Stumped! HD4850 Causing Slowdown On Windows 7 x64!

Hi guys,

I recently bought 8GB of DDR2 RAM and thought I'd upgrade from x32 to x64 OS via a clean install after a format.

I installed Vista x64 without hitch but noticed that when the drivers for my graphics card, a Radeon HD4850 were installed, Windows would become very slow and very choppy. The mouse cursor would move at normal speed, but clicking on anything or dragging anything would be tremendously sluggish, and often require a few clicks rather than one. It's stuttery, sluggish, slower than a slug through treacle.

Disabling the card in Device Manager got rid of the problem, Windows is back to it's silky smooth normal, but obviously I couldn't play any games etc. without a dedicated graphics card being 'installed'.

I thought this may have been an OS problem, so I downloaded and installed Windows 7 x64, which automatically updated the drivers for the HD4850 to ones certified for Windows 7.

The same issue happened. Mouse cursor moves fine but Windows start-up is sluggish, clicking is sluggish, everything is. Again, disabling the board via Device Manager solves the issue, but that just isn't workable being a hardcore gamer!

I've tried removing sticks of memory, tried memory in different slots, tried the card in other PCI-E slots but nothing seems to rectify the issue. I've had a gander in the BIOS and nothing jumps out at me as being wrong!

This isn't a new card either, I've had it almost a year and when running an x32 version of XP everything, and I mean everything, was fine and dandy. No issues at all, with fantastic performance in all programs and games!

Does anybody have any ideas as to what could be causing it? I've even tried completely removing any trace of ATI drivers via DriverCleaner and I still get the issues.

ATI are less than helpful, sent an email to their support last week and still no reply. Sent another yesterday and still waiting for a reply on that too, and their peer to peer forums are less than adequate!

Any help, advice or anything else would be hugely appreciated. It's certainly stumped me!

 

what brand of card is it? You might have better luck on that forum, rather than ati's, as they will just tell you they don't support win7 yet...you might need to download chipset drivers for your mobo that are for 64bit windows.

 

ran out of time to edit...


while reading other forums, i've seen that it might be too much ram, not the video card that is the problem...can you try it with less ram and see what happens? or even update the bios?

 

Thanks for those tips, TSG!

I'll head over to the Sapphire site and see if they can offer any other drivers etc.

As for MoBo, BIOS is up to date but I can't seem to find any x64 chipset drivers. Which is odd.

 

Sapphire drivers are identical to the stock ATI ones, still can't find any x64 chipset drivers for ASUS P5N32-SLI Premium. It's an Nvidia chipset but their website is bloody confusing to navigate!

 

looks like the only chipset drivers are for RAID. and the 64bit vista ones are the same as the 32 bit.

I still think it's something to do with the amount of ram you are using...have you tried to reduce it to 4gb?

 

Yep, tried 1x1GB sticks, 2x1GB sticks, 1x2GB sticks, 2x2GB sticks, 3x2GB sticks, 4x2GB sticks!

 

try going back to an older version of the driver and keep trying until you find a stable one....and maybe verify that it still works with a 32bit OS.

if not, start a support ticket with sapphire and see what they say.

 

Kaje,

I'm sorry to hear that you are having issues with a sluggish system while using W7. I can definately understand the frustration with a slow running machine. You might want to consult the windows 7 forum at microsoft.com/springboard, there may some information about compatibility with your system, please keep in mind, if your system was stable before, and you have the Vista Drivers they will work with Windows 7, so you may want to revert to them.
Thanks,

Glen@microsoft-springboard

 

Also, I'm not sure if it was already mentioned, but If the drivers Windows Update supplies you with aren't working for your machine, perhaps go to the ATI website and look for their most updated drivers to go with your card.