video cards crashing or something else?

[kyang03]

this computer build is atleast 2 months old

computer specs

mobo: Gigabyte z77x-ud3h
cpu: intel i5-3570k OC at 4.2 Ghz with corsair h100i liquid cool
ram: 8gb corsair vengence
psu: 1250w xfx BE
gpu: 2 gigabye HD 7970 OC
OS: win 7 64

The problems I've been having and unable to figure out is if i was to play a game and then alt tab out of that game and open up a internet browser and go onto lets say youtube or multiple websites at one time, my computer will freeze a bit then the screen will turn black and then it will say no display is found, but the computer will still be on, only way to fix it is to restart the computer and then go on from there. This happens all the time and I've asked around and have yet to find an answer why.

Ive reapplied Thermal compound onto the cpu using the pea method in the middle and ran a stress test hottest cpu will get is 80 and below but on avg use temp is around 33-40. I've checked both the GPU and they both seem to be running fine. But then again im not sure as it can be anything at this point.

 

[Jstn7477]

Are you running crossfire, and are you running the latest AMD display drivers?

 

[kyang03]

Yes im running crossfire and on latest drivers 13.1 from amd

 

[erocker]

Turn off GPU accelleration in your browser.

 

[Jstn7477]

Catalyst 13.4 is out as of today: http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Pages/radeonaiw_vista64.aspx

 

[kyang03]

ok i disabled the gpu acceleration and also updated to 13.4 for drivers hopefully this will solve it but i wont know as its a random when playing game and doing something on the web

 

[kyang03]

You think its because my gpu has a voltage lock on them, cuz playing game and having multiple windows up will just shut the video cards down

 

[Jstn7477]

Are you overclocking the cards? Have you tested them one at a time in your system?

 

[NdMk2o1o]

You think its because my gpu has a voltage lock on them, cuz playing game and having multiple windows up will just shut the video cards down

Upgrade to latest 13.4 and see if you get the same issue. Doh forget that I see you have.

Is it all games or just "some"?

 

[kyang03]

Yeah installed it and it happened 3 times last night

 

[kyang03]

One good example what happened was playing gw2 alt tab to check wiki for items and info 4 tabs and boom itll freeze with music still playing then black screen with the no dvi detected, I dont think its my monitor have a benq monitor and it runs fine

 

[kiddagoat]

This is a sign of the infamous TDR error. If the display would show a blue screen, it would be 0x116.

As noted in other posts to this error, this is an issue with the driver in which the card(s) get stuck in a certain power state such as switching from 3D to 2D as you do when you alt-tab out of a game (3D Application) to a web browser (2D Application).

Since you are using Crossfire I am willing to bet that when you are in a game, both cards are active. When you alt-tab out, ULPS will kick in and turn off the 2nd GPU. Well this is also a form of power state switching thus the driver crashes and fails to recover.

I would start with disabling ULPS so that both cards are always on regardless of usage. Google should be able to tell you where in the registry to do this. Also I believe someone made a standalone application to do this as well.

Also, I would attempt to adjust that Power Slider to +20% for both cards under Catalyst Control Center.

If you are using anything like MSI Afterburner, Sapphire Trixx, or other GPU tools, they can sometimes conflict with the driver. Disable it and play your games again.

Since this is Crossfire, as noted in a previous post, remove both cards and try them one at a time. Though unlikely, maybe a bad bridge.

 

[kyang03]

Ok I will try this as always hopes this works, will post update once done and tested

 

[kyang03]

its still doing the same thing, it didnt do it for about 3-5 hours and then i went alt tab and had 2 youtube pages up and it crashes. hmm

 

[Kast]

make sure ulps is fully disabled in your registry. run regedit and find enableulps and make sure values are set to 0. Keep hitting f3 until you get all of them.

 

[kyang03]

yeah ive made sure, i mean im going to keep seeing if it'll crash still

 

[kyang03]

well yeah after testing, it just keeps doing it played game tested it by watching youtube full screen and it freezes and then turns black and says no dvi detected

 

[PopcornMachine]

I was having similar problems, until 13.4 WHQL driver was released.

Was using the last beta driver, and since moving to this one it hasn't' reoccurred.

I see you've already done that. Did you uninstall old driver first?

If not, you might want to delete and reinstall 13.4 again.

 

[kiddagoat]

Update to the lastest BETA driver and just use one video card.

Repeat playing a game and having youtube or something else open.

This is usually a software related issue. Again make sure you have anything like MSI Afterburner or other third party software uninstalled.

Also, have you installed any other hardware (in particularly drivers) other than video recently?? Have you installed any new security software or other software recently?? This includes updates for windows. I would check to see if you ever installed an AMD Display Driver from Microsoft.

 

[kyang03]

ok so this is what i have tried right now im running 13.4 drivers and ive tried using one card no and when going in-game and alt tab open youtube no crash, tried it again using 2 cards crash, swapped cards doing same test to see if maybe something with crossfire?

i dont have any 3rd party program like msi or anything like that just the normal CCC

 

[craigo]

Could it be a plugin issue? you mentioned multi tabs with youtube.
which browser are you using? and can you try a different one with a different engine?
sorry i cannot be of more help.

Hope you solve this.

 

[kyang03]

i mean it only happens when using crossfire which is weird

 

[kyang03]

hmm quick question is there a way to reset clock speeds? i installed guru 2 and it said my card was over clocked and see if i would like reset it back to default?

did that but im not sure if it is back to default

i keep checking it and its on default clocks just like the way it came in but after clicking on the tab that said my gpus were oc and to reset it to default seem to have fixed it for a bit

crashed again, check and hardware acceleration was turned back on

tried it again and well no crash yet so far lets see how long it will go for.