Hello everyone,

i would really love to have your analysis about my setup as this is drving me crazy, your experience will be greatly appreciated.

I have just built a new computer:

GA p35 ds4
Q6600 at stock speed
4870 powercolor
4 gb corsair 800mhs
Antec sonata III (earthmax 500w , 2 pci express)
WINDOWS VISTA 64
drivers tried 8.7 and 8.6 hotfix


for two weeks i've been using a nvidia 6200 just waiting for my 4870 pro. during that period my system was rocksolid, no craching no issues , i haven't any games of course but i did try prime95 and superpi and everything was great.... until ONE day before my 4870 arrives, i thought i'd do another check up, i run the stress test of prime95 and bam the test failed almost right way , tried it again , restarted but same thing , 80% of all trials it failed...

and my drama started there, panicking i thought the cpu is the problem, searching googled pointed meright away to RAM issue... i tired memtest and indeed , in 15 minutes there were a couple of errors.

i decided to take out 1 ram to see which one is bad, i succeeded identifying the bad one, now prime 95 and memtest run with no errors.... ok

i put back the other 2gb of ram when my 4870 arrived (after all the only softwares that show problems are prime andmemtest otherwise the system run great)

do remember please that before the 4870 i was using nvidia 6200 but i didn't install any of its drivers, because i was expecting the 4870 to come and didn't wanna have issues. so instaling the 4870 without a fresh install with drivers 8.7 (and with the defected ram) gave me serious issues.

when i run a 3dapplication such vantage , the screen turns black during the process, it goes actualy in saving mode,no signal, so i have to restart, that happened many times. if it doesn't happen it freezes during the test. yes i tired the fan fix and it didn't solve the issue. (in vantage and 3dmark 2005)

decided to do a frech install of windows vista 64, instaling the 8.6 hot fix, the monitor no more shuts down...well great except that vantage still freezes "sometimes" even when i pull off the bad ram ...

Those are the question

is the drivers screwing with me?
is it a psu problem
is a score of 7800 in vantage right for a 4870 ati
15000 in 3dmark 2005
is it vista 64 with 4870
all very high directx10 world in conflict 1440*900 , AAx2 averaging 32 fps (allstock), is that a normal score
what is the most stable driver ?

temps are good, as i said i used the config fan idling at 55.

please enlighten me, i'm freaking out,because there are so many variables to consider and it's all brand new. thank you very much in advance.

You need to RMA that bad RAM.
Did you plug in the power connections on the 4870?
Prime95 and memtest86+ need to run without errors.

thanks for the reply
as you saidmost likely it's the ram but i'm concerned about the performance of my graphic card , who can confirm if what i posted about WIC, vantage and 3dmark 2005 are normal scores.

yes evongugg both are pluged in. the monitor doesn't turn off as i mentioned, that is after i made a fresh install of vista 64 and instaled 8.6 hot fix. but i'm still concerned why it behaved like that in the first place.

What is the ram voltage? You probably need 2.1V but it is 1.8V by default

^+1. It's most likely you are running at wrong voltage or timing.

I agree as well. Go to Newegg.com and read reviews for your RAM. People will tell you the right voltage/timings.