Powercolor AGP HD 3850

Discussion in 'Videocards - AMD Radeon' started by Paladinchan, Jan 16, 2008.

  1. Spathi

    Spathi Master Guru

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    GPU:
    Galax GTX980 V2
    Probably a bad card.

    Check the 12v is not drooping heaps in ASUS monitor during heavy 3D. A drop from 12->11.75 or more means the current is too much for the PS.

    Also Try (I have never tried this on the AGP slot myself.. only on the card)...
    Turn it all off, turn of the powersuppy but leave it plugged in (as an earth).
    Take the card out.
    insert a piece of rubber in and out of the agp slot a few times (you will have to find a good bit of rubber for this, the right size and clean.. don't force anything into the slot or put anything in that would break apart).
    Put the card back in.
    Make sure the card is screwed in and straight.
    Turn it on.

    Remember it only takes a light rub to remove any carbon from the slot or card. (the card is new so should not have any.)

    Also, check you are not getting surges through you mains... use a good UPS if you can.

    Make sure you PCI bus is locked to 33.3/66.6 if you are overclocked.

    That is all I can think of.
     
  2. Spathi

    Spathi Master Guru

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    I emailed them the files I edited, rofl.
    http://www.ocforums.com/showpost.php?p=5490998&postcount=114
    It looks older I will look tonight, maybe PowerColor drivers are better than ATI 8.2 for PowerColor cards though. I wish they would all make it all less of a mystery.
     
    Last edited: Feb 28, 2008
  3. Spathi

    Spathi Master Guru

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    GPU:
    Galax GTX980 V2
    Maybe a bit of voodoo but maybe the ATI cards boot too fast and do not give power supplies a chance to charge the capacitors so the cards do not get initialized properly. NVidea cards seem to post a screen for longer.

    Last week, I turned on Pallet Snoop on my board in the hopes that it would give the board a few extra milliseconds... it seemed to work probably voodoo though as I also reseated the thing before booting it like that so I am not sure what fixed what.
     
  4. Spathi

    Spathi Master Guru

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    GPU:
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    Sorry for multi-posting so much, another thing to watch out for...

    I grabbed the ATI 2xxx dvi-hdmi dongle thinking it would work. It doesn't
    You need to grab the ATI 3xxx dongle.
     

  5. Berdyne Hardroc

    Berdyne Hardroc Member

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    GPU:
    Sapphire hd3850 512MB AGP
    Fyi

    Check out the Sapphire forum. these people are going to war with each other over the sapphire agp cards. seems as if no one can get the 2600 agp to run right. the issue may be carried over to the new line of HD3850 agp cards. Seems that ATI has dropped support for agp.
     
  6. honestjohn

    honestjohn Maha Guru

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    GPU:
    MSI Hawk HD 5770 @ 1010C
    No Need to worry about the Sapphire Card HD 3850 AGP. I'm on several forums and most are having good experiences with the card....

    http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=450266&page=3

    http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1276019&page=3

    Including Sapphire's Forum where you said people were going to war over the 2600 card ....

    http://www.sapphiretech.com/en/forums/showthread.php?t=17539&page=9&pp=10
     
  7. Spathi

    Spathi Master Guru

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    GPU:
    Galax GTX980 V2
    Yeah most people seem happy so far. There are a lot of tweaks organized on avforum from hundreds of posts http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=872538&page=151
    so we will probably have to sift through that over the coming years, lol

    The only real concern I have is that some older games run 25% slower on my older cpu than my old 6800LE... I do not think many people realize that yet. I have been thinking about it for several weeks now and have come to the conclusion that some directx 9c routines that have been 'depreciated' by microsoft have been left out of either..
    the drivers
    or
    the ATI chip itself

    hopefully it is the drivers and it will be fixed this year.
    People with newer CPU's will not be noticing this as the CPU would take up the slack. It is a tricky one to work out as the card will run the games at higher settings, but at the lower settings it is slower than a GF 6800LE. It is still good enough for most games on an average CPU but some raw 'medium settings' fps has gone depending on how the game was coded. The weird thing is the CPU is not maxed out, so I do not quite get what is going on.
     
    Last edited: Feb 28, 2008
  8. maxjhk

    maxjhk Member Guru

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    GPU:
    Sapphire Radeon HD3850 AGP
    I'm just speculating here, but I think some of the Sapphire 3850s might be having some trouble with ATI Powerplay, considering it lowers the voltages when you're in 2D-Mode and Low usage (under 66%) 3D-Mode.

    It takes time to transision between the profiles which could explain why, when you play 3D-games it stutters for the first 30 or so seconds then stables out.

    But like I said, My card maybe be undervolted when it runs on 2D mode (artifacting like crazy, crashing and driver reseting the card while just idling on the Desktop). I've RMA'd my card and I should get my replacement tomorrow. Hopefully the replacement card will be alot better. Looking forward to see if there'll be a BIOS mod down the road to disable the Piss-poor Powerplay on this card thats making it crap out like crazy.

    EDIT: Crap, just double checked my 12V+ Rail while having an X800XT PE in the computer and its only putting 11.65v down the line. Could be my PSU crapping out after all :bang:
     
    Last edited: Feb 28, 2008
  9. Spathi

    Spathi Master Guru

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    GPU:
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    yep, that might be a bit low.. I am not an electrical engineer but maybe someone might know and there would be info on the web somewhere no doubt.

    Just to give you an idea mine is 12.032 and droops down to 11.84 under 210W load. ASUS monitor alarm is defaulted to 5% so that would be suggesting 11.4 under load would be the min. My guess is that 11.65 puts ur PS at very borderline. EDIT: also if you have 4 hard drives or something try taking 2 out, they use 45 watts each.

    If you have more than one rail try swapping some cords around or even download a schematic of the PS if they have one.

    P.S. if you check out the http://dee.cz/lightsmark/ F.A.Q. he says...

    Maybe this explains my earlier concerns... don't know how old the F.A.Q is though.
     
    Last edited: Feb 28, 2008
  10. NeoElNino

    NeoElNino Master Guru

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    GPU:
    Gigabyte GTX1080 8GB Soon
    i just ordered my Sapphire 3850 AGP8X 512DDR3 ill let post some benchies when i get this thingy. most probably it will bottleneck with my CPU, but ill have DX10.1 and HDTV decoding etc.. oh well..

    between i got it for 229$ CAN and the PCIExpress version is like 209$ so i dont c a big price gap..
     

  11. InfDaMarvel

    InfDaMarvel Guest

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    GPU:
    HD3850 256mb
    Your Mainboard is your motherboard and Your Video card is what you just ordered.

    You have your specs all wrong bud lol.
     
  12. maxjhk

    maxjhk Member Guru

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    GPU:
    Sapphire Radeon HD3850 AGP
    The replacement 3850 just arrived and I installed it, no problems so far. But I was looking at my 12V Rail and its sitting at 11.60v-11.66v while Idle, haven't done any Load tests yet but do you guys think thats low?

    Gonna run 3Dmark06 overnight tonight to see if I get any problems.
     
  13. Junglesnake

    Junglesnake New Member

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    GPU:
    Sapphire 3850 AGP 512
    Check your bios voltages, I have same readings 11,66 in speedfan, everest etc, but in the bios it reads a stable 12,01 Volt. The 11,66 reading stays stable during load so I think its a faulty reading.
     
  14. Junglesnake

    Junglesnake New Member

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    GPU:
    Sapphire 3850 AGP 512
    BTW I see more and more Sapphire users. I suggest we have to rename this toppic to "Powercolor/Sapphire 3850 AGP":rock:
     
  15. honestjohn

    honestjohn Maha Guru

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    GPU:
    MSI Hawk HD 5770 @ 1010C
    The Powercolor HD 3850 AGP has just shown up at Newegg for those interested. Except it's well hidden and listed as an HD 3870 AGP card. No wonder I couldn't find it before. In the specs though it says it is an HD 3850 however.

    Here's a link to save others from the dreaded SEAD (Search Engine Anxiety Disorder).

    $224.99 ...

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131090
     

  16. honestjohn

    honestjohn Maha Guru

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    Good idea, but I would suggest changing it to just a "HD 3850 AGP" thread, rather than any specific brand. Something like the X1950 Pro thread we had going on year. I'm sure once the Gecube and Club cards start appearing they'll be posting in this thread as well.
     
  17. Rodiac

    Rodiac Member

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    GPU:
    HIS HD 3850 256mb GDDR3
    I've been following this thread. I currently have a 6800le and I'm planning to upgrade. I recently checked on the +12v and saw that it only was from
    11.33v to11.49v. Is this good?
     
  18. Berdyne Hardroc

    Berdyne Hardroc Member

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    GPU:
    Sapphire hd3850 512MB AGP
    The specs list that Powercolor card as ag3850 model, but the gpu is shown in the specs to be an hd3870 GPU, now what could be up with that?
    possibly this is an hd3870 card?? I wouldnt really think so, but.............
    sapphire web site is listing its new drivers for both hd3850, and hd3870. !!
    And thats for AGP only, both vista and XP, but seperate drivers for each os.
     
  19. Berdyne Hardroc

    Berdyne Hardroc Member

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    GPU:
    Sapphire hd3850 512MB AGP
    Rodiac, NO, you are underspec. Minium is 11.4, and i stress MINIUM.
     
  20. NeoElNino

    NeoElNino Master Guru

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    GPU:
    Gigabyte GTX1080 8GB Soon

    change PSU ASAP dude.. it should be close to 12V lol.. 11.8V would b fine
    but ur faaaaaaaaar below man. careful!:3eyes:
     

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