050 resolution. In Dalaran, I sometimes get 45-55 when it is really really busy. But then if I move to a more quiet area it shoots up to 60 again. I am pleased with this - since people in my guild get 2 - 20 FPS :-)

I have the following Samsung t220 monitor and i run at 1680 by 1050 as well. I have ALL video wow setting at max. Most of the time i do get 60FPS as well but sometimes in Outlands and Northrend its 50 - 55.

Its not huge issue but I was kind of surprised . You see my old card was geforce 6800GT and i was getting about the same FPS with that card. I thought ATI 4850 was comparable to geforce 9800GTX (or even GTX+) so I was hoping for an improvement

I have sort of sorted the brightness issue by changing the setting on the monitor itself and I am happy now

http://www.samsung.com/us/consumer/d...=LS22TWHSUV/ZA

Thanks for all your help.

[lostforever]

Lostforever - if you get a chance could you please see what +3.3v voltage value you get? Mine reads as 1.09V which is odd. Just wanted to confirm if you had the same.

I use Hwmonitor (http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php) to check (remember the 64bit version if using Vista64 :-) )

I have that program and I will post the value tonight when I get home from work.

[lostforever]

The new card is just interpreting the colours differently (or your monitor is either way) easily resolved play with the brightness and contrast of the monitor or if its only in WoW then alter the in game settings (it might be that you had altered them previously and with the reinstall they have reset to default values).

This is what I thought and I mesed with the setting on the monitor and it looks fine now

[cactusjack]

I have the following Samsung t220 monitor and i run at 1680 by 1050 as well. I have ALL video wow setting at max. Most of the time i do get 60FPS as well but sometimes in Outlands and Northrend its 50 - 55.

Its not huge issue but I was kind of surprised . You see my old card was geforce 6800GT and i was getting about the same FPS with that card. I thought ATI 4850 was comparable to geforce 9800GTX (or even GTX+) so I was hoping for an improvement

I have sort of sorted the brightness issue by changing the setting on the monitor itself and I am happy now

http://www.samsung.com/us/consumer/d...=LS22TWHSUV/ZA

Thanks for all your help.

A much older machine that I have with an older ATI card gave similar FPS. It would appear WoW is less dependent on the GPU and more dependent on memory/processor (based on what I have read on WoW forums). Blizzard have said running WoW on an older graphics card or a new one won't make a huge difference.

[lostforever]

Lostforever - if you get a chance could you please see what +3.3v voltage value you get? Mine reads as 1.09V which is odd. Just wanted to confirm if you had the same.

I use Hwmonitor (http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php) to check (remember the 64bit version if using Vista64 :-) )

It seems I am getting the same values as you, odd indeed.....

[Aden]

The new card is just interpreting the colours differently (or your monitor is either way) easily resolved play with the brightness and contrast of the monitor or if its only in WoW then alter the in game settings (it might be that you had altered them previously and with the reinstall they have reset to default values).

I believe somewhere using the ATI software you can also configure brightness, contrast and the channels etc of each colour, though this would also affect you outside of gaming (unless theres an option to only apply on full screen or certain apps.. not too sure..).


If not i recommend changing settings ingame if you can and leaving your monitor settings how they should display colours.. or you might come to some websites which have poor use of colours and not be able to differentiate between background and text. :S

[cactusjack]

Hmmm this doesn't look promising! Warcraft has been fine for the last couple of weeks since the PC arrived.

But tonight suddenly I started seeing black shapes behind characters:





I restarted the game, and its ok now... Anyone know why this could be?

[nobby375]

hhmmm ive had similar probs in wow, but to a much greater degree, knowledgeable friends into pc's told me it was a classic sign of over heating. tempererally solved with a restart.

Im using a 1950pro and have been told they are prone to overheating(was running at 64degrees), it got more frequent till i got fed up and decided to remove the card and go at it with a hoover/brush to clear the cooler(ice q stylee 1)from all the dust that was clogging it up.

it now runs at 45 degrees on load lol and no probs since, if u have an oldish system a (v careful) hoover/dust can work wonders.

[cactusjack]

hhmmm ive had similar probs in wow, but to a much greater degree, knowledgeable friends into pc's told me it was a classic sign of over heating. tempererally solved with a restart.

Im using a 1950pro and have been told they are prone to overheating(was running at 64degrees), it got more frequent till i got fed up and decided to remove the card and go at it with a hoover/brush to clear the cooler(ice q stylee 1)from all the dust that was clogging it up.

it now runs at 45 degrees on load lol and no probs since, if u have an oldish system a (v careful) hoover/dust can work wonders.

Thanks for that.

My system is 2 weeks old though :-( and I think ATI cards are designed to run at high temps (80+ degrees) - although mine doesnt run past 70, and when it happened for me, the card was running at no more tham 60 degrees.

[Pob255]

First contact Dell, that's the main reason for going with a dell, support. (and that'll get a case open for you)

I can tell you what happening but not exactly what's causeing it.

What is going on is misplaced decimal point when it's doing the vertex calculations.

Now I've probably lost you there, so I'll explane, 3d graphics is made up of polygons aka triangles, each triangle has vertices aka 3 points in 3d space that make up to corners of the triangle.
each vertex has 3 cordinates X,Y,Z
Now in the case of games, something like a player model has way to many polygons to keep track of relative to the world and the numbers would become to large to process.
So what the game does is keep track of a player location as a single point, the model it's self is displayed based off of that origin point.
ie the game says model A need to be drawn at origin point X,Y,Z, model A is made up of a bunch of triangles which are drawn relative to the origin point.

So in that 2nd pic some of the vertices on the play models back are not being drawn at
X.XX , Y.YY , Z.ZZ
but instead at
XX.X , Y.YY , Z.ZZ
or
XXX. , Y.YY , Z.ZZ
So one corner or even two are being drawn 10, 100 or even 1000 times further from the origin point of the player model.
(origin points are often ether a point on the ground between the feet or the center of the hipbone)

This can be caused by a few factors.
Overheating, graphics card memory or gpu or graphics card voltage regulators
Bad graphics card memory
Power issues, not enough voltage or ampage getting to the card or on the card it self not being able to feed enough to the memory and/or gpu (ie voltage regulation on the card) (this can be caused by over heating causeing changes in resistance leading to incorrect power being supplied)
Driver issues

You've checked temps, you could try running with the side of the case off or cranking up the fan very high to see if they go away.

Have you got a spare PSU kicking about? if so you could try this.
Turn off pc, open side, unplug power from graphics card.
plug spare psu into the graphics card.
Jump start the spare PSU and turn on the pc.
That should show if it's power related, espelly when under load.

[cactusjack]

WoW Pob255 - thanks for this. I will refrain from contacting Dell for a couple of days - since I asked around in Warcraft last night. One friend told me it happens to them but only in a particular zone of the game and nowhere else. And for me that is indeed accurate too - it happens in that same place for me too. So I wonder if its the drivers - Dell's supplied drivers (which are the latest ones on the Dell website) are actually very old. I am wondering though whether I should upgrade the drivers - the problem only happened twice last night - restarting always solved it. Also, I read lots of horror stories of things that don't work and stability issues every time new drivers are released... If the problem starts to become more frequent, then I will update or contact Dell.