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My ATI HD 3850 crashes in game.


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#1
Cold Titanium

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Hello,

I finally got my card. All works well including video playback. All exept games. The game is Star Wars Jedi Knight Jedi Academy. I don't have any other games to test right now. I can play for a few min's and then it will freeze up and send back to the desktop. Windows says that the driver stopped responding but succesfuly recovered. I installed 7.12 and am doing no overclocking.

Should I uninstall 7.12 and install 7.10?

Thanks!
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#2
james_8970

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Do you know the temps of the video card? I'm assuming your video card is overheating if you have not changed anything else within your tower during this upgrade.
James
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#3
Cold Titanium

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The current temp is 39 Celsius. I ran Auto-tune in the CCC and the highest temp it ever got was 91 C. I don't think it is a over heating problem the room where my computer is is very cold. How would I tell what the temp got in game? And then I reset the clocks back to defalt.

Here is what I did: I installed the card into the motherboard, plugged everthing up, booted up, noticed that the boot screen HP logo was discolored, downloaded 7.12 suite from ATI.com made sure it was for Vista 32 bit, turned off Firewall ,Anti-virus, Anti-spyware and unplugged all USB devices. The game is playible unless I get into a lot of action that requires a bunch of different buttons to be pushed. Uninstalled driver, ran Guru3d driver sweeper, rebooted, tried CD that came with card, windows installed generic driver before CD installed, uninstalled generic driver, tried CD again, windows does the same thing again, tried downloaded driver from ATI.com, installed over windows generic driver. Back to square 1. Current version installed 7.12.

I can play the game fine unless I start pushing a lot of buttons. I just got Microsoft flight sim X for christmas, should I try it? Or should I download a demo of a newer game?

if you have not changed anything else within your tower during this upgrade


I didn't change anything else.

Edited by Krusha, 26 December 2007 - 01:49 PM.

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#4
james_8970

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Is everything at stock settings? Can I have a link to your GPU.
Your GPU is known to over heat and I believe this is your issue. What I want you to do is the following:
  • Download rthdribl
  • Unzip the program
  • Open the program
  • Press 8
  • Click file
  • Click Configure
  • Click the tab beside wide screen
  • Next set your resolution to your monitors native resolution
  • Press OK
  • Let this program run for 15-30 minutes, the longer the better.
  • To exit the program press Atl+Enter
  • Immediately check the temperature afterwards and post that information here

If the above doesn't crash the game then I'm doubtful that your GPU overheating is the issue. Be sure to run the program full screen and at x16 multisampling, otherwise you will not be stressing your GPU.


Try gaming with the side panel off, this should eliminate overheating as being the culprit.

James
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#5
Cold Titanium

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THIS is my card.

And yes everthing is at stock settings.

UPDATE: I tried to run the game again, same. It freezes up faster when I throw a bomb or something that makes a lot of light.

When it crashes windows says that that the driver atikmdag stopped responding and succesfully recovered. I tracked down the name and came up with 2 files: atikmdag.sys, and atikmdag.sys.mui.

I will now try that program you gave me: will write back in a little while.
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#6
Cold Titanium

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I ran it for 45 min. and temp was 74 C.
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#7
Cold Titanium

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Edit: Waited a few min's temp now 40-41 C.

UPDATE: I took the side panel off the computer and tried the game again. Same thing happened. Temps were 34 C.

ANOTHER THING: occasianly the background and other pictures have distorted colors after the computer game stops responding. And remains that way until I reboot.



UPDATE: I called the VisionTek support line and he told me to either reinstall the game or update my motherbaords chipset drivers. Comments? I am reinstalling the game right now.

Isn't it risky to update your motherbaord? THIS is the update link.



UPDATE: reinstalled game no change. HP tech support told me too go to my system properties and uncheck the automatically manage paging file size for all drives box in the Virtual Memory section and to check custom size and put in for initial size (MB) 4096 and for Maximum size (MB) 8192.

Should I change that back to where it was?

After that they made click RUN from the windows start menu and type in %temp% and delete all the files in there.

I did and then I tried to run the game again, it seemed to do better but then jammed again. After that they said since the game doesn't support Vista then I shouldn't run it. But they also said that a BIOS update wouldn't help gameplay.

Should I update my BIOS?

Edited by Krusha, 26 December 2007 - 07:31 PM.

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#8
james_8970

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No, a BIOS update won't fix anything.
The fact that your running Vista should have nothing to do with this, though to rule out this problem could you run a game that is compatible with Vista as a default.
If not, follow the directions below:
  • Find the shortcut or .exe file to launch your game
  • Right click it
  • Left click Properties
  • Left click the Compatibility tab
  • Check the box beside "Run this program in compatibility mode for:"
  • Select XP
  • Left click ok

You said you contacted HP. Is this computer from HP? If so, was there initially a graphics card installed in this PC? Do you have onboard video disabled if your motherboard has this?
Lastly, an underpowered GPU can cause many odd problems, you may need a slightly more powerful PSU. Can you check your PSU and inform me as to how many Amps (A) are under the 12V rail.
James

Edited by james_8970, 26 December 2007 - 08:00 PM.

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#9
Cold Titanium

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You said you contacted HP. Is this computer from HP?


Yes it is a HP Pavililion a6142n. I purchased it a few months ago.


If so, was there initially a graphics card installed in this PC? Do you have onboard video disabled if your motherboard has this?


The computer had intergrated Nvidia 6150SE. I uninstalled the driver for the old intergrated and installed the new. I also went into my BIOS setup and changed the graphics something or rather
from PCI to PCI-E. But that didn't make any difference.

Can you check your PSU and inform me as to how many Amps (A) are under the 12V rail.



THIS is my PSU it has: +12V1@18A and +12V2@18A



I did notice that the HP logo on the bootup screen is discolored, it used to be just plain white but now is blue purple redish colored.

I will try a native DX10 Vista game. I guess a game where I can jump into intense action real quick would be good. Recommend me one? I will download a demo.....

Edited by Krusha, 27 December 2007 - 10:13 AM.

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#10
Cold Titanium

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UPDATE: I tried to run it in XP mode, didn't work.

I installed Microsofts flight sim X. It runs fine without any lockups although it is kind of jittery and the ground(water,buildings,grass,trees,etc) look terrible. I even set everything on ultra high.

Do you think I might have a bad card?

Edited by Krusha, 27 December 2007 - 03:20 PM.

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#11
james_8970

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You are install the HD3800 series drivers and not the HD2900 series or something else, correct?
Older drivers do not work properly with this card, so no I do not recommend downgrading drivers.
I'd recommend a reformat, as it appears there may be lingering drivers on your computer. Whenever you install new hardware onto your computer such as a CPU, GPU or motherboard it's always adviseable to do.

To me, it appears as if there are some files/registry entries remaining from your old card that are conflicting with the new card.
Are you sure you have turned of your onboard video via BIOS?
James
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#12
Cold Titanium

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You are install the HD3800 series drivers and not the HD2900 series or something else, correct


Correct.

Are you sure you have turned of your onboard video via BIOS?


As far as I know. Unless there is some setting I missed.

I'd recommend a reformat, as it appears there may be lingering drivers on your computer


How would I do a reformat? I don't have a Vista installation disk, all I have are some recovery disk that I made using Vista's program. I did use Guru3d's driver sweeper if that helps. I even tried to install the drivers in safe mode.

As far as lingering drivers I do have the 7.10 and 7.12 files in a folder but only 7.12 is installed.
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#13
Cold Titanium

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UPDATE: When I try to run Jedi Academy as an admin and when windows ask's me to allow this program access of my computer when I click cancel I get an error that says: A required file is missing or corrupted! Please reinstall Star Wars Jedi Knight Jedi Academy to fix this problem.

I reinstalled it several times but it kept doing it. I also noticed that even though I chose to delete my saved games they are still there. And some of Jedi Knights files were still on the hard drive. I had to boot into Safe Mode to delete them. Even after doing all that and reinstalling I still get the error.
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#14
Cold Titanium

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UPDATE: Hmmmmmm..... I installed the Crysis demo and it played without a problem and looked great. And it might have just been me thinking that Flight Sim X looked bad. Can someone show some pics of how the terrain in flight sim look on your computer? How do I take screenshots in games so that I can post some?
Thanks!

Edited by Krusha, 02 January 2008 - 07:34 PM.

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#15
TarNex

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Good day. I suggest installing Omega Drivers from
http://www.omegadrivers.net/
I had the same problem but that fixed it.
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