4870X2 / Vista 64 Problems

Hi all,

Have just built my new rig and have been banging my head against a wall trying to figure out what's wrong. Every game I try locks up after a few minutes of playing. I'm not overclocking anything, because I wanted to make sure that everything works before I start tweaking. My setup is as follows:

- Intel QX9650 CPU

- Asus Rampage Extreme Motherboard (I'm using the onboard X-Fi sound card)

- 4GB OCZ DDR3 PC3-12800 / 1600MHz / Platinum

- Powercolor 4870X2

- Gigabyte Odin Pro 1200W PSU

- WD Raptor 300GB HDD & Seagate Barracuda 320GB HDD

- Dell 3008WFP

- Windows Vista 64 bit

- ATI Catalyst 8.8 drivers

I've just installed a fresh copy of Vista 64 and tried installing just the display drivers (without CCC), but the problem still occurs. I've also updated the motherboard's BIOS to the latest version. All games are using the latest patches. I'm trying to run everything at 2560x1600 at max settings. Games I've tried include:

- Call of Duty 4

- World in Conflict

- Gears of War

- Mass Effect

- Crysis

- Command & Conquer 3

Has anyone out there had similar problems? Has anyone had any luck with the ATI Catalyst 8.9 beta drivers? I've heard that there are some issues with using the 4870X2 with X-Fi sound cards. Is this true? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I think you should install CCC so that you can do the fan fix. With the fan settings on default, the 4800 cards really overheat. Also, I think the catalyst drivers are just unstable for the 4800 cards in general. I tried the 8.9 beta and I had even more crashes than with 8.8. Right now, I'm using 8.7 and everything seems to be running smoothly so far.bungie93

Thanks for the tip. Mind if I ask what the specs of your setup has?

how do you update bios's?

I have a gigabyte x48.