# VPU recover 9800 pro



## far3 (Aug 8, 2004)

Hi I have a radeon 9800 pro and It works great with almost every game I have. The only problem is that When I play the farcry demo or somtimes thief The screen freezes and minimizes to the desktop. There is an error report saying...

VPU Recover

VPU Recover has reset your graphics accelerator as it was no longer responding to graphics driver commands. Please tell ATI Technologies about this problem. The generated error report contains only system information such as driver version, AGP settings, graphics frame buffer size etc. that will be used to analyze the problem. This report wll be treated as anonumous. 

Send error report Don't send


I reinstalled the drivers 4.7 and It happens less frequent but always happens whenever I play the game. Also the same thing happens except the screen goes blank Im guessing that The vpu recover didnt work in that case, so I have to restart my system.


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## General Stalin (Aug 4, 2004)

Well, in ATi cards, VPU recover is the feature that saves your VPU from frying (or locking up). Is it overclocked or do you have enough coolant in your case? Farcry is a pretty demanding game and MIGHT be overheating it? Not too mention Farcry has a few problems with overclocking anyway (if you're card is overclocked) Also make sure you have a good enough power supply for the vedeo card. I believ the 9800's call for at least a 250w? A 300-350w would be adequite.


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## OTH TankGirl (Aug 10, 2004)

I also have a 9800 pro, which I hate. It crashes to desktop all the time. It is a well known fact that these cards have heat issues. I even have a Zalman heatpipe with fan, and still run into problems. Farcry is very demanding and my guess is your card is overheating. Personally, I have the VPU recover feature disabled because it often causes more problems than its worth. I also have to change the setting in most of my games and turn AA and AF off as well. Its also worth a try to turn fastwrite off.
If you do a google search on this card you will find a bunch of folks have to do this on their 9800 pros. 
Some folks state this card work better will a bios voltage bump, but that has yet to be proven.


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## |2fg|ed209 (Aug 12, 2004)

Ello ppl looks like got the same prob my 9800xt with 256 ram used to work fine but the last cuplyo f days it keeps crashing back to desktop. with a window saying VPU recover. i have try to put it on 600-800 and it keeps still doing it. i have never had probs like this with my old grafix card. my main broad is nvidia2 with 2600, 512ddr, 200gig hhd with 8m cash, so i am not sure to send the card back or keep it after read the forums. if any got the same prob and fix it could u help me plz thx....


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## |2fg|ed209 (Aug 12, 2004)

i have even try what tankgirl said still no joy. i have not over clocked on any think in side my pc so thats not the prob. so it looks like i am back to my old gforce 440mx


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## mcbeal (Aug 19, 2004)

*VPU Recover*

Hi everyone,
I too suffer from this repeated VPU recover message, the Computer is only a month or two old and hasn't been used much atall, plus I am haven't played any games let alone demanding ones

The computer supplier says he's never had any other customers experience this problem with the Radeon 9200SE in the past year and tells me its not a hardware problem but its due to the blaster worm. I've been looking up a few forums on this VPU subject and not a single one hints at a worm/virus. Is this guy having me on? any advice/info anyone?

The problem only occurs when I'm on the net


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## Engell (Aug 19, 2004)

I've got the same problem and I'm using an X800 Pro- I get the error during gameplay and it locks up calling for a reboot-mainly in Doom 3 and various other games. I've got the latest Catalyst software installed but from other forums I've heard when using older cards to install older versions of Catalyst such as 3.9 or earlier. That has solved most people's problems with 9000 series. For people such as me with a nice new card-I got nothing and it pisses me off a wee bit. :evil: evil ati...........


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## nissesweden (Aug 26, 2004)

I have the same problem too. My computer supplier told me that i need a new mothercard to fix this. That the 9800 pro has some issues with some types of mothercards, and that's why the card freezes when playing games. Can this be true you think? Well never ATI for me again, back to Nvidia next time..


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## Joneses (Aug 28, 2004)

*ATI's drivers at fault*


I'm only experiencing this "VPU Recovery" issue after installing the latest Catalyst 4.8. I've never ever had that appear when I was playing games like Battlefield 1942. And if the VPU error appears, it usually happens while driving a tank or some vehicle. Bfore this, no problems with 4.7 drivers or earlier. Nothing on my system has changed or upgraded to suggest this is hardware related. So i doubt motherboard is the cause here. My specs:

3200+ Athlon XP 400Mhz
K7N2 Delta-L BIOS v5.8
ATI 9800 pro 128MB
1GB PC3200 Corsair 
Win XP Pro
Audigy 2

Since nothing HW/SW related ever changed bfore problem appear, except for upgrading my ATI driver to 4.8, I'm rolling back to 4.7 or earlier. Will update u guys and vice versa. Good luck guys :wink:


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## Engell (Aug 19, 2004)

I found that my VIA mobo was set to PCI instead of AGP so I switched it. That seemed to help but I did get another error last night. So I guess I might try and dl an older driver packet or switch from 8x to 4x. I don't know


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## carras2004 (Aug 30, 2004)

*VPU Recover has reset your graphics accelerator as it was no longer responding to gra*

I'm getting the same error. "VPU Recover has reset your graphics accelerator as it was no longer responding to graphics driver commands" only on Far Cry. Previous I installed a AtiTool and I overclocked my ATI, but after it was freezing I change the setting to default and uninstall Ati tools. Could the seeting be still there? Also on Device Manager I get to Video cards Ati Raedon 9800 Pro and Ati Raedon 9800 Pro secondary.


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## cyiwin (Jul 20, 2004)

Woah, I have a Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro and have never had an issue with it (for 5 months so far anyway). I thought this card was so great I bought my bro one too, I hope it works fine for him... Just out of curiosity what brand of 9800 Pro are you guys using? Carras I have it primary and secondary too, must be ok.


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## Engell (Aug 19, 2004)

My X800 Pro is built by ATI. So yeah. You're probably not having any problems because your motherboard is not a VIA chip. That's where all the problems I've heard of have conflicted.


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## Blacklotus (Aug 31, 2004)

Joneses said:


> I'm only experiencing this "VPU Recovery" issue after installing the latest Catalyst 4.8. I've never ever had that appear when I was playing games like Battlefield 1942. And if the VPU error appears, it usually happens while driving a tank or some vehicle. Bfore this, no problems with 4.7 drivers or earlier.


Same problem here... I've been using my club3d 9800pro for two months now and never had this problem ...until two days ago that I installed Omega drivers 2.67 (based on catalyst 4.8) ...before I was using Omega 2.58 ( catalyst 4.7)

Now I cannot play a single 3d game without having the damn problem with VPU recover...  

I'm going to rollback the drivers to see if the problem disappears and report back if so ... :/


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## Blacklotus (Aug 31, 2004)

well...it worked for me. Rolling back to Omega 2.58 ( Catalyst 4.7 ) solved the VPU problem. No VPU recovers for an hour or so while before I woudnt last not even 15 minutes without crashing...I don't know if it has something to do with Omega drivers or its generalized to Catalyst 4.8, but I won't install them again just in case.

gl


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## Engell (Aug 19, 2004)

Do you think I could possibly rollback my drivers even though I have an X800 Pro, I mean, would it be supported with older drivers?


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## Blacklotus (Aug 31, 2004)

Engell said:


> Do you think I could possibly rollback my drivers even though I have an X800 Pro, I mean, would it be supported with older drivers?


Sure, x800 it's fully supported in Catalyst 4.7...they were relesed in July 2004.

It's a shame though, because Catalyst 4.8 are known to have heavy optimizations for x800 board series which can boost performance up to +30% in Opengl games such as Doom 3 ...however, if you can't live with the VPU recover problem, it may be worth a try just to see if the problem disappears before blaming it to a possible board failure. 

Be sure to answer "yes" when the driver installation program asks you to overwrite the newer (catalyst 4.8) files. It would also be good to create a restoration point before installing, just in the unlikely case something went wrong

Cheers


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## Engell (Aug 19, 2004)

Thanks Lotus, I'll try rolling 'em back.


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## Joneses (Aug 28, 2004)

*No sign of VPU Recover with 4.7 or earlier*

Since rolling back to Catalyst 4.7, no VPU recover experienced playing Battlefield 1942. Bear in mind, this "upgraded" drivers and future ones do improve your video graphics experience in many ways as the cards process more and more instructions, that may result in more heat generated. I think some VPU Recover may be heat related as well as due to overclock. Make sure case is well ventilated also and room temp is low 70s. Good luck. 

Athlon XP 3200+ 400Mhz
K7N2 Delta-L NForce2
ATi 9800 pro 128MB Retail
1G Corsair DDR3200 CL2.5
250G Maxtor Diamond+ UDMA133


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## Engell (Aug 19, 2004)

Yeah, I'm beginning to think it might be heat related, but I've got three additional case fans plus the one on the video card and the power supply. Any suggestions on figuring out if my cpu or card is overheating?


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## Blacklotus (Aug 31, 2004)

Engell said:


> Any suggestions on figuring out if my cpu or card is overheating?


you may try to underclock it to see if the problem disappears. By lowering the GPU/Mem clock there will be less heat dissipation, so if it's a heat related problem you should stop experiencing VPU recover problems...You can use ATItool or Radlinker to do so.


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## nissesweden (Aug 26, 2004)

I changed my motherboard to a MSI 848P neo V. Sata , haven't got any problems since that. So that solved my vpu recovery problem.


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## cdean84 (Sep 22, 2004)

I have this same exact problem :sad: 

I can't play UT2k4 for more than a few minutes most times without it locking up and giving me that error, although it doesnt _always_ happen.

I'm running a p4 3.0, sapphire rad 9800 pro, 1gb mushkin pc3200 and an abit ic7 mobo, which i recently finished putting together.

Before that i was using the 9800 and the ram on an old asus mobo (running at 4x agp since the mobo didnt support 8x) and never saw this message once.

I first tried the cat 4.9's and i got this message, so i used the ati tool to remove those, and installed the 4.7's, and i still get it.

So far i've tried changing the agp setting to 4x with no difference, it still crashed after a few minutes of play.

I also tried updating my mobo drivers and i got this message saying that a file called usbehci.sys was missing and to point it to the file, but i've no idea where it is.

I'm updated to sp1 and don't see this file anywhere.

I'm also pretty sure this problem is not heat related for me at least, because atm my case is open, i have 7 case fans (2 of which blow down onto the gfx card), and i use an arctic cooling vga silencer on the 9800 pro.

This problem is driving me nuts atm and i can't figure out whats causing it


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## cdean84 (Sep 22, 2004)

Just thought i'd update and say that i seem to have fixed the problem for me :bgrin: 

I used abit's FlashMenu135 utility and flashed/updated my bios, and the vpu errors seem to have vanished :chgrin: 

Maybe this might work for someone else too :wink:


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