The Famous VPU Recovery Crash

[w0rstn4m33v]

<p>I've been doing alot of googling and it seems this is and has been a serious issue for quite some time, but has never happened to me until recently.</p><p>I'm using a Radeon x1650 (on windows xp sp3) and its been great from the day I got it, until recently my computer had to be reformated and ever since I've been getting VPU recovery errors. So my assumption is its just the drivers I downloaded when I reformated.</p><p>Only thing I need to know now is what version of CCC and the ati drivers work best with EQ2 (google only seemed to bring up 2006 results saying 6.2 worked)</p><p>I also found this while doing a forum search....</p><p>ATI Radeon x300-x1900 Series* Win XP:  <a href="http://ati.amd.com/">http://ati.amd.com</a> Recommended driver: Catalyst 9.3.1 legacy driver Vista 32 bit: <a href="http://ati.amd.com/">http://ati.amd.com</a>  Recommended driver: Catalyst 9.3.1 legacy driver Vista 64 bit: <a href="http://ati.amd.com/">http://ati.amd.com</a> Recommended driver: Catalyst 9.3.1 legacy driver</p><p>9.3.1 wins? just wanna make sure this is up to date before I go driver sweeping</p>

[TSR-JoshuaM]

<p>Version 10.2 has been successful for us and the players I've encountered.  It's the latest available for your card/OS.  If it's the same driver you were using, they shouldn't have that issue in and of themselves.  </p>

[w0rstn4m33v]

<p>Yea I think it's just a heating problem now, after my video card crashed this time, I turned off the computer, unplugged the power and touched the video card and it was hot to the touch.</p>

[TSR-JoshuaM]

<p><cite>w0rstn4m33v3r wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Yea I think it's just a heating problem now, after my video card crashed this time, I turned off the computer, unplugged the power and touched the video card and it was hot to the touch.</p></blockquote><p>I'm fairly certain that ATI's utility, ATITool, has built-in temperature monitoring for your GPU.  Might be worth taking a recording prior to and as you are having the issues.  Feel free to report them back here too.</p>

[w0rstn4m33v]

<p>I'm not quite sure where to find this on my computer, the ATI menu in my start menu only has 'CCC' 'CCC - Advanced' 'CCC - Wizard' 'Uninstall' and 'Help'. I also looked in the program filed folder and found nothing. Would this be because I switched back to 9.3.1?</p>

[w0rstn4m33v]

<p>I also removed a USB/Firewire card that I only use from time to time (for audio recording) and a modem card that came with the computer which were directly under the video card. I also put a small fan on the side of my case to help cool as a temporary solution.</p>

[TSR-JoshuaM]

<p><cite>w0rstn4m33v3r wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I'm not quite sure where to find this on my computer, the ATI menu in my start menu only has 'CCC' 'CCC - Advanced' 'CCC - Wizard' 'Uninstall' and 'Help'. I also looked in the program filed folder and found nothing. Would this be because I switched back to 9.3.1?</p></blockquote><p>ATITool is something you need to download separately from ATI's website.</p>

[w0rstn4m33v]

<p>I downloaded ATITools and the temperature readings didnt show up, so I also downloaded a program called Everest that didnt show the temperatures either.</p><p>I was also wondering if my 3D settings may have an effect on my video card temperature, as far as I know they are up to date but I wouldnt be shocked if something slipped past me.</p>

[TSR-JoshuaM]

<p>Possibly but it depends on what you mean by 3D Settings.  The ATI CCC settings?  The more demand you put on the video card up to 100% utilization would raise the temperature.  In optimal conditions, this shouldn't cause problems in and of itself unless your PC needs a cleaning or the cooling solution simply isn't what it used to be (aged video cards).</p>

[w0rstn4m33v]

<p>Well I found a semi-permanent solution, I took out my ATI card and switched back to the onboard nVidia card, played for hours with only minor problems, every so often the screen will blur but it resets if I switch to windowed mode and back to fullscreen.</p>

[TSR-JoshuaM]

<p><cite>w0rstn4m33v3r wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Well I found a semi-permanent solution, I took out my ATI card and switched back to the onboard nVidia card, played for hours with only minor problems, every so often the screen will blur but it resets if I switch to windowed mode and back to fullscreen.</p></blockquote><p>Supporting the theory that the ATI card might have some inherent issues of it's own.</p><p>Were you able to find any temperature monitoring that read your card?</p>

[MurFalad]

<p>If its a double height card then its worth opening it up and looking inside, I had a 3870 that looked fine from the outside but had over time sucked in a wad of fluff that covered the heatsink (it needed about 17 screws undone to get at it).</p><p>On drivers, apart from the mouse pointer being stuck at the top right hand corner (not sure if that happens on the latest drivers) I've not had any problems with ATI driver versions here.</p>

[TSR-JoshuaM]

<p><cite>MurFalad wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>If its a double height card then its worth opening it up and looking inside, I had a 3870 that looked fine from the outside but had over time sucked in a wad of fluff that covered the heatsink (it needed about 17 screws undone to get at it).</p><p>On drivers, apart from the mouse pointer being stuck at the top right hand corner (not sure if that happens on the latest drivers) I've not had any problems with ATI driver versions here.</p></blockquote><p>While I've seen some problematic drivers (mostly the mouse issue you reference) the 11.6 version seems to be very well received and reduced the amount of reports we were receiving with various titles.</p>