Please help with Sapphire HD4870X2

[HolyNumber2]

First of all new to this forum, and hoping someone can be of assistance. I just dropped $3000 on a new tower:
Q9550 Core 2 Quad Processor 2.83 GHZ
4gigs Ram
Sapphire HD 4870X2 2GB DDR5 video card
300gb velociraptor HD
1 Terabite Seagate second HD
DX48BT2 Intel Motherboard

When I got it back from being built it ran fine. Crysis played at 1280X1024 on very high settings. (thats as high as my monitor can handle). A week or 2 later I saw 8.9 drivers so I grabbed them, as the release date was after my build. Every since, Crysis crashes on game exit, Neverwinter nights crashes on any graphics adjustment whatsoever..... as soon as I click apply to save changes I get a black screen (game music still playing in background) then I get colored waves for a bit then the vid card sounds like it tries to reset itself then back to the black screen and music. Eventually after a minute or 2 the computer reboots. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling 8.7, 8.8, and 8.9 drivers, running ATI uninstall between each one. I have updated to the lates bios and chipset drivers, I have done a fresh windows restore, and tried installing off the video driver disk (FAIL) ATI driver does not install but everything else does. I am at a loss!! Can anyone help before I take a sludge hammer to this piece of crap?

Should add, I am running Windows Vista 32.

 

[vaio-fx]

This happened to my mate after he upgraded his drivers on his 4870X2. He just did a format and reinstall of windows and it worked fine. But your saying you already did that, so thats strange.

 

[HolyNumber2]

Yup, first thing I did after the restore was try the driver disk (rather than updated drivers from the site) but can't even successfully install off the disk. Anyone have any reason why that would be? Do I need to have Dirext X installed prior to loading the vid card drivers or anything stupid like that? It manages to install all catalyst drivers, hydrovision etc, but the ati driver fails everytime. Had success installing web drivers if I installed them as separate downloads (driver first then catalyst).

 

[vaio-fx]

You don't need to install directX as it come with Vista. I can't see why the drivers are not installing though, have you tried installing them manually through device manager? As for the catalyst control center I'm afraid i'm not too familiar with it, I haven't owned a radeon since my old Radeon 9550.

 

[worshipme]

First off, you bought a HD 4870 X2 for 1280x1024??!!!!

I suggest you uninstall CCC and all the ATi drivers. Then reboot in safe mode, and run Driver Cleaner (tick "ATi-display") Then reboot and install the latest drivers.

 

[HolyNumber2]

Worship Me..... it was a temporary issue (1280X1024) baby steps.... was hard enough to convince the wife to let me spend $3000 on the tower alone.... I figured the monitor I can upgrade anytime....

Second, I saw your suggested post on another forum, prior to you telling me here just now and already copied and pasted and emailed it home to try when I get off work tonight. Thanks again for coming to the rescue again. Any idea how I should try to install the latest drivers again, since the catalyst suite fails me every time????

 

[worshipme]

Any idea how I should try to install the latest drivers again, since the catalyst suite fails me every time????

Are you installing CCC with the driver? If yes, I suggest you download just the driver after having uninstalled CCC of course.

You can use Rivatuner for fan control, overclocking etc.

 

[HolyNumber2]

I'll give it a go. I also saw on the AMD support site I should be installing DAO as well. I never knew that was part of the ATI drivers, so also not sure what affect this might have been having. I used Driver Genius the last time, to install my ATI driver and that's all it installed was the driver and not the CCC, and I did seem to have better luck (with Crysis....playing and exiting) but still crashed whenever I adjust even the smallest graphics change in Never Winter Nights 2.

that should have been UN-install Dao.

Well here's an update. I tried several attempts to uninstall using driver sweeper to no avail. I still could not update new or old drivers. I did YET ANOTHER full windows restore, and updates, and grabbed latest motherboard updates, and tried 8.9 drivers first (just the driver not all the CCC. installed 3D Mark and ran a test. *CRASH* So I uninstalled and rebooted in safe mode, ran driver sweeper cleaned it all up, rebooted again and tried 8.7 drivers *failure* after successful install (no error messages) the video cards in the device manager would not show installed. Uninstalled drivers, ran driver sweeper again in safe mode, and grabbed the 8.9 drivers from sapphire's site rather than AMD's site. Gave that a go, ran 3d Mark..... *crash*. Uninstalled, ran driver sweeper again in safe mode, tried the 8.8 drivers. Crashed on install to black screen. I waited a while in case it was a screen flicker but no recover. Rebooted and to my amazement, everything installed, CCC and all. No errors. Ran 3d Mark and *crash*. I give up. I am going back to memory express tomorrow and giving them three choices. They replace the card, fix it while I'm there, or they give me a full refund and I'll go buy a Mac!

 

[HolyNumber2]

HMMMMM. Turns out it wasn't a driver issue afterall. Memory Express is looking at it now and her figures it's a motherboard issue. They are awaiting a replacement board, and we'll see from there.

 

[HolyNumber2]

All is better now, NEW Motherboard, and New Video Card. 8.8 Drivers.