You might have heard that there are problems with the earliest 4850/4870, specifically heat and bugs... I put here a quick guide to getting up and running without any pain.
1. The driver. There were issues with the driver causing flickering in 2D. Those have been resolved, download v8.7 (or newer, 8.7 is current as of right now)
http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html
Supposedly there are still still flicker issues if you use dual monitor and OC your card at the same time. There is no word about this as of right now.
2. If you have an early version, it will have a bios bug (or maybe it is a misconfiguration) preventing power play from working properly. Power play downclocks the GPU while it is idle to save power and make less heat.
You will need to flash the BIOS for this step (and only if you actually have this problem!), if you do not want to, skip it. The ideal way of doing step 3 also requires flashing the bios, the two can be combined into one flash operation (recommended).
MSI fixed powerplay BIOS for 4850:
http://www.techpowerup.com/vga...HD4850.512.080605.html
Sapphire fixed powerplay BIOS (so I hear, I didn't test it) for 4870:
http://www.techpowerup.com/vga...HD4870.512.080609.html
To flash it, I recommend using winflash:
http://www.techpowerup.com/dow.../Winflash_2.0.1.2.html
You should save your current bios somewhere safe
If the computer APPEARS to stop responding while flashing... WALK AWAY for 5 minutes... For me even the num lock and caps lock buttons were not responding (usually only occurs during a hard lock), and yet a minute later it suddenly started moving again and said flash successful... on a second flash it actually showed a progress bar the whole way through.
The correct operation for powerplay (on the 4850) is:
idle: 160mhz core
movie decode: 500mhz core
3d (game): 625mhz core
you can use the CCC to show you the current CPU speed.
3. The temperature. Like the 8800GT and many before it, the earliest units of the 4850 are simply running too hot. Never fear, there are fixes availble.
The best thing to do, is to avoid the problem altogether by buying a card with a larger HSF. Several companies now offer those.
If you already bought a 4850 with the standard HSF, then you should do something about it.
I prefer to take care of it permanently. If you are uncomfortable with BIOS flashing then read down... Since you are already going to flash to solve the power play issue, you might as well change the default fan speeds... It is a simple and harmless operation
First get Radeon Bios Editor:
http://www.techpowerup.com/dow...Bios_Editor_v1.11.html
Next, run it, use it to save the current bios somewhere safe.
Then select the MSI bios (or your own if it has proper power play) and go to "Fan Settings". Set whatever you want, I chose "Set all fan settings to recommended values". You can specify your own custom values...
You can also select the manufacturer code from a drop down list (msi, visiontek, etc)
save the modified bios to your hard drive, and then load it up with winflash from step 2.
There is always the option of putting an after market cooler, that would decrease your temperature so much that you will actually be able to overclock the card!
If you are uncomfortable with BIOS flashing, you can always take care of it in software. completely harmless and non dangerous (the process, if you set the fan speed too low it will overheat and might be damaged), it is limited to while you are in windows with this specific driver version... hopefully soon riva tuner will be updated for the 48xx and work with it, allowing you to set it in a the graphical user interface of riva tuner instead of having to mess about with settings files...
make sure your temps are below 90c load (ideally under 80c load) when you set the fan speed manually. If you set the speed too low and let it get too hot it can damage the chip.
Here is how to soft mod your fan speed:
This will solve all the problems with the earliest units of the 4850. Later units should not need any of these operations, but for us early adopters, a little work is usually required. Enjoy your new purchase and the best bang for the buck card out there at the moment.
:beer:
EDIT: I added the 4870 bios and modified the text to fit so that this guide is now fitting for both cards.
EDIT2: http://www.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=11871
ASUS Announced a 4850 with 3rd party cooling. It should solve ALL the issues discussed in this thread, if you don't want to mess with it, buy that, or a similar card instead.
As I predicted all those problems are solved with improved models. They actually skipped steps compared to the 8800GT solving method and went straight to the last and ultimate improvement... A 3rd party cooler.
Not available in stores yet, but neatly solves all the issues. Since the fixed powerplay bios has been out before that card, buying it you are almost certain to have it arrive with the fixed bios. And the 3rd party cooling solution means that problems 2, and 3 no longer exist. Less then a month after release.
1. The driver. There were issues with the driver causing flickering in 2D. Those have been resolved, download v8.7 (or newer, 8.7 is current as of right now)
http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html
Supposedly there are still still flicker issues if you use dual monitor and OC your card at the same time. There is no word about this as of right now.
2. If you have an early version, it will have a bios bug (or maybe it is a misconfiguration) preventing power play from working properly. Power play downclocks the GPU while it is idle to save power and make less heat.
You will need to flash the BIOS for this step (and only if you actually have this problem!), if you do not want to, skip it. The ideal way of doing step 3 also requires flashing the bios, the two can be combined into one flash operation (recommended).
MSI fixed powerplay BIOS for 4850:
http://www.techpowerup.com/vga...HD4850.512.080605.html
Sapphire fixed powerplay BIOS (so I hear, I didn't test it) for 4870:
http://www.techpowerup.com/vga...HD4870.512.080609.html
To flash it, I recommend using winflash:
http://www.techpowerup.com/dow.../Winflash_2.0.1.2.html
You should save your current bios somewhere safe
If the computer APPEARS to stop responding while flashing... WALK AWAY for 5 minutes... For me even the num lock and caps lock buttons were not responding (usually only occurs during a hard lock), and yet a minute later it suddenly started moving again and said flash successful... on a second flash it actually showed a progress bar the whole way through.
The correct operation for powerplay (on the 4850) is:
idle: 160mhz core
movie decode: 500mhz core
3d (game): 625mhz core
you can use the CCC to show you the current CPU speed.
3. The temperature. Like the 8800GT and many before it, the earliest units of the 4850 are simply running too hot. Never fear, there are fixes availble.
The best thing to do, is to avoid the problem altogether by buying a card with a larger HSF. Several companies now offer those.
If you already bought a 4850 with the standard HSF, then you should do something about it.
I prefer to take care of it permanently. If you are uncomfortable with BIOS flashing then read down... Since you are already going to flash to solve the power play issue, you might as well change the default fan speeds... It is a simple and harmless operation
First get Radeon Bios Editor:
http://www.techpowerup.com/dow...Bios_Editor_v1.11.html
Next, run it, use it to save the current bios somewhere safe.
Then select the MSI bios (or your own if it has proper power play) and go to "Fan Settings". Set whatever you want, I chose "Set all fan settings to recommended values". You can specify your own custom values...
You can also select the manufacturer code from a drop down list (msi, visiontek, etc)
save the modified bios to your hard drive, and then load it up with winflash from step 2.
There is always the option of putting an after market cooler, that would decrease your temperature so much that you will actually be able to overclock the card!
If you are uncomfortable with BIOS flashing, you can always take care of it in software. completely harmless and non dangerous (the process, if you set the fan speed too low it will overheat and might be damaged), it is limited to while you are in windows with this specific driver version... hopefully soon riva tuner will be updated for the 48xx and work with it, allowing you to set it in a the graphical user interface of riva tuner instead of having to mess about with settings files...
make sure your temps are below 90c load (ideally under 80c load) when you set the fan speed manually. If you set the speed too low and let it get too hot it can damage the chip.
Here is how to soft mod your fan speed:
After that, you need to go into the CCC, and "unlock" overclocking, don't actually overclock anything, just click the unlock button.
This will solve all the problems with the earliest units of the 4850. Later units should not need any of these operations, but for us early adopters, a little work is usually required. Enjoy your new purchase and the best bang for the buck card out there at the moment.
:beer:
EDIT: I added the 4870 bios and modified the text to fit so that this guide is now fitting for both cards.
EDIT2: http://www.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=11871
ASUS Announced a 4850 with 3rd party cooling. It should solve ALL the issues discussed in this thread, if you don't want to mess with it, buy that, or a similar card instead.
As I predicted all those problems are solved with improved models. They actually skipped steps compared to the 8800GT solving method and went straight to the last and ultimate improvement... A 3rd party cooler.
Not available in stores yet, but neatly solves all the issues. Since the fixed powerplay bios has been out before that card, buying it you are almost certain to have it arrive with the fixed bios. And the 3rd party cooling solution means that problems 2, and 3 no longer exist. Less then a month after release.