5870 GV-R587UD-1GD Problem

[Penetralia13]

Hi people!i just got my new GV-R587UD-1GD today!i installed it on my pc, updated the driver directly from gigabyte to f7 and then went to game...While playing Bad Company 2 after 20 to 30 minutes game performance would slow down and pc would die having a monitor that shows gray and white vertical lines.Only option i have is to reset computer from chassis.This has happened 3 times by now.On same driver catalyst 10.6 my 4850 used to run just fine.What might cause the problem?Thanks for reading.

[Dark Mantis]

The obvious answer is overheating. I don't know how you cool your installation but see if you can crank up the fans a bit or add an extra one. The only other thing is that the PSU might be finding it a bit too power draining and overheating after a while. List alkl your components and we will have a better idea instead of guessing in the dark.

[Penetralia13]

hi thanks for the fast reply!overheating is out of the question gfx runs @ 55 celcius under full load!on the other hand i have a 500W PSU which is the minimum recommended for 5870 series.on my pc i just have a cd rom and there is no overclock.asus pk-vm, e6750 cpu and 4gb ram @ 667 mhz

[Dark Mantis]

What is the make and model of PSU and how old is it?

[Penetralia13]

Its just a week old!i bought it previous week, its an Evolve Pulse 500W link here:
http://www.alza.sk/evolve-pulse-500w-cerny-d160540.htm

[Dark Mantis]

I haven't heard of the make but it seems a fairly cheap model. I would have purchased something of better quality and power. Maybe a Corsair TX650 or such like. As you say it is the minimum recommended and therfore doesn't allow for any headroom powerwise.

[Penetralia13]

My thoughts were exactly the same...i ll give the card to a friend who has a 600W PSU to test the card out.Thanks for your time

[Dark Mantis]

No problem. Please come back and let us know how it went and if you still have any problem we can work on it.

[absic]

I haven't heard of the make but it seems a fairly cheap model. I would have purchased something of better quality and power. Maybe a Corsair TX650 or such like. As you say it is the minimum recommended and therfore doesn't allow for any headroom powerwise.

Hi,
Just to reinforce what Dark Mantis has said and also what you are suspecting. Although a Power supply is rated at 500W or 550W the reality is that in many cases, especially at the lower end of the price scale, these PSU's do not deliver adequate power over a sustained period. The shown rating is normally the maximum that these units produce and, in normal use they probably supply around 50W less. But it is not only the Wattage that is an issue, it is also the Amperage and this really needs to be stable and consistent which it tends not to be with lower end PSU's.

Good luck and as Dark Mantis says, let us know how you get on as it will help other users who are faced with the same thing.

[Penetralia13]

Well i changed my PSU to a 550W and allowed me to game 1 hour straight with no problems so it seems it really was a PSU issue.What i found weird is that the game does not run as smooth as when i m using my 4850 something that i cant explain.When using 5870 game pauses from time to time something that does not happen with 4850.Any explanation for that?

[Dark Mantis]

Well I am happy that we were right about the PSU and that the original problem is fixed. Personally I think you could have gone for a slightly higher output rating to give you a bit more headroom for upgrades, loss of power over time, etc.
As for the gaming pauses it is always possible that these are also down to the PSU not outputting enough power or your optical drive not keeping up with the rest of the computer. If you list all your hardware we wopuld have a better idea.

[Penetralia13]

Hi again and thanks for the reply!Game is installed fully on hard drive there is no optical disc associated since its a Steam installed game.And i did not buy that PSU i just borrowed it from a friend to test if it was a power issue i own back to my flat a very nice rig. Q9550 @ 3.8 Ghz and a Tagan 800W power supply but unfortunately i ll be going to my flat in a month (i m back home for vacation i study abroad) so i had to do something to test the functionality of the card.

[Dark Mantis]

Thanks for the background information, it all helps to make sense of the situation. Good power supply the Tagan 800. Back to the game stuttering if it's all installed on the hdd maybe it's when it pulling data from that then especially if it's an older drive.