I was using an HD 3850 before and everything was fine, but I am trying to upgrade to an hd7870, and I have installed everything properly, but for some reason every time I try to play game the screen freezes and I have to shut down the pc. Some people have suggested that I need to adjust some bios settings... Any help would be great!! (Specs: 500w PSU antec ea-500d Intel core 2 extreme q6850 3gb ddr2 ram Old GPU : ati radeon HD 3850 New GPU: HD 7870 Motherboard: P5E-VM HDMI) Many thanks, James
For a system using a single AMD reference design Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition graphics card AMD specifies a minimum of a 500 Watt or greater system power supply. The power supply should also have a maximum combined +12 Volt continuous current rating of 28 Amps or greater and have at least two 6-pin PCI Express supplementary power connectors. For a system using a single AMD reference design Radeon HD 7870 Boost Edition (Tahiti LE) graphics card AMD specifies a minimum of a 500 Watt or greater system power supply. The power supply should also have a maximum combined +12 Volt continuous current rating of 32 Amps or greater and have at least two 6-pin PCI Express supplementary power connectors. 500w PSU antec ea-500d ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified 100 - 240 V 47 - 63 Hz +3.3V@24A, +5V@24A, +12V1@22A, +12V2@22A, -12V@0.8A, +5VSB@2.5A
The most likely culprit is your power supply, if it's getting old it may not be able to supply enough stable power for the card, that could be why it's freezing when you run games as the card will start drawing a lot more power when running games and the PSU can't cope. Your PSU is an Antec EarthWatts Green series and as far as I can tell has two 12v rails rated at 22amps each, that may have just about been enough when the power supply was new but I suspect that it's now a few years old and isn't up to supplying that kind of power any more expecially since both PCI-E connectors are on the same rail. if you want to try something without replacing hardware, check that you're running the latest BIOS on your motherboard, I had issues trying to run a 7870 on an older board with a P35 chipset and had to update the BIOS as support for the card was added in a later revision. I had a quick look at the Asus site and it seems that the latest bios is from 2009 so you may be out of luck if thats the issue. Edit: Just read the post above and then you can ignore this one completely, I was too slow :sleep:
Ahhhhhh thank you! was trying to find out why it wasn't working for ages! looks like i'll just need to get a different graphics card. Looking at the GTX 750, may I ask how you found out what requirements the HD7870 had in terms of the power supply, as when I was checking it out it just said minimum 500w. (GTX 750 says minimum 300w) Thanks, James
Sorry to ask another question, but needing a maximum combined +12 Volt continuous current rating of 28amps or greater.... what does this mean? What PSU would be needed? Many thanks, James
Not always PSU. Well my 7970 was working flawless. Pulled put NV 970 (sorry mine works great no problems lol like some). Well I was testing something I put it back in and in just windows ran fine. ANY game it crashed. So I took off the fan what not and cleaned it put new resin on and never had a crash since. Some think it never needs to be clean lol.
It would be much cheaper for me to return the HD and get the gtx than keep the HD and buy a new psu though, I know the HD is a better card 3:
Seriously no way in the world a GTX 750ti is cheaper than a decent 600W. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139028 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371031
Yeah bit if I buy a 600w PSU and the radeon that's more exprnsive than just buying a gtx 750ti (cos I can get a refund on the radeon)
