video output troubles.

[MortifiedocAlot]

I can't say that I do, but I've deleted my old CCC and I still have visual drivers up and with that I got Bad Company 2 to run for a few hours with no issue since then.

If it crashes again I'll uninstall, search for anything ATI/AMD related and delete them, then I'll use driver sweeper.

[Bobbias]

I you have a windows CD, you can always reinstall windows without formatting the drive... Some programs wont work properly because their registry info will be gone, but you could reinstall the right drivers and be sure there's nothing conflicting with them, or missing. And you'd keep all your games/files/etc.

[Spectere]

I'd be wary of tools like Driver Sweeper.  Anything that pokes around the registry and Windows directory can easily cause you a world of problems.  If it wipes out the wrong thing, you could wind up getting into a worse situation.

[MortifiedocAlot]

Will do. I'm also getting some minor graphical glitches in BC2. I'm assuming BC2 is more demanding then most the games I currently own, and I can run that for hours without problem. Maybe I'll try Arkham Asylum?

[Spectere]

Yeah, give that a shot.  Throw everything you can at it.  Your goal should be to make it crash at this point.

Minor graphical glitches could be game bugs.  I don't recall seeing any in BC2, but I don't play it nearly as often as you do.

[MortifiedocAlot]

Was getting some graphical issues in MNC from particle effects (smoke would show up black, some fire effects where goofy). I've had similar problems with BC2 when I alt tab the game, and MNC did just update and it was only on the new map so who knows.

[Spectere]

Usually, smoke or fire not appearing properly is all engine-related and can sometimes be resolved by upgrading your drivers (which release are you on now?).

The main things that you'll want to be looking for are corruption on textures and static or garbage on the screen.  Sometimes, faulty hardware can cause surfaces to extend too far or something crazy like that, but that can also be an issue with the game (GTA4 for PC, for example, has tons and tons of graphical glitches that occur on both NVIDIA and ATI cards).

[MortifiedocAlot]

After a while and a lot of stability during fairly demanding games, I crashed again. Was in the middle of Killing Floor with music and I got the typical everything frozen with sound glitching. Should I go with with driver sweeper and reinstalling from the disc then updating? Should I look for the newest ones online and install from there?

Ran the steam check on my drivers, and it updated them. I'm going to be semi sad and disappointed in myself if that works.

[Spectere]

The Steam utility just downloads the latest version from AMD/NVIDIA's site, so if you've already tried that, odds are you're still not quite out of the woods.

[MortifiedocAlot]

Thing is, I'm unsure about the drivers being right last time, but I've yet to have a problem (I haven't been running for a while since power outages, but I've yet to get any freezing since my last driver update. Still, my last time without freezing took about a week or so without turning my PC off).

The Witcher 2 should unlock soon, so I'll stress test with that. I just hope I can figure all this out ASAP.

[Spectere]

Ah, gotcha.

Well, make sure to report what happens.  Good luck!

[MortifiedocAlot]

Just got another one randomly. I am CoreTemp when they told me not to use third party temperature software, but it just monitors my CPU temp so I really doubt that has anything to do with this.

Welp, I'm stumped again. I guess it's card damage, and it seems XFX will not refund this.

Just got anothere freeze, either these are getting more frequent or I've just been unlucky.

Also evidently steam said it does not recognize my card (started L4D2 and it recognized it was from the 5800 series, but I cannot find that screen again), despite me running the steam driver update. Would there be a reason for that? I'm lost again, going to ask XFX.

[Spectere]

All of those temperature monitoring programs have to install high privilege drivers in order to read the temperature sensors on the motherboard/CPU, so you could potentially have issues while running them.  Mind you, the odds of having issues are low, but it's still entirely possible.

I can't see any reason for Steam not being able to recognize the card.  I believe it pulls that information from the installed driver.  The only thing that I can think of is that L4D2 doesn't have a profile available for the 5800 series.  That series came out two months before L4D2, so that is entirely possible.  I know that if you start standard HL2 (it might be different now since I think they upgraded the engine to Source 2007) it would always give recommended settings that were far below what the card can handle.

[MortifiedocAlot]

Last crash happened when I wasn't even running coretemp, also I believe that's what steam was trying to say, and I'd say it was a non issue if L4D2 didn't crash the last two times I've played it.

Also I'm like 99% sure the freezes only happen when I am actually using my PC. I leave it on constantly and I don't believe that I've ever seen it frozen when I get back. Unless it unfreezes, which I somehow doubt.

I'm getting random things going unresponsive now. Maybe my RAM got damaged, I'm unsure why I've had so many programs go unresponsive (my downloads folder did, no clue WHY).

and steam goes unresponsive CONSTANTLY. It's a pain.

Well, looks like XFX just gave me the trouble shooting bullshit again, so I'm trying that. Going to try and run memtest from my USB drive if I can figure that out, and I'm installing the latest version of PhysX.

Also I'm unsure how to boot from my USB with memtest, but I've yet to try it.

Hell, I'll post the entire thing they sent me, as I'm a little confused by it (it talks about memory voltage, but then mentions my CPU and I'm too tired to get it all right now. Plus last time I changed my RAM voltage that didn't help).

Hello Matthew, Try this card in another computer if it is possible. If you can replicate the problem in another computer with this card then it should isolate the issue to the card. The most important thing to check is your system memory voltage. Misconfigured or defective memory is the most common cause of this type of issue. If you are overclocking your CPU or system memory then revert back to the default frequencies for those devices through these tests. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT NOT TO OVERCLOCK ANY COMPONENTS DURING THIS TEST. If you are using 1066MHz or 1333 MHz 1.5V memory then try increasing the memory voltage to 1.6V and leaving the memory at stock speeds. AMD CPUs and Intel Core i3, i5, i7 CPUs are all rated for a maximum of 1333MHz memory. If you are using memory rated for higher then this then return the memory frequency to 1333MHz at 1.6V. You could be overtaxing the memory controller in the CPU, not actually running at a frequency where the memory is unstable. Some DDR2 memory will require 2.1V or higher to run stable but may auto-configure to 1.8-1.9V by default. Make sure that your memory is configured properly. This is a common cause of instability that can cause this problem. Please get us the exact model memory that you are using and the voltage setting that you have set in your motherboard

[MortifiedocAlot]

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2247#comic

RELEVANT.