AMD 6850 problem...... help

[its snoodles]

ok so i received my new power color 6850 graphics card and i installed it and it works great on my desktop windows experience index rates it at a 7.6. Then here comes the problem, i tried to benchmark it on the far cry 2 benchmarking tool and it just crashes during the load and tells me that my driver has crashed and recovered. So im like ok let me try it again and it does it again. It does this for every game i try to play the only game that has worked it Audiosurf. I have tried the newest drivers and some of the older ones back to 10.11 and none of them worked. i have tried everything i can think of to fix this problem and none of them have worked. My old card which was a ATI 5670 worked flawlessly i install this and i am having the crashing problems. Is this really a driver issue or do i have a faulty card and need to RMA.


system:
Windows 7 64-bit
4GB of Gskill 1333 ddr3 RAM
AMD athlon II X3 440 3.0GHz tri core
1TB Samsung F3 hard drive
630 watt RAIDMAX modular PSU
(Hopefully) powercolor 6850

 

[Aastii]

It will either be a faulty card, or a fault with CCC.

When not under heavy load the card underclocks itself to save power and reduce heat, and when it starts to get used and the load increases, so too do the clocks. The majority of the time it works fine, however sometimes it causes the drivers to crash as it under/overclocks as the loads change.

Try fully uninstalling CCC and the drivers and reinstalling them. If that fails, I would say either a software conflict, though finding it is like finding a needle in a haystack, or, as you mentioned, a fault with the video card itself. Audiosurf isn't very demanding, so won't necessarily need the card to knock the clocks back up, it can run on the settings you have it at with good enough performance with the lower clocks.

If you have space on your hard drive, set up a second partition and install Windows on it. Install only your drivers and a few of games and see if it crashes. Even if it crashes first time, try the other games, it may be specific to that one game. If it doesn't, you know it is a software issue on your other drive, rather than hardware. If it does crash, chances are it is a hardware problem, not necessarily a fault, it could be a conflict.

To test if it is a conflict rather than a fault, the only way is to swap out components to/from another, known fully working computer

 

[its snoodles]

yeah i figured it was a fault because i was using a 5670 with the same catalyst so i dont see how it could be a conflict since its the same catalyst i got it open box so i cant get a replacement unless i get it replaced through powercolor.

 

[Atomic Rooster]

Try downloading and using Driver Sweeper. It's a free program that will fully uninstall and cleanup any residual driver entries and files. Then try installing the newest set of drivers available from ATI.

 

[its snoodles]

i had already tried that and it didnt work i sent the card back for a refund since it was an open box and im just going to buy the gigabyte 6850 with the twin freezers on them