A few hardware / CCC questions

[Assimilator]

1. I have a 24" 1920x1200 monitor set as my primary display in Windows and a 19" 1280x1024 as secondary. Primary is connected via HDMI, secondary via DVI. As the image shows, CCC detects the displays in opposite order, which means the 19" often gets signal before the 24" (e.g. on bootup/exit screen power-saving mode). Is this due to my video card and/or CCC preferring DVI over HDMI and is there a way I can change this?

2. Since I have a 6950 flashed to a 6970, I have set the "Power control settings" to +20% in the Overdrive section of CCC. However this setting does not seem to stick and I often find it has reverted back to the default of 0, is there any way to "lock" it?

3. There is a bug in the ATI drivers that prevents cards running multiple monitors, from dropping to their lowest power-saving clock speeds. According to my card's BIOS its idle clocks are 250/150, but accordign to GPU-Z when the card is "idling" it uses the UVD clocks of 500/1375 and never goes lower. I intend to edit the card's BIOS, drop the UVD values to something a bit more reasonable (300/500) and reflash - is this recommended or is there an easier/better way to get the card to run at the clocks it should, at least until ATI fixes their drivers?

 

[digibucc]

i'd just use a profile saving piece of software if it works for you, that's always better
than bios flashing if you can help it.

msi afterburner i think is one. ati tool/tray tools... someone will list them all in a few seconds i'm sure.

unless you use the audio in hdmi, use dvi instead, that should make it easier to fix.
i have had it mess up a few times, but usually it's the hdmi that steals it from the dvi

for the 20% thing, make a profile, save it, set it to be the default. when the card loses
power those settings reset. that could also help the which is set to first, just force it to
use the hdmi one and save the profile, it'll be used when you start.

 

[cadaveca]

3. There is a bug in the ATI drivers that prevents cards running multiple monitors, from dropping to their lowest power-saving clock speeds. According to my card's BIOS its idle clocks are 250/150, but accordign to GPU-Z when the card is "idling" it uses the UVD clocks of 500/1375 and never goes lower. I intend to edit the card's BIOS, drop the UVD values to something a bit more reasonable (300/500) and reflash - is this recommended or is there an easier/better way to get the card to run at the clocks it should, at least until ATI fixes their drivers?

This is not a bug, and will NEVER be fixed. W1zz explained it best...the higher speed is required, as teh monitors do not refresh at the exact same time..it's more like on, and then the other, and the lower speeds were causing artifacting and flicker due to this.

So it's higher clocks, or artifacts.


As to the "powertune" setting, this is only needed if your card is throttling while under load. You merely need to adjsut the slider ot the point that the clocks do not throttle, and setting it higher than needed does not have any real effect.

 

[Assimilator]

This is not a bug, and will NEVER be fixed. W1zz explained it best...the higher speed is required, as teh monitors do not refresh at the exact same time..it's more like on, and then the other, and the lower speeds were causing artifacting and flicker due to this.

So it's higher clocks, or artifacts.

Do you have a link to that explanation?

As to the "powertune" setting, this is only needed if your card is throttling while under load. You merely need to adjsut the slider ot the point that the clocks do not throttle, and setting it higher than needed does not have any real effect.

But doesn't the memory throttle without reporting that it's doing so? I remember reading that GDDR5 auto-throttles if it detects errors (i.e. not enough volts/too high OC) and there's no way to detect this...

 

[cadaveca]

Do you have a link to that explanation?

I'd have to search all of W1zz's posts to find it. Unfortunately I do not have the time to do so. I guess the most direct way to go is ask AMD directly why they did this...I mean, it's been like this for over a year now, and htat's alot of posts to search.

But doesn't the memory throttle without reporting that it's doing so? I remember reading that GDDR5 auto-throttles if it detects errors (i.e. not enough volts/too high OC) and there's no way to detect this...

That's something else that powertune doesn't deal with, As far as I know, Powertune is for the GPU, not the mem. If you haven't seen the behavior, then chances are your adjustments of powertune do nothing, however, I have seen the cards do it, and then stop, once the powertune limit is increased.

 

[Assimilator]

I found W1zz's explanation. What's weird to me is that ATI's display logic is supposedly superior, yet they cannot get this right, while nVidia cards don't have the same problem with high res/multiple monitors.

I've decided to flash the BIOS anyway to drop the clocks in "idle" mode (already flashed this card from a 6950 to a 6970 so not an issue for me). 450/600 should be fast enough for any HD content.

 

[Assimilator]

I've decided to flash the BIOS anyway to drop the clocks in "idle" mode (already flashed this card from a 6950 to a 6970 so not an issue for me). 450/600 should be fast enough for any HD content.

... which, of course, doesn't work because of ATI driver limitations: http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2266894&postcount=14

So MSI Afterburner it is.

 

[cadaveca]

As far as I understand it, the only thing you shouldn't change in BIOS is the clocks...however, you can mod volts and CCC Overdrive limits just fine. Then use CCC to clock ,and you don't need afterburner.