ATI 4870 512mb SVIDEO woes

Hey peeps,

Just received my ATI 4870 512mb GPU and its a great, fantastic upgrade from my 7900gtx especially with Crysis on 1280x1020 with max settings....I am truly surprised at how good it is...

Theres always a but though.....

In this case its because this card does not have a svideo connection...

I rely on my PC to watch films on my tele which connects via SVIDEO cable...

How can I do this now....

also I was playing crysis on full settings for an hr and a half earlier today and the game just crashed, to be more precise, the pixels went all funny and the only way out was to press reset on the pc and reboot... - any ideas why this is....i was only gaming at 1280x1020

Please help

Cheers

Quote:

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Originally Posted by xirokx

In this case its because this card does not have a svideo connection...

I rely on my PC to watch films on my tele which connects via SVIDEO cable...

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Has it not got a round multipin output between the dvi connectors? It should come with an adapter to turn this into svideo/composite/component video (or at least some of them). If you can get it out as composite then you should be able to get this into a standard TV.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by xirokx

also I was playing crysis on full settings for an hr and a half earlier today and the game just crashed, to be more precise, the pixels went all funny and the only way out was to press reset on the pc and reboot... - any ideas why this is....i was only gaming at 1280x1020

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Sound like a heat issue, you might want to look at the temperatures and maybe stick in an extra case fan or crank up the rpm when gaming on your existing ones.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jimbouk

Sound like a heat issue, you might want to look at the temperatures and maybe stick in an extra case fan or crank up the rpm when gaming on your existing ones.

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I agree, definitely sounds like overheating - possibly the memory? Does the card have custom cooling or stock? In fact, if you detail the exact model of 4870 it will probably help answer both questions :)

its a second hand gpu, it has stock cooling...

the model is gainward ati 4870 512mb

I have 2 x xilsence fans one in my case, one on the TRUE HSF and one additional one for the case plus a generic case fan...I thought that would be enough?? especially with the side panel window of my case being open as well? I would have thought this would mean there would be no overheating issues?

"Has it not got a round multipin output between the dvi connectors?" - no round connections whatsoever, only 2 DVI connections and 1 DP connection

Check the temps with GPU-Z, Everest, Rivatuner and see if it is overheating.

thanks

what temps are classified as overheating??

if it is overheating especially with the side of pc case being open then I think the card is borked and needs to be RMA'd...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by xirokx

thanks

what temps are classified as overheating??

if it is overheating especially with the side of pc case being open then I think the card is borked and needs to be RMA'd...

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Well if it is stock cooled, the 4870 can reach 90 degrees under load, but anything over that would definitely be bad... I had a look on the gainward websote though and I couldn't see a reference cooled 4870... The only 4870 512mb they have listed is this one:

http://www.gainward.com/main/vgapro.php?id=82

which has upgraded cooling. If this is the card you have, I would be worried if load temperatures got far north of 70-75 degrees.

You should try testing with the side panel both on and off - in many cases the cooling is actually more effective with all panels on as the fans can direct the flow of air more effectively to where it is needed.

yep thats the card

I installed GPUZ and played crysis for an hour at 1280 x 1020 on full settings and put the side panel back onto the case...

GPU temp = 73.0
Fan Speed 1900rpm
GPU Core Clock 500mhz
GPU Mem Clock 1000.0mhz
GPU Load 93%
All other three temps were around 70% i.e. GPU TEMP DISPIO, MEMIO AND SHADERCORE

The game crashed after 1 hour and took me back to the desktop where windows error message was :-

"display driver stopped working"

Are my temps OK? given that they are not at 90 degrees I think yes, what do you guys think?

Should I remove the current driver = ati catalyst 9.2 and try a different one? if yes, which version??

thanks

Daganmit just googled this error and apparently there are 100's of people out there like me, it seems to be a well known problem with some ATI cards...I wonder if that is why the card was sold??? Thing is there is nothing you can do to fix it apparently until ATI release some kind of patch...hmmmm am I right to think this?

Hmmm... unfortunately I'm a long-term green team user so I have a bit of a blindspot with ATI cards...:embarrassed: the temps defintiely look fine though so it's almost certainly not that.

Anyone else out there got some ATI-related tips they want to share?

Does Crysis always crash at the same point? It may be that a particular level / area uses an effect that crashes ATI cards (it happened some years ago with the "Shiny Water" effect in NWN - ATI cards simply gave up when they tried to render it!). If you can work out what it is you may be able to turn off that effect: or alternatively just turn off all the effects then try each one individually until you isolate the one that's making the card crash...

nope it doesnt crash at the same point...

it does however crash around 55mins - 1hr 10mins into the game no matter at which I am at...

I have everything on max settings and tbh the card should handle that no bother....

If the temps are fine then we can safely rule the temps out...

Everytime it crashes and throws me back to desktop windows notifies me that the display driver stopped working and is now working again...so its like the driver fails 55mins into the game and throws me out...I have tried 3 different versions of drivers, 9.2, 8.12 and 8.11

Having researched the problem on google it appears that ATI and NVIDIA drivers seem to do this on certain cards, its just at random, ATI will not acknowledge the problem but are aware of it...its a common fault with the ATI cards in particular not on majority of cards but there are a fair few which my research shows are affected by this...ATI usually tell these people, well the general responses I am seeing is that wait for the new drivers to be released etc etc which is terrible in my opinion...

thanks for your help and advice, I will definately be RMA'ing this card because I do not want to get into the hassle of ringing ATI and to be told what people in my position are told...

thanks once again

there does seem to be a lot of people with this issue, having googled it. But not many HEXUS people have it, I think.

Would you consider taking the side of the case off, and blowing a great big fan into it? Just to totally dispel heat build up being the problem.

I'm interested in your PSU too. What is it please? Because this seems to occur for ATI users AND nVidia users, I do wonder if it's power or heat related.

done some reading. It's a mess of guesswork and pure fluke.

Some people switch off Aero in Vista!
Some remove a Vista hotfix KB95228!
Some have slightly underclocked their graphics card (most likely real solution, though not very professional)
And a LOT have taken their second monitor off, and that's solved it. Once again.. not ideal

But because it seems also to occur to nVidia cards too, it's deeper. The hotfix might be it!