ATI Catalyst 10.3b Preview

[cadaveca]

I tried this too, but had no luck. It's very strange that so many people have the same issues, and slowly, one by one, driver releases fix it. I'm only being extra patient becuase of running eyefinity, but I've even gone to one monitor, and still been subject to the same issues.

After over 6 months of fighting these cards, it's been fun, but I'm almost ready to throw in the towel.

I've gotten really good at flashing drive images in testing though!

 

[Reefer86]

@ cadaveca

well im actually using 2 monitors and only overclock via profiles in MSI afterburner. I had problems from day one. Tbh if these are driver issues my next card might be a Nvidia card (not a 480). This has happened to a few people and i was going to rma my card at one point.
Maybe the drivers are having sync issues so overclocking just makes it even worse.
At one point with so many people having this problem i was thinking that they were having problems with QC over at TSMC.

My problems seem to be sorted. I would try ripping out all your drivers via safe mode and about 5 restarts.

Tbh tho cadaveca i with you on give up with the cards, dam annoying when u got a £300 card that just wont stop flickering and jumping around.

 

[cadaveca]

I'm on a fresh install. I've tested each and every config on a fresh OS over the past week.

oh, and I've not given up the 5870's...just on this particular set of cards. Gone through so many OS'es, cpus, boards, drives, cables, PSU's, and memory since these cards came out...kinda disheartening, but oh well. I have far more patience left yet.

 

[pantherx12]

Your getting load temps that high with idle ambients that low D:


Should be looking around 60-70c under-load with those ambients.

might be worth reseating heatsink + new thermal paste.

unless you've done it already then i've no idea XD

 

[cadaveca]

I've not touched the coolers, and I won't. XFX covers it under warranty, but I know that pulling the pads of the VRMs is not a good idea...been dealing with THAT particular issue since X1800 days, and have no pad material left now.

 

[Reefer86]

well it seems strange that if its a driver issue that why have others not suffered with this and it seems like its only a 5870 issue. I was going to RMA the card but the 10.3b drivers seems to have sorted things out. But if the problem comes back this baby is going for RMA.

Panther this is not thermal issue guarantee that, you can see from my video that im running idle and i have flicker and i idle at around 43c

we are not alone tho shevanel is also having issues with flicker and 2 monitors and overclocking. I was getting flicker with no overclock and one monitor activated. Either way we SHOULD NOT!!! have these issues and its clearly not just down to bad driver installs.

Myabe there is a fault/issue with some 5870's or a bad batch. As it's strange that we are having major issues and others are perfectly fine with there 5870's.

 

[cadaveca]

See, for me, leaving CCC locked, or leaving clocks at deafult with it unlocked, I don't get your flicker, Reefer, but hcaning clocks using CCC I get it, and only on desktop.

I dunno whether it's a batch thing...my cards are like #47 and #53 in XFX serial's(with the same batch code), but 20K apart in AMD #'s.

Don't forget too, that my issues appear when moving clocks from bios default, and a bios with different clocks makes for stability at those clocks. ASUS 850/1200 bios is only good @ 850/1200 and XFX is only good @ 875/1300, 850/1200 on XFX causes issues, and 875/1300 on ASUS causes issues.

AND...only adjusting gpu causes issues, memory clocking has little effect.

 

[pantherx12]

Panther this is not thermal issue guarantee that, you can see from my video that im running idle and i have flicker and i idle at around 43c

Never said it was buddy : ]

His temperatures are still to high though.

 

[ShRoOmAlIsTiC]

sweet these work good for me so far, kinda like the best of everything.

Newer CCC
OpenGL 4.0
and latest Driver.

Fixed my issues of ccc not working with my nvidia as a secondary. I can use stream opencl 2.0.1 driver. Plus the usual no more grey screen or huge mouse cursor. Love these new one. Im glad amd is being more open about there beta drivers now. seeing alot more fixes and they get mroe feed back this way. kinda like what nvidia has been doing for year.

 

[cadaveca]

Never said it was buddy : ]

His temperatures are still to high though.

Yes, I mentioned in another thread I very purposely kept the hottest gpus I could find...but they also have the coolest VRM temps.

 

[subhendu]

guys I am going to use my first ATI card this week..it is 5850...I downloaded 3 drivers 10.3 official version ,10.3a ,and 10.3 b preview drivers....
I am planning to do a fresh windows install...my doubt which driver version is the best to install after windows installation ?(I don't do oc of gpu/cpu/ram...I like running everything in stock settings).

 

[erocker]

Use 10.3 WHQL's with a single card.

 

[pantherx12]

Yes, I mentioned in another thread I very purposely kept the hottest gpus I could find...but they also have the coolest VRM temps.

Is it for room heating purposes?

Then reseating the heatsink is an even better idea.

You see when you get lower GPU temperatures its due to the heat being in the air instead of in the GPU/heat-sink instead : ]

 

[burebista]

Since I have my HD5850 (almost one month) I've tried all beta's and none official (reminiscence from my 10 years of nVidia). Works like a charm here.

 

[Reefer86]

See, for me, leaving CCC locked, or leaving clocks at deafult with it unlocked, I don't get your flicker, Reefer, but hcaning clocks using CCC I get it, and only on desktop.

I dunno whether it's a batch thing...my cards are like #47 and #53 in XFX serial's(with the same batch code), but 20K apart in AMD #'s.

Don't forget too, that my issues appear when moving clocks from bios default, and a bios with different clocks makes for stability at those clocks. ASUS 850/1200 bios is only good @ 850/1200 and XFX is only good @ 875/1300, 850/1200 on XFX causes issues, and 875/1300 on ASUS causes issues.

AND...only adjusting gpu causes issues, memory clocking has little effect.

so, let me just get this right, if u flash to a faster core clock but dont enable CCC you dont see any instability or problems?

 

[cadaveca]

Nope. I still get some flicker in BFBC2, but that 2D flicker you got, it only appears on my cards when clocks are set differnt from the bios default.

I could shoot video right now and show you...I simply move slider to 880 from 875, and flicker appears on desktop, but 875/1300 is fine. Flash to ASUS bios, 850/1200 is fine, but 855/1200 makes for flicker, and the 875/1300 that works fine on XFX doesn't work at all...the flicker is so bad...flash back to XFX bios, 875/1300 is fine.

Why adjusting clocks in CCC causes these issues.. I dunno.

Keep in mind, my cards are XFX XXX cards, so 875/1300 is stock, but even 855/1200 on asus bios, and I get your desktop flicker.


yikes, I'm running in circles here, dunno how else to put it. If I'm confusing, I apologize, had a very intersting day yesterday, let me tell ya.

 

[pantherx12]

Have you tried flashing the cards with a custom bios?

See if you can run at 900 without stutter etc.

 

[erocker]

Nope. I still get some flicker in BFBC2, but that 2D flicker you got, it only appears on my cards when clocks are set differnt from the bios default.

I could shoot video right now and show you...I simply move slider to 880 from 875, and flicker appears on desktop, but 875/1300 is fine. Flash to ASUS bios, 850/1200 is fine, but 855/1200 makes for flicker, and the 875/1300 that works fine on XFX doesn't work at all...the flicker is so bad...flash back to XFX bios, 875/1300 is fine.

Why adjusting clocks in CCC causes these issues.. I dunno.

Keep in mind, my cards are XFX XXX cards, so 875/1300 is stock, but even 855/1200 on asus bios, and I get your desktop flicker.


yikes, I'm running in circles here, dunno how else to put it. If I'm confusing, I apologize, had a very intersting day yesterday, let me tell ya.

I'm almost positive from messing with 2d clocks, that flickering is cause by memory timings of the vram. Certain GPU clock and memory clock configurations will work fine with whatever timings the GDDR5 is at, some will not. For example, if I set my 2d clocks to 300/500, I will get flickering with random things such as window headers, video, etc. At 300/550 it's a little better but still there. 300/560 to 300/585 problem is gone. At 300/590 the flickering starts to show up a little bit again. 300/575 is the "sweet spot" for me. Of course there are almost limitless combinations to try. I went with a 300 core clock just to satisfy my own paradigm of what a GPU clock should be in 2d. Plus going from 175mhz to 300mhz it's like overclocking 2d for 2d apps if that makes sense. The cards will run about 3c warmer at idle this way too.

 

[Reefer86]

well i dont use CCC to overclock as this has caused issues for some people. i leave it 'disabled' and just use MSI afterburner as i find the profiles are easy to use and doesnt cause issues.

I know what u mean seems kinda strange,

i cant get my memory to 1300, ive tried upping voltage many times, unless a flash is needed as the voltage on the memory is separate and a bios 'feature'

 

[pantherx12]

Well your trying to run the ram at an effective clock rate of 5200mhz, that's pretty freaken mad reefer lol

 

[cadaveca]

I'm almost positive from messing with 2d clocks, that flickering is cause by memory timings of the vram. Certain GPU clock and memory clock configurations will work fine with whatever timings the GDDR5 is at, some will not. For example, if I set my 2d clocks to 300/500, I will get flickering with random things such as window headers, video, etc. At 300/550 it's a little better but still there. 300/560 to 300/585 problem is gone. At 300/590 the flickering starts to show up a little bit again. 300/575 is the "sweet spot" for me. Of course there are almost limitless combinations to try. I went with a 300 core clock just to satisfy my own paradigm of what a GPU clock should be in 2d. Plus going from 175mhz to 300mhz it's like overclocking 2d for 2d apps if that makes sense. The cards will run about 3c warmer at idle this way too.

Yeah, I was thinking about this too, but I don't need to touch memory to get this behavior..it seems more a part of the gpu's memory controller that is causing the issue, rather than the memory itself, simply due to losing sync, or somthing, when gpu speed is changed.

Adjusting memory speed does nothing for flicker here. It's only the gpu speed that affects it.

I can run 3d speeds on desktop, and the flicker remains. I've completely disabled clock adjustments via registry and profiles and driver hacks...all to no avail.

well i dont use CCC to overclock as this has caused issues for some people. i leave it 'disabled' and just use MSI afterburner as i find the profiles are easy to use and doesnt cause issues.

I know what u mean seems kinda strange,

i cant get my memory to 1300, ive tried upping voltage many times, unless a flash is needed as the voltage on the memory is separate and a bios 'feature'

I'm going to undertake the testing without CCC and just use afterburner, as I found out a couple of weeks ago that Crossfire was enabled without CCC, and previously, we needed CCC for Crossfire.

Maybe Afterburner will fix the issue for me, I don't know, but at the same time, I'm taking this step by step, and have kept good track of what happens for every change...hopefully it will help them sort the issue...

I should have been able to just install the cards, OS, and been done, as I'm not overclocking a single thing in my rig. But this is my third set of cards now...and a completely new system. Everything is brandnew, out of the box, and everything works fine with any of my other cards. The chances of me getting 6 bad cards are so bloody unlikely..I can't blame that.

 

[Reefer86]

well if your not overclocking then surely you shouldn't have an issue. Sorry i do have CCC installed i just don't use it to over clock at all.

@panther i know its preety crazy but others have done it so i want to be able to. and the xfx xxx run at 875/1300. i know they might just be cherry picked cards but i wanted to try atleast. maybe i will try flashing to that bios and see how it goes.

Tbh im happy tho with my 950/1250

 

[Steevo]

I'm almost positive from messing with 2d clocks, that flickering is cause by memory timings of the vram. Certain GPU clock and memory clock configurations will work fine with whatever timings the GDDR5 is at, some will not. For example, if I set my 2d clocks to 300/500, I will get flickering with random things such as window headers, video, etc. At 300/550 it's a little better but still there. 300/560 to 300/585 problem is gone. At 300/590 the flickering starts to show up a little bit again. 300/575 is the "sweet spot" for me. Of course there are almost limitless combinations to try. I went with a 300 core clock just to satisfy my own paradigm of what a GPU clock should be in 2d. Plus going from 175mhz to 300mhz it's like overclocking 2d for 2d apps if that makes sense. The cards will run about 3c warmer at idle this way too.

I know exactly what you are talking about. Through much testing there are certain combinations of core/mem speeds that cause issues, or that are just unusable.

Voltage has nothing or little to do with it, just the hardware data expected time VS delivery time IMHO.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

i hope this works for me i have flicker on desktop and Really bad flicker in bad company 2.
If this doesnt work the card is going back for RMA on monday.

I made a clip, let me know what you think. BTW i swore half way through the vid just so ya know

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KspuyiuVhs

glad to see you got it fixed - I had the same issue on 10.2 & it only occured when I overclocked my ram on my 4870 - but since ive been running 10.3's its been perfect - my overclocks are back & they are working great 800/1000.

My current drivers of choice are 10.3a's with no CrossFire profile installed. The profile seems to screw things up since I have no problems without it.

yeah the crossfire profile mucked up my BC2 as well so I uninstalled it & everything was gravy.

----

I still get 'flickering' water/textures.

so still waiting on a fix for that. faster load times would be sweet too.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

i hope this works for me i have flicker on desktop and Really bad flicker in bad company 2.
If this doesnt work the card is going back for RMA on monday.

I made a clip, let me know what you think. BTW i swore half way through the vid just so ya know

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KspuyiuVhs

reefer it IS a driver issue of sorts i have the same issue running dual monitors that you see there but ONLY at the 2d clocks that ati has set of power saving those that see it when overclocking it seems overclocking causes power play or w/e to freak out even more basically if you want it gone your going to need to flash the cards clocks for its different states. im able to live with it as is so no big deal