Recent 5970 experiences

[Scaniris]

>>> Mainboard BIOS - ok I've the latest version (checked yesterday)
>>> Chipset driver - Ok I've the latest version (checked yesterday)

>>> Avoid unnecessary hardware - Ok I'll remove the CPU, the memomry and perhaps the hard drive.... ok no I was joking, I'll remove everything what's not usefull and do what someone already suggested, removing all the un-necessary drivers
>>> Keep major components well cooled: I'm watercooled... temp is NOT an issue into my system clearly
>>> Tweaking the mainboard BIOS amy help - huh.... tweaking the BIOS... what does he means? ah yes I know, next words...
>>> Please check no overclocking features are enabled, check RAM voltage is ok and even, perhaps, connsider realxing RAM timings : and if the provoking component was the Ram, maybe the CPU, maybe both? Why did I focus only on the graphic card... because I had a frost image but maybe the truth is somewhere else! I'll put BIOS settings in standard basic mode, with underclocked memory (cause my timings are the XMP one of the Dominator GT... I did no OC on the Ram)


I'll do this this evening and keep in touch with you. I consider this message from XFX support really useful, because it's another point of view on a problem, and helps to take some distance with it.

But even if I'm putting the card stable, I'll change it for 2x GTX295, I'm really interested in trying quad sli ^^

I hope I'll get some stability. Because I'll be quiet to make the deal in safe conditions without any risks for the other guy.

Cheers

[Alous]

You should have Waited till tommorow.. I fixxed all my 5970 issues :-)

Seriously, any hints on the future ?
That would be a good holiday gift Lol

[Alous]

I think that ATi clearly wrote BETA drivers for the 5970 on their website so I hope thats why were getting stability issues.

[Scaniris]

Hey hey....

OC removed completely (CPU). Now running Stalker bench.... without any problem... (and Turbo mode factor up to 26 available... on the screen shot it's x25...)



I continue the tests. The only think that changed is.... that CPU and memory are not OCed. I did nothing else than that for the moment.

[PaganII]

OK, I don't have a 5970 but when my crossfired 4870 went weird after running fine on all 9.XX drivers up to 9.11 I found this solution after many frustrating attempt at reinstalling drivers, OS repair etc.
Uninstall cards, delete everything in computer (except downloaded drivers) with ATI in it, reboot and install driver and CCC separately.
I went a little further and manually went thru the registry and deleted any ATI I came across (YMMV).

Drivers http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx

Click Drivers then pick your OS from Individual Components

[Scaniris]

That's exactly what I did last week end, BUT I maybe installed a driver that may cause the issue... I don't know. I'm thinking about the package installation of Stalker cop benchmark coming with lots of direct x driver versions. Also thinking about 3D Mark vantage... coming with some specific stufs

What I remember is that before installation of benchmarks... I did not have lockup issues. Maybe I have to remove bencmarks and see what's happing.

10 minutes of stability tests with Furmark MSAA x8 and 1920x1200 resolution, absolutely no problem and temps are really cold like each time I tried.

But I tried again the 3D mark vantage,, the 1st graphic test passed, but the second one with space battle stops after 3 secs.

Now I'll remove the benchmarks, reboot and see what's happening with gaming.

[PaganII]

I believe that's about when I started having problems too!

[X2beach]

The 5970 is much touch on CPU being O/C tommorow things will be better

[Scaniris]

Hello,

It's tomorrow (16th dec) now in Belgium, since 5 minutes, where is the driver

[Crazystang01]

Hmm I think AMD is US based and it's still the 15th here.

[Scaniris]

Hi,

another information: someone recommend me to run the dxdiag.exe to see if there are some issues with DX drivers.

Here is what I get when running DXdiag.exe in 32 bit mode:



No error.

But if I run the dxdiag.exe in 64 bit mode... here it is:



Sorry it's in french but basically the error message says that all the drivers you see in the information windows are not digitally signed, not WHQL certified.

Why not in 32 bit and why in 64 bit...

Could people who run 64bit version of Windows 7 and who claim not having any problem with the HD5970 check what they get when running the dxdiag.exe in 64 bit mode? If they have same message, it's not the (only) provoking component. If they don't... it's driver related.

But... we are on 16th december now... ^^

[Scaniris]

http://twitter.com/CatalystMaker ^^

[Diverge]

9.12s

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=311190

[safan80]

9.12s

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=311190

these work nice downclocking is working on both gpus for the 5970 but the clock switching seems to mess with timedemos.

[Scaniris]

This driver that we can download on both links provided @ guru3D is a fake isn't it?

I've installed it and version is 24/11... something wrong.

Waiting for official one on the AMD website. To compare...

[safan80]

This driver that we can download on both links provided @ guru3D is a fake isn't it?

I've installed it and version is 24/11... something wrong.

Waiting for official one on the AMD website. To compare...

It says 9.12 you looking at the Cat control center Version. I imgine the releaes that will take place tomorrow might be newer, so consider these beta.

[zshadow]

I can't even install those Cat 9.12s on my 5970. Display driver installation fails. Tried uninstall previous set and even removing driver remnants through Driver Sweeper.

EDIT: I found the problem. There are two revisions of the 5970 according to the Beta 5 INF, one of which was missing in this 9.12 driver. So maybe it is not final after all.

I had to add this line in the display driver INFs

"ATI Radeon HD 5900 Series " = ati2mtag_Evergreen, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_689D

After that they installed fine. PRobably a waste of time considering the officials will be out tomorrow but eh.

[wez]

I can't even install those Cat 9.12s on my 5970. Display driver installation fails. Tried uninstall previous set and even removing driver remnants through Driver Sweeper.

EDIT: I found the problem. There are two revisions of the 5970 according to the Beta 5 INF, one of which was missing in this 9.12 driver. So maybe it is not final after all.

I had to add this line in the display driver INFs

"ATI Radeon HD 5900 Series " = ati2mtag_Evergreen, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_689D

After that they installed fine. PRobably a waste of time considering the officials will be out tomorrow but eh.

Hmm, interesting..

[lutjens]

Just wanted to offer an update, as I've installed the new Catalyst 9.12 drivers and just want to comment as to how they're working. Installation was a PITA, getting a display driver blue screen on the first install and a blank screen on the second. But after rebooting following the second install, I re-ran setup and found everything was fully up-to-date.

The drivers themselves seem more polished overall, with all temperature indications now working, along with the correct clock speed indications for Linked Adapters. Manual fan control also is working fine for both cards (it only worked for one of mine before) and the Fan Speed indicator is working normally on both cards.

The screen blanking issue when playing certain Blu-rays has also been successfully resolved (as mentioned in the release notes) and I can confirm that the fix is working well, as I've had no further issues.

The screen flickering issue that was present in the Beta drivers seems to still be present, although intensity varies at times. I continue to use the AMD GPU clock speed tool to manually lower the clock speeds slightly, which disables PowerPlay and seems to resolve the flickering.

All in all, a good progressive step to getting the bugs ironed out and a good dollop of much needed polish on the product.

[Razrback16]

Wow -- I just think the amount of issues (and specifically the severity of the issues described above) are just f*cking insane for a $600-700 card. I really would like to purchase a 5970 but it's unjustifiable with these kinds of issues...very disappointing from AMD/ATI.

[Levesque]

No problem here with my Asus 5970, OCed and watercooled. My Asus was flashed with the Sapphire OC bios.

But it was impossible to install 9.12 Hotfix over 9.11, no matter what I did. Deleting with DriverCleaner or manually, nothing was working. But 9.12 directly over 9.11 went smoothly. Then 9.12 Hotfix over 9.12 without any problems.

I've played over 12 hours in the last 2 days at Dragon Age, Resident Evil 5 and Torchlight, without a single crash, bug, shimmering BSOD or any other problem.

[LedHed]

most bugs/issues in this thread are a given on such a new product. Drivers will hopefully improve this

[E.R]

I just have to chim in here and share my point on this.
I got the XFX5970BE a week before christmast and it worked ok from the beginning, exept hardlocks in 2D when OC the card as little as 1mhz on core, i did not bother to mutch then as the card was working in ever game exept the BIOS-flaw to control the fan but it was still below 80 deg celsius anyway in load so i did not care as i was going to watercool the card.
After 3 days of 24/7 operation i was greeted by the famous stripes screen and hard reboot fixed that one.
Last night all hell broke loose with 2D/3D lockups and all that :crap in random or by trigger 3D. Tested all driver from nov11 and up to the 9.12 hotfix with no luck and i dont know how many reinstall of win7 i did last week i have made since i got the card. Flashing to the BIOS to fix fan-issue did nothing, putting on the EK-block and the extra thermalpad on the step i had in the block only helped to lower temp, not to make the card stable.

Today was the worst ever, hardlock or driver recovery as soon as system booted and was at idle in 2D.
I uninstalled the whole CCC-suit and was left with driver only from nov 11 and now i can run 3d bench as Stalker COP, Heaven DX11 bench, Vantage and so on as i would fail before either max 15 sec in to bench or on loadscreen of benchmark.

Not sure what the hell is going on here but i "fixed" it for now anyway but i only run a coulpe of hours without failing with CCC installed. I really hope it is a softwareissue related to CCC rather than faulty card but it is strange as the same thing that worked 1 week ago failed me now.
I am not even sure how long this "fix" will hold.

[lowdog]

Today was the worst ever, hardlock or driver recovery as soon as system booted and was at idle in 2D.
I uninstalled the whole CCC-suit and was left with driver only from nov 11 and now i can run 3d bench as Stalker COP, Heaven DX11 bench, Vantage and so on as i would fail before either max 15 sec in to bench or on loadscreen of benchmark.

Exact same syptoms I started experiencing as soon as I put the EK waterblock on my 5970.....I never tried uninstalling CCC so I would be interested to know if this does indeed solve your problems.

I tried mounting the EK block a total of 4 times and the same thin happened each time as you have explained. Card works fine with the stock cooler on so I'm at a loss to know what is happening.

[safan80]

Have you guys tried turning off ULPS?

ULPS feature is enabled by default installing this driver, however you can edit this setting from windows registry,

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Cl ass\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000\EnableUlps

set 1 to enable ULPS
set 0 to disable ULPS

many users have another folders than 0000. I had 0000 and 0001. Some have had 0002, 0003 0004 etc. Where ever you find EnableUlps change it to 0 it fixed my lockups with everest and both gpus downclock to 157 with the 9.12 hotfix drivers

original source here.

edit: everest still hard locks the system everything goes blabnk on gpu1 and then it locks.