3870 buyers BEWARE!

[Nitro-Max]

I recently purchased a hd 3870 from ocuk it was there own brand and advertised with blower fan and memory coolers but when it arrived it wasnt the case it has the aftermarket cooler which blows hot air around the case but this isnt the worst of it !! this card will NOT overclock at all in ati overdrive the bios is locked !! from doing so it will work in rivatuner but this is besides the point who wants a locked bios to stock speeds especially from a well known overclocking website !!! and they acually put there name on it!! another thing they had a one week special offer on the price of this card they must have sold heaps of them as its a popular card but heres the bottom line they only have one good customer review for it!!! now im thinking theyve had heaps of complaints and are only showing the good reviews ie "1" probably made up by themselves heres the card in question although it works great at stock if you wish to overclock DO NOT BUY!!
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-078-OK&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=416

:banghead::banghead::banghead:

[gerrynicol]

Did you click on this button ??:rolleyes:

If not you need to click on this to unlock the overclocking feature in CCC.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y281/Gerrynicol/CCC.jpg

[smartphone]

is it possible to flash the bios when it is locked?

[trog100]

send it back and say its not as described.. make noises they wiill swop it.. basically when u buy OC/UK claimed own brand stuff its pot luck what u get from what i read..

trog

[Makaveli]

You should change the title to do not buy from this Http://This website.com!

The title is very misleading.

I have an Asus 3870 and had no issues overclocking at all.

[rhythmeister]

Have you not flashed it with any of the new bioses that are floating about the internet? I too think that you haven't hit the unlock button in CCC...I wouldn't let CCC set the card's max' clock speeds tho, I have to bring them down from what it says is fine or I get crashes!

[Nitro-Max]

Did you click on this button ??:rolleyes:

If not you need to click on this to unlock the overclocking feature in CCC.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y281/Gerrynicol/CCC.jpg

yes m8 thats unlocked my last card was a x1900xt so i have done overclocking with ati before no matter what i set the clocks to all it does is flash and resets back to default clocks even the auto tune does absolutly nothing ive tried old drivers and even the latest with no joy i used everest and this is the info it gives which leads me to belive its locked for overdrive overclocking

State #1 GPU: 777 MHz, Memory: 1126 MHz (Boot)
State #2 GPU: 775 MHz, Memory: 1126 MHz (OverDrive)
State #3 GPU: 775 MHz, Memory: 1126 MHz
State #4 GPU: 775 MHz, Memory: 1126 MHz (UVD)

it seems to stick to these values even if i overclock or even underclock
i am gonna ring ocuk but i get a very bad feeling they arent gonna comply as i said they must have misslead others but just not added the bad reviews failing this im gonna get it flashed but my floppy drives acting up abit atm doesnt seem to want to format anything so so i darent risk it.

[Nitro-Max]

why is you gpu clock set to 300mhz? when mines always at 775mhz

[asb2106]

yes m8 thats unlocked my last card was a x1900xt so i have done overclocking with ati before no matter what i set the clocks to all it does is flash and resets back to default clocks even the auto tune does absolutly nothing ive tried old drivers and even the latest with no joy i used everest and this is the info it gives which leads me to belive its locked for overdrive overclocking

State #1 GPU: 777 MHz, Memory: 1126 MHz (Boot)
State #2 GPU: 775 MHz, Memory: 1126 MHz (OverDrive)
State #3 GPU: 775 MHz, Memory: 1126 MHz
State #4 GPU: 775 MHz, Memory: 1126 MHz (UVD)

it seems to stick to these values even if i overclock or even underclock
i am gonna ring ocuk but i get a very bad feeling they arent gonna comply as i said they must have misslead others but just not added the bad reviews failing this im gonna get it flashed but my floppy drives acting up abit atm and i darent risk it.

The card drops automatically to 300mhz on the core until you start a 3d app. I use rivatuner to OC my 3870, and Ive gotten some great results, give it a shot

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=163#download

[ShadowFold]

One word. VISTA. Use RivaTuner, CCC sucks even on XP for OCing.

[asb2106]

One word. VISTA. Use RivaTuner, CCC sucks even on XP for OCing.

ive tried every option out there for overclocking ati cards and since I found rivatuner i dont even try other apps, its the end all do all for OC and monitoring

[Nitro-Max]

The card drops automatically to 300mhz on the core until you start a 3d app. I use rivatuner to OC my 3870, and Ive gotten some great results, give it a shot

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=163#download

mines at 775mhz all the time weather running games or not!! this aint normal im confused

[gerrynicol]

One word. VISTA. Use RivaTuner, CCC sucks even on XP for OCing.

I'm running Vista ultimate 32 with no issues whatsoever :wtf: I can get my card to 857core and 1387mem.

im gonna get it flashed but my floppy drives acting up abit atm doesnt seem to want to format anything so so i darent risk it.

You can also flash the Bios using winflash, get it here (http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=48544) and the bios from here (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=166334)

Hope this helps.

[Mandown]

Try ati tray tools.

[trog100]

i always use the CCC for tweaking my ati cards.. never had the slightest problem with it..

in fact its the only thing that works on an automatic basis.. atitool crashes my card at speeds i know it should run at.. and rivatuner seems good for setting a fixed speed only..

i am on xp..

trog

[Nitro-Max]

I'm running Vista ultimate 32 with no issues whatsoever :wtf: I can get my card to 857core and 1387mem.



You can also flash the Bios using winflash, get it here (http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=48544) and the bios from here (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=166334)

Hope this helps.

i heard winflash and atiflash doesnt work for this card atm

[gerrynicol]

i heard winflash and atiflash doesnt work for this card atm

I used winflash today to flash to the new Bios, worked fine, machine is on at hom now purring away like a kiten :)

[Nitro-Max]

I used winflash today to flash to the new Bios, worked fine, machine is on at hom now purring away like a kiten :)

just tried it wont flash with any of the bios downloads :( just keeps saying subsystems id missmatch i click continue and nothing? can anyone mod my present bios to make it act like it should?

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c333/sodclan/untitled.jpg

[MadCow]

You're probably gonna have to use a DOS based program and force it to ignore vendor info.

[jammy86]

Spend the extra 10er in future then :)

JAmes.

[PashaM]

The card drops automatically to 300mhz on the core until you start a 3d app. I use rivatuner to OC my 3870, and Ive gotten some great results, give it a shot


Let me get this straight, You saying that when i auto-tune in CCC it sets the upper limit for my card and when i start my Crysis session it automatically goes from idle 300 to the upper limit? Im asking cuz i also was confused about ccc overdrive, i set it to 777 manually or do AutoTune but my "Current Clock Settings" still showing 300Mhz.

[PashaM]

I used winflash today to flash to the new Bios, worked fine, machine is on at hom now purring away like a kiten :)
What exactly do you gain by flashing vid bios? I just got the Asus eah3870 and i figured they would put the latest bios in at the factory?

[gerrynicol]

What exactly do you gain by flashing vid bios? I just got the Asus eah3870 and i figured they would put the latest bios in at the factory?

Answer here (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=166334). Had a quick read and on the vanilla bios there is some kind of PLL issue.

[Nitro-Max]

well i managed to get a full refund from ocuk now as the card ran into issues anyway and gave up!! gonna buy a gecube overclocked edition next

[intel igent]

Answer here (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=166334). Had a quick read and on the vanilla bios there is some kind of PLL issue.

mr.nicol! still around? long time no see :toast:

to the O/P glad you got it sorted out properly

[Blacklash]

Well I flashed my 3850s back to a rev 1 BIOS because the new rev 2 BIOS limited the core clock to 730 and the memory to 1010 in the CCC overdrive. With rev 1 I can set up to 770|1117. I run 760|1019 (2038 effective)

As far Vista x64 goes, I've had no issues overclocking under it. If you use Rivatuner get the signed drivers from this site so you can skip F8.

Below is a great place to get alternate BIOS roms.

http://www.mvktech.net/component/option,com_remository/Itemid,26/func,selectfolder/cat,1/

[gerrynicol]

mr.nicol! still around? long time no see :toast:

to the O/P glad you got it sorted out properly

yup, course lol:p

[sam0t]

My Club3D has .67 Bios which has the fan issues. The fan is very sluggish to spin up when heat is rising and the card runs fairly hot wether it be idle 55c or in load 90c. Also noticed that with this Bios Rivaturners fan control does not work well, you can set the fan to 23% , 50% or 100%.

I flashed the card with ATI reference Bios .74 which was better, the fan spins up faster and keeps the temps in check. My idle temp dropped to 45c and load to 70c. All this was good untill the reference fans idle noise started to bug me, its not your average fan humming noise, this one had the kinda roaring sound to it, so went back to the reference .67 Bios.

I had to flash the card with Atiflash Dos utility because of the vendor mismatch things.

[kenkickr]

One word. VISTA. Use RivaTuner, CCC sucks even on XP for OCing.

What is wrong with Vista? I use without any problems and actually like its setup and features because they fit my needs. If you check out the 3870 benchmark list you'll see My vista setup in there so too me there is not a problem with Vista.

[bastimret]

I'm experiencing an OC issue with my 512MB Visiontek HD3850. I just built this system over the weekend. E2200 (OCed to 3.0), Gigabyte P35-DS3L, 2GB Corsair DDR2 800, all in an Antec P180 with a 500W Antec Earthwatts PS.

When I got into CCC (running Catalyst 8.1 drivers), it appears to only allow me to OC the GPU clock 20MHz, and the Memory Clock 75Mhz. It's like the range is locked in. I know that this is a factoy overclocked card (the pic shows the stock settings), but that still seems weird. Why is it giving me such a small range? Do I need to flash my bios, or do I just need to stop using CCC and use ATT instead?

http://emjohnson.googlepages.com/CCC.jpg

Here's what happens when I use the auto tune. I ramps the GPU up a couple times to 720, then steps it down to 710, then does the same thing to the Memory, taking it up to 950 before settling at 940. And then after applying them, I still show my current clock settings being 700 and 875. WTF?

http://emjohnson.googlepages.com/ccc2.jpg