Not living up to it's expectations

**Phoenix.** · 09-25-2009 09:09 AM

Thing is, I bought this comp 2 months back and honestly I don't feel like it's doing what was expected to do for the money I bought it.

Problems are:
-DirectX errors randomly pop up when I play games and the game crashes, basically DirectX stops working
-Comparing to my friends I have a better comp yet they get 500+ fps in COD2 (using this as an example ) but I get 250 and nothing more, used to get 500+ for 2 weeks but then my comp decided,˝ah, 250 should be enough˝
-Some games just crash, no errors pop up, it just crashes like it wasn't opened in the first place
-Another example, crysis stopped working from some level on
-I've heard that 60 degrees C is too much for a graphics cards not OCed. is that normal, because that's what i'm getting?

Specs:Processor:
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8500 @ 3.16GHz (2 CPUs), ~3.2GHz
Memory: 4096MB RAM
Hard Drive: 640 GB
Video Card: ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series (HD 4870, DDR5)
Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit
Motherboard: Asus P5Q Pro

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

**Acreo Aeneas** · 09-25-2009 10:55 AM

Why did the vendor include 32-bit Vista instead of 64-bit? Doesn't make sense when you have 4 GBs of RAM.

Firstly, I'd update your graphics drivers to latest.

Next, since you have a ASUS P5Q series board...if you have the "EPU Engine" app installed (expand your system tray and you should see it). Double-click and open it. Then click on "Turbo Mode" and calibrate. That should ramp up your hardware a bit in more challenging games.

What monitor size and resolution are you playing compared to him? If you're on 1920 x 1200 and he's on 1024 x 768, obviously he's going to hit 500 fps and you won't even come near that number.

Lastly, 250 fps is something few of us can achieve in any game. Past 60 fps, it really doesn't matter if you can get 5 million fps or not since anything past 60 probably won't even matter to your eyes or perception.

**Phoenix.** · 09-26-2009 01:40 PM

I don't have the EPU Engine installed, with Win 7 it had no point in using the CD I got with the board. Well I tried just in case but it didn't change anything.

No, I'm using 1280x1024, and my friend is using the same. Yea I know, but having that much FPS isn't my goal, I'm just curious if there's something wrong with my computer since I have a better one. That's kinda a obvious sign or something in that direction.

And at times it really makes me angry when I'm enjoying a game and it closes/crashes without any error. Which makes fixing things harder.

**FL1Pmode** · 09-26-2009 02:43 PM

What power supply are you using? And are you sure your pc is getting enough cooling?

**Buckets** · 09-27-2009 12:07 AM

Does your card run at 60 degrees loaded or on idle? that would be a great temperature on load and a somewhat questionable temp on idle. Also, as stated above, what kind of PSU do you have?

**Zippy-2-War** · 09-27-2009 06:08 AM

Game crash only or system (PC) crash?

If game only, then it sounds like there maybe a GPU driver conflict - as Acreo mentioned. Win 7 may have auto-updated your GPU drivers and messed things up, or you were shipped drivers that are older and or have a conflict. Uninstall your current drivers (see the ATI forums or guru3d forums for good uninstall directions, tips and discussions) then install the newest recommended ATI drivers. If the DirectX conflict still occurs with the new drivers then I'd try reinstalling DirectX. See if that helps any.

As far as temps on the GPU, see the links above for more on what that card is running at. The 2x 4850 I had last year ran hot as well, but ATI had a high temp range as normal for that card. The stock fan setting was only around 15%-30% at idle, so I used the fan controller in Rivatuner to adjust the fan speeds and it cooled down quite a bit - the sound of the little stock fans made more noise at higher speeds, but it was worth the cooler temps.

Posting you're power supply wouldn't hurt, as the specs on your GPU require "A 500 Watt or greater power supply with two 75W 6-pin PCI Express power connectors...". Does your PC freeze up right after you load a game or heavy programs? If not then I doubt it's PSU related, but you never no. The main thing is to check the power of the 12v rail(s) on your PSU. For example, mine has one +12V rail rated @70A. Some Power supply units have multi 12v rails like this: +12V1@18A,+12V2@18A,+12@18A. So if you can open up your case and check the label on the power supply you should be able to see it's specs.

A good write up about the 4870 can be found here. They test Crysis and COD 4 - which has more details than COD 2, but you can see how the 4870 compares to other cards. Also, their tests are at higher resolutions, and you have a different CPU and RAM, so your FPS may differ. Keep in mind that Crysis has been known to crash many of the top hardware machines out there, so you're not alone there...

Is your friend's machine stock or overclocked? Just curious.

Try the drivers tips I mentioned above and see if there's any change.

**ChiefBoatsRet** · 09-28-2009 09:10 PM

What is the Watts of your power supply unit?

**Phoenix.** · 09-29-2009 02:04 PM

As far as the cooling goes, there shouldn't be a problem really there, I mean why would it overheat from the start anyway (OK, not the best of reasons lol). But I will check it.

The PSU is a 650W one. From the original scheme of this computer I only changed the PSU just in case if I'll put a CrossFire connection with my 4870 later.

Funny thing is,... it's at 60 degrees all the time, idle and running. Well scratch that now It's a constant of 50 degrees.

No my friend didn't overclock his computer, I know because we said that we'll do that once we really needed to. And the crashes happen only when playing games, I just have to either press enter (COD2 reports a DirectX error) or I don't actually do anything (BF2142 just closes)

I'll try all about the software that you mentioned there Zippy this weekend.
One more thing, how can you really know if you need more cooling on your hardware, I mean, the fan is really quiet that's a fact, but everything's running fine except for those errors. And being unable to really get what I was expected

As said, will be more into all of this over the weekends.

**Acreo Aeneas** · 09-29-2009 04:18 PM

Is that 50 F or 50 C?

**Phoenix.** · 09-29-2009 04:42 PM

50 c

**FL1Pmode** · 09-29-2009 07:38 PM

That is too much for a non-overclocked pc. My quad-core, gtx 275 pc doesn't reach 40 C under load (during games such as GTA IV, Crysis).

You may need to look into getting better cooling for that computer.

**Dick Blonov** · 09-29-2009 10:25 PM

Originally Posted by Phoenix.

Thing is, I bought this comp 2 months back and honestly I don't feel like it's doing what was expected to do for the money I bought it.

Problems are:
-DirectX errors randomly pop up when I play games and the game crashes, basically DirectX stops working

Here's my duh! question. Do you have the latest Direct-X ?

DB

**Delta Five Nine** · 09-29-2009 11:22 PM

From everything I've read, 50c is FINE for a video card. You wont really start to have problems until 90c+. It's could be lower idle but so long as it's not idling at 60c+ I would think it's fine.

Hell, the lowest I ever see my GTX 260 or my 8800 GTS when I had it is 45c, and I've never had any problems with either. My brother is even using my 8800 GTS in his computer now.

**Phoenix.** · 10-04-2009 04:35 AM

The lowest I've seen it go is 49 C, and the highest 56 C while playing GTA IV and activity 60%. Will open up the case and see what's going on inside today.

Another question, if I just download and install the newest driver, is the effect that same as when deleting the older driver and installing the new one.

**Buckets** · 10-04-2009 10:55 AM

Your video card temps are fine. ATI cards tend to run a bit warmer than Nvidia's GTX 2XX cards. I would recommend uninstalling the old driver before installing the new one but it does pretty much uninstall the old one before ptting the new one on.

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