I have a P35-DS3, 8GB of Corsair 1066, and a Sapphire Radeon HD3870 DDR3 running on a Seasonic SS-500HT power supply.
I bought the graphics card new, however it was faulty, it would randomly make a white screen with stripes then immediately drop out of whatever game or 3D app i was running. First i thought it was the power supply so i did not RMA the card. Then i bought a new power supply (i used to have a 430W Spire and it had too few amps on +12v), but the symptoms persisted. I voltmodded the card to 2.1v memory from 1.8v, then later on upgraded the stock cooling to an Accelero S1 because the card ran very hot. The voltmods allowed me to do some overclocking and so i did, the card did not complain. With the Accelero it got to 50-55C at most and it didn't crash anymore.
The card worked for about an year, then a few months ago it started showing that white screen and crashing at the Welcome screen of Vista 64, it would only enter Windows on the second boot. At the same time i noticed that when it did get into Windows, everything ran very very slow. Looking at GPU-Z showed that i was running at PCI-E x1. Oh crap... Now, i had the exact same PCI-E x1 thing before my old 8600GT died so i thought that was the end for my poor Sapphire. I tried EVERYTHING - including the "usual" PCI-E frequency settings, reverting everything to stock, updating motherboard BIOS, reverting to old version then updating again, reflashing the stock BIOS of the card instead of the modified overclocked one, removing and reseating the card, NOTHING HELPED. In x1 it was so slow that even Windows animations were lagging. I gave up on it and started saving money for a 5870 and possibly a new mobo.
Yesterday i had an ASRock motherboard in for repair. I reflowed the solder on the nForce 630a chipset, replaced all capacitors in the CPU and RAM area, patched up a couple pinched traces near the CPU, and hey presto it powered up. I thought i'd try my 3870 in it, and see whether it works there. I only had Windows Server 2003 on hand so it could be that, but short version - it wouldn't even install the drivers for the HD3870. I was pretty sure the card is toast.
Then i put the card back into my computer. It booted up first time and everything was smooth. Curious, i fired GPU-Z up and... PCI-E x16 @ x16. I loaded up my overclock settings and ran 3DMark. Passed with flying colors and the scores are back where they used to be. I'm stumped.
Games run like clockwork once again, animations don't lag, no more white screen crash, i can't believe it. But i wonder whether this will last - i'm honestly afraid to turn off my computer now. I think i'll be going for an extended gaming session tonight, at least enjoy it while it still works.
Anyway, i started this topic to ask you about your experience with this x1 bug. Any insight is welcome.
I bought the graphics card new, however it was faulty, it would randomly make a white screen with stripes then immediately drop out of whatever game or 3D app i was running. First i thought it was the power supply so i did not RMA the card. Then i bought a new power supply (i used to have a 430W Spire and it had too few amps on +12v), but the symptoms persisted. I voltmodded the card to 2.1v memory from 1.8v, then later on upgraded the stock cooling to an Accelero S1 because the card ran very hot. The voltmods allowed me to do some overclocking and so i did, the card did not complain. With the Accelero it got to 50-55C at most and it didn't crash anymore.
The card worked for about an year, then a few months ago it started showing that white screen and crashing at the Welcome screen of Vista 64, it would only enter Windows on the second boot. At the same time i noticed that when it did get into Windows, everything ran very very slow. Looking at GPU-Z showed that i was running at PCI-E x1. Oh crap... Now, i had the exact same PCI-E x1 thing before my old 8600GT died so i thought that was the end for my poor Sapphire. I tried EVERYTHING - including the "usual" PCI-E frequency settings, reverting everything to stock, updating motherboard BIOS, reverting to old version then updating again, reflashing the stock BIOS of the card instead of the modified overclocked one, removing and reseating the card, NOTHING HELPED. In x1 it was so slow that even Windows animations were lagging. I gave up on it and started saving money for a 5870 and possibly a new mobo.
Yesterday i had an ASRock motherboard in for repair. I reflowed the solder on the nForce 630a chipset, replaced all capacitors in the CPU and RAM area, patched up a couple pinched traces near the CPU, and hey presto it powered up. I thought i'd try my 3870 in it, and see whether it works there. I only had Windows Server 2003 on hand so it could be that, but short version - it wouldn't even install the drivers for the HD3870. I was pretty sure the card is toast.
Then i put the card back into my computer. It booted up first time and everything was smooth. Curious, i fired GPU-Z up and... PCI-E x16 @ x16. I loaded up my overclock settings and ran 3DMark. Passed with flying colors and the scores are back where they used to be. I'm stumped.
Games run like clockwork once again, animations don't lag, no more white screen crash, i can't believe it. But i wonder whether this will last - i'm honestly afraid to turn off my computer now. I think i'll be going for an extended gaming session tonight, at least enjoy it while it still works.
Anyway, i started this topic to ask you about your experience with this x1 bug. Any insight is welcome.
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