EK waterblock and ASUS 5970 problems

[PeterW_R]

Hi guys,

As noticed on some other post on this forums, there might be a problem with the EK waterblock for certain AMD R5970 boards.

I have an ASUS EAH5970 and I started getting ocasional screen corruption under windows 7.

Fearing the worst I started a futuremark test on my system, there where several bad renders, windows 7 just keep disabling the drivers until it froze, I tried reinstalling drivers but this happened just after replacing my stock cooling with an EK acrilic waterblock.

Asus doc. report temp cores at both cores are under 35ºC, I've tried reataching my waterblock, same results.

I post some pics of how I installed it for your convinience.





After that I just put some Diamond TRIM on the cores in cross (as EK manual suggested)

Thank you very much for your help, I could really use it now!!!

UPDATE: Replaced EK block with standart heatsink, I can confirm is NOT a driver issue, as the card works perfect now under stock heatsink, I've done some more pics (hopefully more accurate) on my EK waterblock after installation)









Any luck solving this problem? i also noticed that those 2 chips next to the VRM's are flat, but EK waterblock is not.

[Razrback16]

Have you already seen this thread ?
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=241616

[Boulard83]

ON the last pic. Your missing 2 thermal pad. Where they are ?

[Levesque]

I asked the question to the EK rep hanging-out in the Liquid Cooling section, since I also have a 5970 EK waterblock, and he said alot of people are not having any problems with the EK block and 5970...

I really wish they are investigating the issue. And it seems to be a problem with ALL the different brands of 5970 waterblocks. Not only EK.

But it would be nice to know that EK are searching for a solution, since their name is all over the internet with reports of problems with their blocks and the 5970. Just here, there is 3 threads on the first page about that!

EK-eddy could post some updates here...

[PeterW_R]

ON the last pic. Your missing 2 thermal pad. Where they are ?

They where in the card, I removed before installing stock heatsink back
So that wasn't the problem, do yo see other things other than that?

[Boulard83]

Your block have a step where i just point you. Is your Card chip at this spot equal or on is higher ?

[lowdog]

This one is a nightmare, who knows what the problem is. My Sapphire 5970 had the same problems under an EK block, tried remounting it 4 times and it kept locking up yet runs fine with the stock cooler.

I'm just using the stock cooler atm as there doesn't seem to be another option if you want to have a 5970 running stable in your system.

[PeterW_R]

[QUOTE=Boulard83;4177055]Your block have a step where i just point you. Is your Card chip at this spot equal or on is higher ?

They are equal at that point.

Added an extra layer of thermal pad in the step, testing tomorrow...

[lowdog]

[QUOTE=PeterW_R;4182512]

Your block have a step where i just point you. Is your Card chip at this spot equal or on is higher ?

They are equal at that point.

Added an extra layer of thermal pad in the step, testing tomorrow...

Any updates as to how things are going?????

[PeterW_R]

Badly, my pump failed so it took me a week to replace it for another one.
Now I've put the second thermal pad, I don't have arthifacts in 2d anymore, bud I have a hard freeze when playing.

Could it be driver issue this time?

I'm using the latest drivers, all temps at GPU-Z seems fine except second VCI voltage, it displays 0.0ºC

[lowdog]

Try the hack of setting ULPS to 0, which turns of the power saving feature in the drivers, this seems to work for most people.

Just do a google search for setting ULPS to 0 and you should find how to do it...pretty simple as I recall.

[PeterW_R]

I've followed the instructions on this thread to solve the issue, After several hours of testing I have 0 issues, rising the clock in 2D to 400Mhz for cores and 900Mhz for memory did the trick! further issues will be noted should they occur. For your information I have the second thermal pad inside the EK waterblock to allow 100% contact with my board.ULPS is disabed on register.

[Lord_Farken]

In my opinion the EK-5970 is awesome
before the block a have 100+ of crashes running benchmark
even at stock clock
sometimes at reboot my desktop open and boom drivers crashes
now hardly any crashes is even with everything max 999,1315
no the oc but it run now
hands down there no defective ,is just some cards don't liked cold
I wonder was the fail ratio right now
this kind of hardware always got issues at the beginner
I guess that i got really lucky

[lowdog]

Mine is now sorted with the EK block......conclusion....the card is cold buged at temps below 28/30C. I have to sometimes disengage all the fans on my Swiftech MCR420 and just leave the pump going so that the card heats up and stays above 30C. Upon first boot up I usually have to run GPU-Z to check temps and fire up furmark straight away to get the cores above 30C, after that everything is okay.

CHanging 2D clocks via the xml file or dissabeling ULPS doesn't do anything for me....it's all about the temps.

[Levesque]

My 5970 idle temp is 22-23 celsius. On heavy load, I reach 32-34 celsius max.

My 5970 + E waterblock is rock-stable. 12 days without a single crash, BSOD, error message or artifacts. 2d and 3d.

You should definetely RMA your card. ''Watercool'' and ''cold-bug'' shouldn't be in the same sentence.

[lowdog]

My 5970 idle temp is 22-23 celsius. On heavy load, I reach 32-34 celsius max.

My 5970 + E waterblock is rock-stable. 12 days without a single crash, BSOD, error message or artifacts. 2d and 3d.

You should definetely RMA your card. ''Watercool'' and ''cold-bug'' shouldn't be in the same sentence.

You can't RMA a card because it's cold buged plain and simple.

And here is a quote from you;

My 5970 with EK waterblock is now working fine with the ULPS registry changes I made 2 days ago.

I can game, Furmark all I want, surf the net, Photshop, etc for hours without a single problem/freeze/bug.

My only ''problem'' is if I ''cold'' boot, I have the message ''Display Driver has stopped responding but successfully recovered'' only once, 20-30 seconds after boot-up. If I start Furmark for 30 sec (to ''warm up'' my 5970) the second I have access to my desktop, then I don't have the error message at all. And then I'm good to go non-stop! Strange, but it's working for me.

5970 idle temp is 21 celsius at start-up and 22-23 after stabilisation. Never goes over 33-34 celsius with Furmark, and VRMs at around 55 max at full load. VRMs are at 24-26 idle.


More;

I just did it again to confirm it. Power off the computer for 1 hour, then boot back in Windows, and the second I can do something on my desktop, start Furmark for 30 seconds... No error message, no problems. Surfing the net, playing game for 1 hour... No problem.

Then power off computer again 30 minutes to cool down. Power on, don't start Furmark when getting on desktop, go surf on the net. ''Display driver stopped working but has successfully recovered'' message again.

Crazy, I know, but happening in my system.

I have 2 independant loops. One for CPU and one for GPU. GPU loops: EK-5970 waterblock (the full copper + plexi one), Swiftech 655, Swiftech MCR320, 3X S-Flex "E". Asus 5970, and I had to do the "extra-pad on CP-20" technique.

I had alot of problems before changing my ULPS settings in my registry. None since then.


I have this same situation....so it looks like your card isn't perfect either with the EK block.....maybe you should RMA your card as well...

[PeterW_R]

Yeah, so far everything has been running perfectly, although I crashed a couple of times today because when I turned on PC it was quite cold.

Luckily, this is Spain, so I'll get rid of this problem pretty soon

Do you thing this cold bug could be solved in a driver update?

I bumped up voltages a bit to warm up my card sooner so hopefuly I won't get this problem anymore

[Levesque]

Lowdog. Relax. We don't have the same situation at all. Won't RMA my card, since it's working fine for me.

You're quoting me BEFORE I did a really SIMPLE tweak, and raised my 2d clocks from 137/400 to 400/900 with a CCC profile (thanks to Sargatanas). This guy is also having no problems with a 5970 + EK block.

Now everything is fine for me. No cold or warm bug. No freeze, no crash, no problems. Since then, I also re-enabled ULPS, since that was not my problem finally. Everything is alsways working for you on the first minute when you install something new? We ALL tweak and try new things with our new toys. I also don't need to run Furmark anymore when I boot-up in Windows. My problem was the 2d clock that was too low. That's all. Now, when I boot-up, I don't have any error message anymore.

You can quote me all you want, I don't have a problem with that at all. But at least, quote me AFTER I solved my simple ''problem'', not BEFORE. I was a new 5970 owner, and didn't knew about the 2d clock ''problem'', and the really easy way to solve it.

I also discovered at the same time that my Core i7 overclock was ''unstable'', and didn't knew it at the time. Did a little tweaking, and now my system is rock-stable.

So the next time you quote me, you can now quote this post from me.

[lowdog]

I also think the problem is due to ULPS and the second core being clocked to 000/000 for core and mem upon bootup. If you setting your 2D clocks manually then your turning ULPS off or disabeling it by doing that so it's basically the same thing.

I have noticed that when ULPS is on and the secong core/mem is 000/000 upon cold boot then the problem with locking occurs initially but once the second core stays at 157/300 in 2D all is fine.

[Bodar]

I put on a couple swiftech waterblocks on a 5970 and I was 18-19c idle with a max of 27c at 1000mhz. No problems at all.. That's weird.. I did try to throw on a couple ln2 blocks but it would'nt even boot up at -10c

[t_ski]

lowdog, have you ever come up with a solution for this? I seems my excellent cooling has brought out a coldbug on my HIS 5970, too.

[lowdog]

lowdog, have you ever come up with a solution for this? I seems my excellent cooling has brought out a coldbug on my HIS 5970, too.

I just set up a custom 2D profile with core 300MHz and men 400MHz with 1.038v and it seems to be working fine now.

[t_ski]

Thanks. Right now my basement is running much too cool for this card. Ambient temps are around 15C (60F), so the card wants to idle around 21C - much too cool. I have to run Furmark just to browse the web!

[lowdog]

Just ripped the EK block of off my Sapphire 5970, it slowly started locking/freezing in 3D and no matter what I did I couldn't fix it, driver re installs etc, xml profiles different 2D speeeds etc it was never truly stable with the EK block on.

Put the stock cooler back on and now it works fine, 100% stable.

My belief is that no 5970 user with a water block is going to have a completely stable graphics card.

[Levesque]

Wrong.

Totally stable here with my Asus 5970 + EK waterblock. 2 months without a single crash/GSOD/freeze or any other problems. And I'm using my computer 8 hours a day for gaming, benching, Photoshop CS4, video editing, etc.

Idle temp of the cores: 21 celsius. No cold bug.