flickering!!!

[travva]

hey guys i've got a 3 monitor setup which i'm currently NOT using eyefinity for and i am getting constant flickering. mainly on my left and right monitor. i disabled ulps to see if that fixed it. no such luck. i'm sure this has been discussed a billion times but is there an easy way to fix this? i'm using asus smartdoctor btw to OC as it does voltage control for my 5850's.

 

[t_ski]

I notice some flickering around the task bar, but it's usually when videos or animated image files are playing. What CATs are you using?

 

[travva]

10.11's as of now but it doesn't make much difference. you recommend any others?

 

[Avarice]

I've been getting the same thing over the last couple of days usually when i have steam open and ATI overdrive enabled, seems to have stopped now after i dissabled overdrive

 

[t_ski]

10.11's as of now but it doesn't make much difference. you recommend any others?

I'm on 10.9's and was wondering if yours were the same.

I've been getting the same thing over the last couple of days usually when i have steam open and ATI overdrive enabled, seems to have stopped now after i dissabled overdrive

I have overdrive disabled on mine.

 

[Avarice]

i was on the 10.11's ive moved back to 10.10 and the flickering seems to have stopped

 

[Techtu]

Are these monitor's new? They could be defective straight out of the box..

 

[cadaveca]

Try monitoring clock changes when the flicker occurs.

 

[micropage7]

what about screen refresh rate, try change that
could be that

 

[cadaveca]

what about screen refresh rate, try change that
could be that

Unfortunately not. Monitors are 1920x1080/60hz native.

 

[travva]

yeah it's not the monitors guys. it's definitely something screwy w/ ati drivers. dave do you know of a fix for it short of modding my bios?

 

[cadaveca]

Buy nVidia?

 

[travva]

it's funny you say that because if the stars align i'm gonna trade/sell some of these extra monitors and go back to green again! gtx580 w00t

 

[cadaveca]

Given this issue has been around now for over a year, as well as other issues, I'm about to jump ship as well. Already dumped AMD motherboards and cpus...

Sorry, AMD, but currently your products are the worst that I have ever had the displeasure of owning. I'd love for things to just work right...I had a tonne of high-end parts, boards, cpus, PSUs, etc...and because of the NUMEROUS problems I faced using AMD products over the past 14 months+, I had to sell it all and start over...without the AMD products.

 

[travva]

yeah i definitely regret going amd/ati for my video cards. i should have learned my lesson after i switched from amd over to intel and was impressed.

 

[cadaveca]

I can deal with the odd issue. What really gets me is that people that are buying stuff now, like the 6-series cards, are still faced with the same issues from the 5-series that I've been dealing with for far longer than I should have.

Personally, after spending so much time with these products and the issues, I stand by my conclusion that it's a hardware design flaw based in the display output hardware, and as such, will not be fixed for multi-monitor users until the hardware changes.

And that really sucks.

 

[jasper1605]

That's so odd that you get flickering on your stuff. I've not once had a flicker on my screens running 5760x1200 resolution on a single 5850 toxic edition. I'm using cat 10.8 too. I'm sorry to see you're having problems with it though But out of curiosity is everyone who has experienced flicker using 1920x1080 or has it happened w/ 1920x1200 monitors as well?

 

[cadaveca]

That's so odd that you get flickering on your stuff. I've not once had a flicker on my screens running 5760x1200 resolution on a single 5850 toxic edition. I'm using cat 10.8 too. I'm sorry to see you're having problems with it though But out of curiosity is everyone who has experienced flicker using 1920x1080 or has it happened w/ 1920x1200 monitors as well?

Good info, Jasper.

I have 2560x1600 monitor as well, I should try using it as secondary, to see what's up, but I am so beyond trying to find the problem...

I am currently using 2x1920x1080 monitors, and only the secondary monitor flickers. I've tried differnt cables, tried HDMI/DP/DVI, etc..

I know that clock changes, at least in my instance, cause the flicker, and I also know that idle clocks are totally nerfed, as they drop LOWER when playing hardware-accelerated video content. Why idle clocks are HIGHER than loaded clocks...well..should indicate that AMD is having serious problems here.

Anyway, the flicker is due to the clocks jumping up and down(Even if they just change once), and I seem to recall W1zzard saying it had to do with that exactly, as each monitor, while having the same refresh rate, does not refresh at the exact same time, and the flicker is caused by a partial frame being rendered on the secondary monitor when the clocks change. The flicker takes place at the edge of the data already rendered for that frame...

When the clocks adjust, the refresh is re-sync'd, and this re-training isn't fast enough to be hidden by clockspeed on secondary monitors(as it happens on the primary as well, but the clockspeed covers it up).

With that in mind, even the cursor corruption makes sense to me, and leads me to the belief that each and every multi-monitor config needs a customized profile for the monitors used, and because of the near limitless combinations of monitors possible, this is not very likely to ever happen.

Personally, I'm waiting for them to release the multi-stream DP1.2 boxes for the 6-series cards, and at that point, if it's fixed using that external device, I may pick up another AMD VGA, but that's not very likely...the pictures of the "GTX595" with 3xDVI ports interests me far more, at this point. The fact that these boxes are even palnned, at this point, really highlights that there is a problem here that AMD isn't exactly acknowledging.

 

[t_ski]

My monitors are 1920x1200, and my flickering has gotten worse since I decided to let Steam update me to 10.11. Finally I had enough.

This morning I uninstall the 10.11 and ran Driver Sweeper, then installed the 10.5's I was using before. One thing I noticed before the uninstall was started was that the main GPU core (out of 4) was running at 157MHz (I think the other three were at 400MHz), where they used to run at 400MHz. This probably explains why my GPU temps were idling up to 3 degrees lower than before.

Now that I'm back on the 10.5's, the main core is again at 400MHz (the others idle at 735MHz), and temps are up again slightly. As of right now, I have no flickering, but I will keep an eye on this and let everyone know if it comes back.

Can others with this issue check their core speeds and try reverting back to an older driver to see if this fixes it?

 

[cadaveca]

I think you need to pay attention to memory speed more than core speed. OR maybe the timings between the two...


Because my cards are almost always @ 400/1250 idle(600/900 UVD), and I get flicker, but it's the memory clocks shifting that cause the flicker.

So, if anything is gpu-accelerated, even if it's some flash or something, flicker flicker as it's either loaded or unloaded from memory.

Core speed, IMHO, has little to do with it, and that's why it's been an ongoing problem for so long...AMD is focusing on the wrong thing.


EDIT: Want the only real fix? Run 3D speeds 24/7.

 

[t_ski]

I never saw any change in memory speeds. Whenever I run GPUz, it only shows full speed for both the core and ram, and the same for Afterburner.

 

[cadaveca]

Ha!

Would be nice if there was a single issue here, now wouldn't it?




I have resigned myself to the fact that these cards are buggy, and try to ignore the problems. The magic driver i have been waiting for has yet to appear, but games play fairly well, so while it's annoying, I'll deal with it until a better card comes along.

 

[jasper1605]

so while it's annoying, I'll deal with it until a better card comes along.

There's the spirit!

I'm very curious as to what causes this in some computers and not others is still...