Clock trouble on HD3870 Toxic

Spaztic_Reaper · May 10, 2008, 04:28 PM

Hey, I just recently built a new system and it's been working fine until today. I had just installed and started up a game of Supreme Commander and after I had a certain upgrade finished on my commander the screen froze then so did everything else so i had to hit the reset button. When it booted up I ran the Sims 2 and encountered the same problem almost immediately into the game. I decided then I'd reset my clocks back to 800/1152, I'd used CCC to auto OC it and it had set them at 885 and 1357. But after resetting the clocks I noticed that it said my current clocks were set to 300/1152. Well the 1152 is right, but that 300 is certainly scaring me, I certainly can't afford to buy another card. Any ideas for a fix?

Here are my specs:
AMD Phenom 9850 Black edition Quad core at 2.5ghz
4GB G.Skill ram
Corsair TX 750w PSU
Sapphire HD3870 Toxic Edition

Edit:
Ok, I had CCC test custom clocks with both clocks set to their original settings of 800/1152, while testing the current clock display says that my clocks are indeed at 800/1152, but after the test is finished the gpu clock goes back to 300, but the test for 800/1152 passes everytime.

**kris23** · May 10, 2008, 04:40 PM

you dont know about 2D/3D clocks?

those are 2D clocks your rated clocks are 3D clocks, used only during the use of 3D apps such as games. its to save power and increase card life.

Spaztic_Reaper · May 10, 2008, 04:47 PM

oh, so the current clock setting will change once i start up a 3d game? Ok, well any idea on why my system may be freezing up then?

BTW, thanks alot for the suggestions on parts kris, before this little problem I've loved this new rig, huge improvement to previous system.

**kris23** · May 10, 2008, 05:06 PM

is the freezing unique to Supreme Commander? or does it happen out of nowhere?

its hard to say what it is, usually bad registry entries, bad hard disk sectors or conflicting software of another sort.

it could also mean the memory is going bad, use Stress Prime or Orthos to test the memory, usually youll need to run two instances to consume all the memory.

what are your hard drives?

Spaztic_Reaper · May 10, 2008, 05:16 PM

It happens if I run The Sims 2 also, and I just tried starting rivatuner and had to reboot because everything froze up.
The card is running fine as far as I can tell, idle temp is between 39-43, stock clock settings.

I have two HDDs:
Seagate Barracuda 250GB, which is what I now store everything on, running Vista Ultimate x64 on it.
the other is:
Western Digital 180GB, it's an IDE drive, it's the primary HDD from my last system, running XP SP2, but right now I can't boot to it cause it wants me to authorize windows and I no longer have the key for it.

**kris23** · May 10, 2008, 05:18 PM

i suggest checking your memory, checking your registry and making sure your hard drive is running properly,

is this the Seagate ES.2 250gb I recommended?

i think seagate has a tool called SeaTools which tests the drive

Spaztic_Reaper · May 10, 2008, 05:21 PM

Yeah it's the drive you recommended, ok I'll try those tests, and check my registry and such. I'll post again if I find anything, thx for the advice
Edit: I tried Sea Tools, but it gets an error everytime and when i tell it to continue anyway it just sits there scanning for my drive, but does nothing else.

**kris23** · May 10, 2008, 05:48 PM

the tests may take awhile....

it takes time to test a system... usually i set aside a weekend just for it.

that error isnt a fail is it? im not sure as i never had to use it

Spaztic_Reaper · May 10, 2008, 06:01 PM

It's an 'Unhandled Exception' error, gives me the option to continue or quit, if I continue it just sits there scanning for a seagate drive.

Spaztic_Reaper · May 10, 2008, 09:14 PM

Well, I downloaded ccleaner and had it clean up the registry, I think it had about 44 issues, all fixed now. I ran Orthos for about 3 and a half hours, came up with zero errors, but I'm running it again now. Still haven't got the Sea Tools to work.
But if I don't find any RAM, HDD, or registry errors, what else could be the problem?

**kris23** · May 10, 2008, 09:20 PM

you need to run TWO instances of orthos and stress BOTH the CPU and RAM, thats the only way to really do it

Spaztic_Reaper · May 10, 2008, 09:45 PM

Ok, but if I don't get any errors, what else could be the problem?

**kris23** · May 10, 2008, 09:52 PM

i really dont know, it could be the BIOS. but thats rare

Spaztic_Reaper · May 11, 2008, 07:01 PM

Well, the mem tests came up with no errors, never did get sea tools to work, but today everything is running fine. I can only assume it was just a problem with my registry because that's the only thing I changed.

Fahim · May 13, 2008, 03:17 AM

I know the PSU you have is strong enough but still could you please check the exact amount of voltage you are getting by checking from your motherboard bios?? I had the same kind of problem for two days before my PSU died on me. There shouldn't be too much difference between actual voltage and the specified voltage.

Spaztic_Reaper · May 13, 2008, 09:30 PM

I checked the voltage, and everything is fine. I'm just going to assume that possibly since supreme commander hadn't been updated when the problem occured that something in the registry got messed up, which would've been fixed when I used ccleaner to scan it. Everything's been running fine now, all my games run great w/o a single problem.

**kris23** · May 13, 2008, 10:50 PM

so the registry is fine now huh?

Spaztic_Reaper · May 13, 2008, 11:31 PM

It's as fixed as ccleaner can get it, and since everything is running fine, that's good enough for me