Graphics Card Issues

did u post here after your dialup connect post?....3850 should have no issues with this game...btw..u can adjust setting in vpu recover as well.....but sounds like you have other issues. Please try to post more info of pc......ots of guys here would probably help if you provide a bit more info

maby your ram cant handel all the procceses i had an issue with it and i had simmilar problems(the sudden restrting of pc ) and in the end it was just the thing that my ram fired and i had to reinstall my windows :\

R33, I'm also running a 3850HD on my machine, with a 2.2 Athlon 64 and 2 gigs of DDR. Freelancer runs like a dream on my machine @ 1680x1050 with zero problems, so I suspect your card could be faulty. I do hope you still have your warranty on the card and the warranty information handy from the company and/or vendor you bought it from/through.

Another thing to look at is your video card drivers and possibly your Direct X drivers as well. Run dxdiag at the RUN option off your START button in Windows to run the Direct X diagnostics and information utility. Try using either older or if necessary, newer Catalyst drivers and see if that solves your issue as well.

Just for argument's sake, list your system specs as best you can so perhaps we can all here help isolate the real issue at hand, as this could be a hardware issue that does not exactly mean your video card is malfunctioning. There could be hardware conflicts causing your problem and it could be a motherboard issue. The lack of sufficent power off a PSU rail as you mentioned could be a issue as well and something to research into too.

So far you've got roughly 4 differnet aspects of the computer to scrutinize to see which one is causing your problem until you can supply us with further information:

1. hardware (card itself or other components malfunctioning)
2. software (drivers, Direct X, interfering secondary software)
3. sufficent power, lack of necessary voltage from PSU rail
4. heat output, disspation and hardware cooling

Anyway, try this and the above solutions, give us some more info and get back to us, good luck!

Haha, you do have the same card as me R33! Awesome card indeed. Yes, definitely go with the latest drivers from Sapphire first and yes, they do have older versions of the drivers available on the site. Try the newest first and if that don't work, roll back to older drivers and see if you can find some that may fix the problem.

Personally, I'm using a Aspire 500watt PSU and have been for years with my socket 754 Athlon 64 processor setup and all the time I've had my Sapphire I've never had any power issues. However... You are running a 3.0ghz P4, I can only fathom how much power it sucks down and heat that thing pumps out, even if it is a Northwood core and ESPECIALLY if it's a Prescott core. The 3850HD is kinda piggish on power and heat itself to boot...

Here's a link for a system component power supply calculator, this will roughly tell you how much power your system currently is sucking down and so you can figure out exactly how much you need.

http://www.journeysystems.com/?power_supply_calculator

So far from what I've calculated and I'm guessing your exact specs aside from what you've posted, you're pulling surprisingly only 309 watts, well within range of the PSU. So perhaps you're just not getting enough power off a PSU rail to your 3850HD, or perhaps you need to check your temps inside your case at full load during the game to see if you're approaching high thresholds of heat for the video card causing the errors you're getting.

Yes there is a program to display your temps and other PC info, it's called Lavalys Everest ( free edition 2.0 ) which can be found at majorgeeks website.

I personally use the Ultimate Edition.

This is an extract from my log files

--------[ Sensor ]------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sensor Properties:
Sensor Type Winbond W83627DHG (ISA A10h)
GPU Sensor Type Analog Devices ADT7473 (NV-I2C 2Eh)
Chassis Intrusion Detected Yes

Temperatures:
Motherboard 33 °C (91 °F)
CPU 30 °C (86 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #1 29 °C (84 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #2 23 °C (73 °F)
Aux 36 °C (97 °F)
GPU 48 °C (118 °F)
GPU Memory 40 °C (104 °F)
GPU Ambient 36 °C (97 °F)
Hitachi HDT725025VLA380 35 °C (95 °F)
WDC WD5000AAKS-00A7B0 34 °C (93 °F)

Cooling Fans:
CPU 1061 RPM
Chassis 1507 RPM
GPU 2039 RPM (30%)

Voltage Values:
CPU Core 1.29 V
Aux 3.73 V
+3.3 V 3.18 V
+5 V 5.35 V
+12 V 9.36 V
-12 V -4.30 V
+5 V Standby 4.82 V
VBAT Battery 3.10 V
GPU Vcc 3.21 V

Quote

Originally posted by r33
it only came out to 233 watts!!! but you have the exact card eh? your using the newest drivers, x32 im assuming? crap i dont have money for a new psu. Prescott is what my cpu turns out to be.
Any tips/programs that check internal temp and/or change what psu rail its using
?

I don't think it's your PSU if you're only pulling 233 watts, you're well below it's max wattage, however you might want to make sure you check the rail voltage your video card is getting. Make sure there is NOTHING else connected to a "rail's connectors" i.e. power cable connector line coming straight off the PSU itself except for your video card. That way it's getting the full wattage/voltage from the PSU it can recieve from a "rail". Unless you're running a real low-end, no-name PSU that doesn't even supply the rated wattage it's listed as having you should still be within decent thresholds I think, UNLESS you're pulling alot more under load while playing games like Freelancer. This is entirely possibly as I know Intel and AMD processors are rated differently with their TDP ratings.(Thermal Design Power, or also called Thermal Dissipation Power) AMD seems to rate worse case, i.e. maximum, while Intel seems to be average, i.e. normal theoretical useage. While that's the ratings for heat output, the voltage the processor's pulling at the same time as the card could also be a problem. Just curious, but you aren't overclocking anything are you, like the processor or the video card?

Definately try phileditin's suggestion and try to measure exactly what you're pulling while under load wattage wise and check your temps while playing Freelancer and post a log file of it.

run a test on your motherboard memory ...i had a very similar problem before with ati graphics card.....motherboard memory was beginning to fail and caused major probs...adding a fan is a good idea as well, especially if you can blow extra air across the vid card

Your problem is really sounding familiar to me....btw...only 1 chip on 1 of my memory sticks was going bad...but caused same issue.....hope it helps

well...downloading and running a memory test is free. ......second part of answer..no. memory test should only take about 10 mins for basic scan if I read your specs correctly. if it passes the basic test on memtst86 free or microsofts memory tester....then memory is probably not the issue.

Do you know motherboard manufacture....or is it a Dell or somesuch pc?

better thats its not a dell or some such.....
check this for more info http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp
if even 1 module of the memory doesn't pass....you are likely to start having issues with windows crashes and ie explorer crashes as well as other programs

Also...try downloading and running cpuid here...might just tell you motherboard model http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

Vista version wont work on your pc....all the programs I know of you have to be able to boot from floppy or cd....these type diagnostics have to be run before windows installs
Do you have access to a pc that you can burn a cd rom or a floppy from?