4870 Crashes games

[Rostock]

I've just bought an XFX 4870 to replace my 8800GTS and now all my games crash a few mins in.

I think it's the psu, but I need to be absolutely certain before I spend any more moneys.

It's a Hiper 580W Type M, and it ran the 8800GTS fine. I think it also meets power requirements, but it's only got one PCIE plug. But I also got a couple of molex-pci adapters with the card.

Do I really need a new PSU to play games?

Cheers

[Aaron_8015]

Well from looking at the label it is a little underpowered (on the +12v) for a 580W unit). It should handle the card though on 30A.... How long have you had the PSU?

Is there another computer you can test the card in?

(If you were close enough to me would try it for you).

[JPMiller]

Did you COMPLETELY remove the nvidia drivers?
did you update the chipset drivers?
Direct X?

[Rostock]

I'm at uni atm (in Glasgow, bit of a way from Bexhill!) where everyone has laptops, although will see if I can find anyone with PCI-E.

I thought I'd got rid of the nvidia drivers with drive sweeper, but will go over that again and make sure it's all completely clean.

The PSU is just over 2 years old. Quick question with that; would it definately run a 4850 ok? Because I recently built my bro a system with a 4850 in, and am not sure what PSU I put in his, but a plan was to give him a bit of money to swap PSUs with him (if his is good enough), because would be cheaper to get a train home, pay him to swap and then come back than buying a new PSU.

So does the lack of a second PCI-E power plug make any difference? And if it does, is there any particular power plug on the graphics card that I should plug the PCI-E plug into, with the 2 converted molex plugs going into the other one? Like does one plug take more power?

[Aaron_8015]

Well that PSU will easily run a 4850, although you would probably need to find out what PSU 'your bro' has before you waste time and money swaping them over....

I would have a look at the temps on the card... Does this happen in all games?

[Rostock]

I've just upgraded to Windows 7 so I didn't bother putting on games until I got the new card. It happened with Far Cry 2 first, and then I installed Bioshock and it happened with that too. Although it did take slightly longer to crash with Bioshock. I'll try more games and see what happens then. I'm just in the process of updating my Directx now.
In Driver Sweeper I select delete Nvidia Chipset, Driver and PhysX, but when I start driver sweeper again after the reboot, the options are still there.

I'll obviously check which PSU I bought my bro (brother=sibling, I'm not ghetto) before I swapped. I'm pretty sure it was a Corsair VX, but not sure if he got the 450w or 550w.

I'll start trying more games and check temps next

[ShyguyXPC]

either one of the VX PSU's will have enough power to run a 4870, let alone the lower 4850. 33 Amps on the 450, 41 on the 550.

[Rostock]

Ok, so I've done a bit of research, and my PSU is basically 450w (because so much power is going to the 3.3v and 5v rails) with 30A on dual rails. Everything but the CPU should run off the +12v1 which has 20A.
I went to PSU Watts and 12V Calculator and it says that I should need 14A whilst gaming.

I've tried updating directx and removing Nvidia drivers, but the computer crashes with Crysis as soon as gameplay starts, and Far Cry 2 after a couple of minutes. Bioshock took a bit longer to crash, and I've not had any problems with Fallout 3, but I've not been on it too long, so not completely sure that it's fine.
Also, ran ATItool and it all seemed fine, with temps not getting to high. Might try installing XP and see if everything runs fine there.

Anyone got any suggestions as to what it could be?

EDIT: Just tried unplugging all extra drives and fans, so it's just the 1 HDD and CPU fan running, and it still crashed. Although this time it went to BSOD

[KarmaKiller]

My first thought is make sure you have the latest drivers for your new GPU. Also make sure you have any/all patches for the games your trying.
The PSU is cutting it close IMO, but should be enough for the card. This seems like a driver conflict of some kind to me.
I bet a fresh install with all new drivers would probably fix it.
Also might check to see if there are any BIOS updates for your motherboard. The 4870 is a PCI 2.0 card, and some older boards need a updated BIOS for them to work properly.
Good luck

[Rostock]

The first thing I did when I put the card in was download the drivers from the ati site. I'll try a BIOS update in the morning, and if everything works with an xp install I'll try re-installing Windows 7