ATI 5700 / 5800 problems thread

[Mungri]

Hi. I decided to create this thread due to a widely reported problem on the 5770s over at AMD game forums, that has also affected me.

The cards are fully stable and rock solid reliable in 3D mode and never have any crashes or problems while under heavy load.

However, in 2D mode, when they are downclocked to 157/300, some users including myself are having a problem where windows / internet / anything in 2D while running at 157/300 is crashing with a computer freeze and artifacts all over the screen.

About 25% of the time, the Catalyst driver manages to recover, but most of the time the PC needs to be restarted.

Yet under load at full speed and normal voltage, the cards have no problems at all, signifying that this cant be a hardware fault, but a powerplay / driver / 2D state problem.

RMAing the cards will only be a last case option, as I would like to keep the ones I have as they clock brilliantly and otherwise work fine.

If anyone else has this problem, or any other, then please report it here.

[Glow9]

Whats with this 2d or 3d mode? w-t-f?

[Mungri]

2D and 3D mode have existed for a very long time now. When the graphics cards are not running any 3D programs, they underclock into a lower clock state to use less power, also known as running in idle / 2D mode.

On ATI cards, this feature is called powerplay, but for some reason, a lot of 5770s are highly unstable when they enter into this idle mode.

Im not sure how to explain it any better then that, the 2D / 3D clock speed variances are a very well known and common feature in modern video cards, but the 5770 is having this problem when it downclocks itself into its idle mode resulting in PC freezing and artifacts.

[oohms]

I have heard of these kind of issues with large screen resolutions. The solution seemed to be to increase 2D clocks until it stops.

The only issue i have with my 5770 is that its slow in some games eg shattered horizon, but i guess new drivers will fix it

[Mungri]

Yea is there any software I can use to increase my 2D clocks?

I suppose putting the GPU up to 300 Mhz would be fine, but I can only set 3D clocks in MSI afterburner.

The only thing is that this completely destroys how little power these cards consume, but if it gets them working its not a problem.

[BeepBeep2]

RBE and ATIFlash...actually, I dont know...RBE only supports WinFlash...

RBE:
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads...tor_v1.22.html

ATIFlash:
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads...lash_3.75.html

WinFlash:
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads...h_2.0.1.7.html

You may be able to extract the BIOS with WinFlash and RBE, save it with RBE, then flash it with ATIFlash. I'm not really sure.


Voids your warranty though.

[Mungri]

My warranty is already void, Asus bios flashed, but for now my PC has been on for an hour and no crashes, so I dont think altering the bios clocks is worth it.

I'd rather just wait untill ATI say something about the issue, and maybe see if a driver update fixes it, the crash doesnt happen too often.

I will contact ATI support.

[OC Nub]

Haven't had any problems with crashing but the cards being stuck at 60hz refresh really didn't make me happy, some older games I still play run much better using a higher refresh rate and a crt monitor. So I now have 2x5870's back in the box sitting in the closet and they will stay there until the problem is fixed or if they aren't able to its back to the green team.

[zshadow]

I am getting artifacts (small white dots) in most Source titles with my 5870. Weird thing is, it happens ONLY with regular 4xAA and 8xAA. Enabling 4xAA supersampling does not present the same issue, which makes me wonder if this is a driver issue rather than a defective card, since the latter is way more demanding.

It's most evident in the kitchen room in the L4D2 demo with the light off. When I turn the light back on the dots dissappear or are barely visible. It's not the film grain either, btw.

I wonder, could the clocks be at fault here too? Maybe L4D2 @ 8xAA is not pushing the card hard enough so it's throttling, causing artifacts. I really hate to RMA and get a worse card in the process.. it's working fine otherwise.

[ReverendMaynard]

For the life of me, I cannot get the official 9.10's to install. Only the 9.10 beta's from the DVD work. I've tried express installing the lot, but the drivers will not install in XP or Vista. WTF?

[pr@$r1g]

^^ why don't u install 9.11 beta ,im using 9.11beta

i haven't yet faced any problem ,but when i login or logout the screen flickers just before entering desktop after welcome screen & the screen flickers again when the desktop closes ........................
I think its a driver prob not hardware related ......................

some one here in XS also reported this prob with 5850 !!! :

[boldenc]

^^ why don't u install 9.11 beta ,im using 9.11beta

i haven't yet faced any problem ,but when i login or logout the screen flickers just before entering desktop after welcome screen & the screen flickers again when the desktop closes ........................
I think its a driver prob not hardware related ......................

some one here in XS also reported this prob with 5850 !!! :

I have the same flickering, but it is much better now with 9.11, 9.10 made it stutter more. are you using windows 7 pro or ultimate?

Also I'm getting white dots on the dragon in unigine heaven in DX11 mode and happen on stock too, but in DX10 no white dots, so I think it is driver issue.

HD5850

[pr@$r1g]

^^ its windows 7 ultimate , i haven't tested unigine heaven yet
will soon report ......................

[Glow9]

Sounds like at certain reslutions when they are in this mode they aren't getting enough power? I dunno I remember some flakeyness with other hardware before. Did they release any new bios or what not for it?

[Chickenfeed]

The HD5000 series uses 3 clock states. A 2d, low power 3d and 3d mode, each with their own core/memory speed and voltages. The first thing you need to always ask yourself is am I using more than 1 display. So far my experience with more than 1 display has been iffy with these cards ( I spent a fair bit of time messing with my friends 5770s / multi display setup ) and many threads across various forums seem to agree.

I've had no issues with my 5870 when using only 1 display but when I start using 2+, bizarre things start occurring. I had managed to force the card to use higher 2d clocks by editing a custom CCC oc profile but it isn't the most elegant solution. I'm hoping some revisions to powerplay occur via software in upcoming catalyst releases as they appear to be needed in many cases.

[Mungri]

I am going to research into creating my own CCC profile with a higher low power 2D clock.

I have noticed that the crash is more likely to occur when either downloading, listening to music or watching a DVD / video file.

The cards are not in anyway faulty, it is just that the 157 Mhz 2D speed is far too low, I would assume that somewhere around 250 - 400 Mhz instead will fix the problem completely.

[pr@$r1g]

^^^ it is not possible until u can be able to edit bios , bcos those clocks are set in bios & if u some how try to edit it will not work ........................

[Mungri]

^^^ it is not possible until u can be able to edit bios , bcos those clocks are set in bios & if u some how try to edit it will not work ........................

Oh crud .

[pr@$r1g]

^^^ sorry those words were not to hurt anyone ,but that's reality
If u can make that possible go ahead man ,in any way im not stopping U

[SocketMan]

Try a different driver maybe.
Using the "cl" beta version - it's in the pic below.

It's most likely something with powerplay/driver as I've
seen both cards at 400/1200 and 157/300 at various times.
Using 2 displays with crossfire on (from the first card DVI + DVI with VGA adapter to the PC input on HDTV)atm

[Mungri]

157 / 300 is low power 2D, and 400 / 1200 is low power 3D acceleration (Movies, DVD's, web browser / desktop animations).

Looking at that, the crash at 157 / 300 could be due to either the GPU or the Ram clock. Today my PC has been on for 5 hours and it hasnt crashed yet, so it isnt too frequent a problem.

[etoo]

Hey guys,
The RBE 1.22 has a bug when saving a vendor, not leaving the Catalyst recognize the vga ...
In my Hd5870 works just the bios Asus and MSI unlocked ..
Anybody know how to solve this?
my vga is XFX ...

[phsinc1]

Hey guys,
The RBE 1.22 has a bug when saving a vendor, not leaving the Catalyst recognize the vga ...
In my Hd5870 works just the bios Asus and MSI unlocked ..
Anybody know how to solve this?
my vga is XFX ...

Better flash your bios with the official asus 5870 bios, it works for all 5870.

[etoo]

Better flash your bios with the official asus 5870 bios, it works for all 5870.

I wish I could use the official bios XFX...

[cjbrown80]

I have two MSI 5870s and they were working beautifully with no OC last week. I was overjoyed as I had just achieved 32 hours of Prime95 stability with my i7 920 at 4gHz. This earned me a 24877 3dmarkV score with the GPUs in xfire. (Both GPU and CPU scores were just under 25k). This state of bliss lasted for about two days and then Friday morning I fired it up and ran another pass of 3dMarkVantage. At this point I noticed my GPU score slipped to around 23k. I shut it down, walked away for about 30 mins, came back fired it up and the GPU score was now just under 22k. Later that night I came back to it again, and on the first GPU test (Jane Nash) the water started glitching and turned into a giant wall of water basically, and frame rates dropped to around 20ish (from 80ish). I've since tried reinstalling 3Dmark, tried the 9.10, 9.10beta, and 9.11 catalyst drivers, and a slew of other little tweaks. Removing the entire cpu and ram overclock does nothing. The only thing that prevents the water from freaking out is if I disable crossfire (which then performs exactly like just having one 5870, or removing one of the cards entirely (In both cases the GPU score sits around 16k, which is exactly what each card by itself scored weeks before this problem occured). So to anyone with two or three of these 5870s in CFX- any similar problems showing up? Any ideas?
btw, I haven't even begun trying to OC these things, or tried installing a dedicated PhysX card yet (both were planned, derrrrr!)