Just built a budget gaming system, running the ATI Sapphire HD3870 512 MB card...All factory settings, with an ASRock ALiveNF6G-VSTA Nvidia chipset mobo, AMD 64X2 5000+ 2.6GHz 1MB cache processor thats never seen above 50C... all factory settings on Vista 64bit. Chipset, Bios and Display drivers all up to date.

Basically, not ALWAYS but after about an hour or two of 3D graphics in World of Warcraft or a few runs of 3Dmark06 and CS:Source, it cuts to a black screen with a flash of artifacts, and windows vista quotes at the bottom "The ATI display driver has stopped working, and windows has successfully recovered" reloading it all. System problem-helper has told me countlessly that the problem is coming directly from the ATI driver...although it lacks the crucial information of telling whether or not its a compatability issue, temperature issue, etc.

It happens more and more frequently once it starts to happen...I'm assuming it could be overheating, although when i check the GPU temps on ATI overdrive, its never over 55C. The motherboard auto-detects my memory at 373MHz. I've fiddled around with the bios settings, although I have not tried the BIOS PCI-E Downstream at Disable fix, will be trying that shortly.

I have done extra research and read that the fan has had problems in the past, and using Rivatuner could possibly solve the problem...just DLed and Installed, will be running it shortly.

Tried manually locking the processor at its stock X13 multiplier at 2.6GHz, Tried manually locking the memory frequency at DDR800 and lower, tried Locking the northbridge frequency at 200MHZ...

I'm thinking that this could possibly be a compatibilty problem between the nvidia chipset and the ATI graphics card drivers...hopefully not, ive heard that they can run just fine with proper system/mobo settings. Also could be the fan problem as stated above, will be testing that shortly. Can anyone shed some light on the subject? I would really have to just toss this mobo and the 65 bucks i paid for it right in the trash.

Bump...19 views not one reply? Noone has an idea?

use drivercleaner, then re-install the newest drivers...beyond that, i can say from experience that those symptoms seem like an overheat. download ATITOOL, run the 3d view for an hour, and report the temps.

will do.

cant run ATITOOL on vista 64 apparently..

*edit* it will run, just wont show any graphs. But i can still monitor the temps from overdrive...bb in an hour.

After years of using ATI cards the only time I got that driver crash it was for 2 reasons:
-overheating even tho the software SOMETIMES report wrong temps
-or a defective card that crashes like yours.

but I think it could be possible that the graphic driver is wrongly installed. You said the system is new so just get the card back to the store you bought it and get a new one or switch for a 9600gt instead.

I have a similar problem...Palit 3870 crashes under Vista ...screen goes black and windows reports driver crash..My Vista was horrendous until I discovered that the 3870 was generating so much heat that the main board chip was overheating. I upgraded the video bios with one that runs higher fan speed and it helped a bit, but I'm still crashing under Vista . I have a Lian Li case with two 120 mm fans pushing air into the case and one 120 mm fan pulling air out, I use an Antec earth watts power supply (500 watts If I remember right) which generates virtually no heat. Before I "upgraded", I was running a 1900 Gt card and the system was virtually silent , because it ran so cool, heck most of the time the power supply fan was off!. Since the 3870 upgrade I have a noisy, fans full bore , overheating system. Thanks ATI . this will be the last ATI product I will ever buy.

x

Ok I think there is a fix...I came across this little nugget of info. I tried it, and, at first my fan was screaming like a banshee but, after it cooled things down it slowed down considerably. The fan is still somewhat noisy but the card is running MUCH cooler. I will see about Vista stability. I'm also going to check the heat sink..I've read elsewhere that the thermal compound is poorly applied and/or the sink is very rough. And I thought that nice big copper cooler would keep things cold. I'll post my results. So far the Idle temp is 34C (room temp 20 c)

"Like the rest of you, I purchased an HIS IceQ3 Radeon HD3870 512MB GDDR4. And like the rest of you, I experienced the same fan issues, overheating, etc. Not finding any of the BIOS in this thread or other forums particularlly helpful, and not wanting to use RivaTuner every time I booted Windows I decided to research the problem myself and come up with a solution. I was lucky enough to get one of the newer cards with an 010.079 rev BIOS (Date: 3/3/08). This Particular BIOS comes with a default 2D/3D Clock of 780/1130. It does not start @ 300MHz and rev up like some of the older BIOS.

This will work for ANY brand HD3870. I'm not sure about the linked BIOS, but I would imagine it would work as well.

Tools you will need:

ATI Radeon BIOS Editor:

http://www.computerbase.de/downloads...tor/?url=18682

ATI Winflash:

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads...sh_2.0.0.7.zip

HD3870 Original BIOS 010.079.000.005 (BIOS date: 3/3/2008):

http://viiron.googlepages.com/hd3870bios.rom


The above BIOS is not necessary for the following steps. I've simply posted it in case anyone would like to update. In fact, using your current BIOS to do the below will keep you from having to uninstall/reinstall your ATI drivers.

Step 1:

Use ATI Winflash to save your current BIOS to somewhere safe such as your Desktop or Documents folder. Start the BIOS Editor and open up the BIOS (bios.rom or whatever name you gave it). Where you set the clock speeds/voltages is up to you. My main concern is the fan, and keeping the card from over heating. After playing around with the two settings for the fan speed / threshhold temp I found the following to be useful. Threshhold Temp: 20C, FAN SPEED: 90%

Save the file (to something like bios_mod.rom) and close the editor.

Now I know what you're thinking...THAT FAN SPEED IS TOO HIGH AND WILL BE TOO LOUD. Well relax...as far as I've seen, it never actually rev's up to that %. I'm under the impression that the BIOS is not reading the temp sensors correctly...hence the issue we're all having.

Step 2:

Copy your saved bios.rom to the folder containing ATIWinflash.exe
Vista Users: Right click on ATI Winflash and under the Compatibility tab check the box "Run as administrator"

Open up the command prompt (Start->Run->cmd) and cd to the directory containing ATIWinflash.exe and your bios.rom that you just copied over and type the following:

ATIWinFlash.exe -p 0 -f bios_mod.rom (this may take a minute or so, so be patient)

You will then be prompted to reboot your computer for the changes to take effect. Reboot.

If you modded the 3D/2D clock speeds you can open up CCC (Catalyst Control Center) and check to make sure everything worked as planned. You should also notice your temps being considerably lower than they used to be.

Step 3:

Enjoy! Be sure to keep a copy of your original bios.rom on hand just in case you need it or want to revert your changes. It should be noted that this process can be done as much as you like until you find the settings that work right for you. The above 20C/90% is just a suggestion. Again...use the settings that work best for you.
Last edited by viiron : Apr 13, 2008 at 09:03 AM.

I didn't see any mention of driver version. My system was stable with 8.4; 8.6 is faster but unstable.

I cannot even get 8.6 to run/install properly at this point in time. it's still showing 8.5 in 3dmark06. i have gigabyte gddr3 version board. This may be a probelm due to just the new driver not fully supporting 3rd party cards now that i see more problems. I would recommend going back to 8.5 or 8.4... that's what i'm going to do, at least untill they update/release a new driver