HD4850 stutter in games. Bad card?

[crasher]

Greetings:
Please let me know if any of this points to a solution.

AMD X2 4200 Dual Core.
MSI motherboard. It used to be an HP a1130n.
2 gig of Kingston ram.
OS on a new 300gig WD Sata drive.
Fresh install of Vista Ultimate 32.
Swapped a good ATI 1650XT for a Visiontek HD4850.

A few details I want to mention are:

AMD Power Monitor is a small application that shows graphical activity per core in real time, similarly to the Task Manager graphical interface. After the video card swap, both of these apps show my 2nd GPU core to be pegged between 95 and 100 percent at idle. Checking the computer left idle on the desktop for hours at a time with nothing else open, no screen saver, no dreamscreens running showed core 2 pegged. The AMD CCC version 8.5, 8.6, and the HOT FIX all have a final page for overlocking info. The right side has the temp monitor and activity indicator. My temps hovered around 80*, but the activity indicator shows 99% GPU activity at idle.

I bring this all up because I replaced an ATI 1650XT with the Visiontek HD4850 after cleaning with DriverCleaner and the resulting stutter was occurring every 8 to ten seconds in STALKER, FEAR and Bioshock. This was not an issue with the 1650. After two days of tinkering, I reformatted and reinstalled bucause I thought I may have had a rootkit or something my NOD32 missed on my 2 month old fresh install of Vista32. Same stutter and core #2 pegged. So I uninstalled the 4850 and used DriverCleaner again. I reinstalled the 1650 and used the 8.6 CCC driver. My stutter is gone in the mentioned games and both cores show 1 to 2% activity at idle.

I'd appreciate any follow up you have or input on further steps you recommend. I'm now leaning towards a defective card but I want to know if theres a step I've missed. These results apply with or without the AMD apps that are for dual core optimization and etc. installed.

Thanks for getting this far.
Regards, etc.,
cxrasher
Rick
Sterling, Virginia

 

[BFG10K]

After you reinstalled Windows did you drop your 4850 back in? I'm thinking this is a software issue which was fixed after a reformat rather than having a bad 4850.

 

[crasher]

Thanks for getting back:
Yes, I reformatted with the 4850 still in. After no improvement, and the core #2 *still* pegging 95-100% usage, I *then uninstalled the drivers and card - used drivercleaner- and installed the 1650 and CCC 8.6. That was Monday. 1650 still in and working/playing fine.

Rick

 

[Magusigne]

Originally posted by: crasher
Thanks for getting back:
Yes, I reformatted with the 4850 still in. After no improvement, and the core #2 *still* pegging 95-100% usage, I *then uninstalled the drivers and card - used drivercleaner- and installed the 1650 and CCC 8.6. That was Monday. 1650 still in and working/playing fine.

Rick

Rick, I've been having some issues too with my 4870..Not quite as bad as yours.
I believe these are driver issues. Try searching for the Catalyste beta drivers (at your own risk) I've heard good things from them

 

[shangshang]

rest assured that you are not alone in your struggles with the 4850/70 drivers issues!

I have an annoying issue in Assassin's Creed in that my screen will flickers whenever AC starts. I've tried Cat 8.6, hotfix 8.6, 8.7 beta. I also get a crash at a specific point in the game so that I can't continue on with AC at the moment. I've given up playing AC, waiting for better drivers.

The fact that AMD hasnt even listed the 48xx series on the drivers list could mean that they have not thoroughly developed the drivers. Usually, companies will WANT TO post their drivers for a new product line asap. It's now been almost a month since the 4850 was released. The "old ATI" would not let this happen.

I'm seeing more and more gamers complaining in here. I think the problems run deep, but that buyers of 4850/4870 are not bitching en mass yet because many are still trying to mod their card's Bios or mucking with fan tweak to alleviate the hot temp.

 

[Mem]

Have you updated to the latest DX9.0c (June 2008)version too in Vista (recommended).


I've only installed my 4780 this morning ,however not had any stutter problems with UT2004,Mythos,EQ2 etc..I'll try some more games later like Mass Effect and report back, but so far I'm very impressed with my 4780 card,btw I'm using the 8.6 hotfix drivers with my Vista x64.


DX9.0C link.


Btw I recommend you turn off real time scan for Windows Defender,I just set mine to scan once a week.

 

[nanaki333]

is your pcie running in x16?

 

[vgkarthik88]

Please try the 8.6 Hotfix for 4800 Series cards and see if the problem persists : http://support.ati.com/ics/sup...default.asp?deptID=894 : Listed under 'Most Recent Topics' give it a try.

 

[BFG10K]

Originally posted by: crasher
After no improvement, and the core #2 *still* pegging 95-100% usage,[/i]

When your 4850 is in the system generating a high CPU load, what process is using the CPU time (use Task Manager to check this)?