ASUS HD7750-1GD5: desktop artifacts and problems after stand-by

[midix]

Hi guys.

This is my first post here and I'm sorry that it is about a problem I have.

I consider myself occasional gamer and mostly I play strategies and simulations. Also I'm programmer and recently I decided to do some fun stuff with 3D. Previously I had ASUS AMD 3650 series video card, and I thought that it is pretty weak and outdated, so I would like to have something better. Some months ago I bought ASUS HD7750-1GD5. From various reviews it appeared to be good enough for my needs and my budget.

On the very first day I noticed some issues with this card.

1) It has problems to wake up after "sleeping". I mean, when I have been away for a long time, my computer turns off the monitor as specified in display settings. Previously I could just move the mouse or press any key, and the monitor woke up. But now my monitor says "No signal", no matter how hard I try. The programs are working though. Funny thing - if I have a movie player opened, I can resume/stop playback by pressing spacebar, but the monitor still says "No signal".

The only way to wake up the monitor is by hitting keys Window+L to lock the desktop. Then the monitor immediately wakes up, shows the login screen and I can continue working on my computer.

2) After booting or resume from hibernate or sleep, the login screen is totally corrupted mess of colors. But when I move the mouse, my login account image appears, I can click on it, and when I log in, my desktop is completely normal, no signs of any problems.

3) A few times a day I notice a short horizontal flickering line (10-20 centimeters). It is about 1 pixel high and it flickers slowly and irregularly for 5-10 seconds, and then it goes away by itself. It always goes away if I cause redraw of the current application - minimize and restore. It does not depend on any particular application, I've noticed it in Skype, in Google Chrome, in PDF reader...

There were no such issues with my previous AMD 3650, nor with Intel HD 2000 integrated into i3 on my Gigabyte motherboard. I did not overclock, everything runs as out of the box. I tried to remove the new video card and work with Intel HD 2000 for a week - no issues.

Nevertheless, the card seems rock stable, no BSODs, no artifacts when gaming. I'm using my PC also for work, thus it is online for ~10 hours every day.

Here are the specs of my system:

Motherboard: Gigabyte ga-h67a-usb3-b3
CPU: i3-2120
GPU: ASUS HD7750-1GD5
RAM: Kingston 4x2 = 8GB
OS: Windows 7 Professional 64 bit

Video drivers: Catalyst 13.6 (I have tried various versions, but still have the same issues. Is there any chance that they have fixed something in their latest drivers? It's not easy to find out when they update just Catalyst applications and when there are actual changes in the drivers themselves).

I have seen a related thread here:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2242437

but I'm not sure if the causes of my problems are the same and how do I test if any changes I do in GPU Tweak will help, because the mentioned issues are hard to repeat (except maybe the stand-by problem).

Do you have any ideas, what should I try first?

 

[TheGoat Eater]

I would suggest trying to change sleep states in bios - I don't put mine to sleep so I am rusty on what the differences are... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Configuration_and_Power_Interface

Thought you might start there

 

[midix]

As far as I understand, its not exactly sleep state, but simple display off - hard drives are spinning and system is working, but only the display is sleeping. It's in the Power options. I have the following:

Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Power Options\Edit Plan Settings
Turn off the display = 20 minutes
Pute the computer to sleep = Never

All my other video adapters had no problems waking up, but this new 7750 does have a problem with "Turn off the display".

Yesterday I updated drivers and today the display woke up correctly, so maybe they've fixed this issue. We'll see if I'll have any failures this week.

But the horizontal line appeared again today :|

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Two things come to mind:

1) I would just change the stupid "sleep" option - it's pointless, anyway, especially in SSD-equipped machines. You don't need it, and I suspect it does more harm than good.

2) The flicker you describe sounds very much like something experienced by some Gigabyte cards, see here: http://forums.redflagdeals.com/ncix...b-ddr3-lp-dx11-video-card-12-99-ar-1289999/3/

Check for a BIOS update; failing that, contact ASUS for a RMA.

 

[midix]

In the thread
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2242437
people mention that various flickering issues might be caused by the video card reverting to low CPU / memory clock settings when in 2D mode.

I tried to follow the advices in that thread. I have ASUS GPU Tweak installed and there is a problem. I set CPU to 400MHz (by default it's 300) for 2D, and GPU-Z immediately shows that the GPU is inded in 400MHz mode. But as soon as I close GPU Tweak, GPU-Z shows that GPU again is 300MHz. How do I make those settings persist? Do I have to keep GPU Tweak running to make those 2D overclock settings persistent?

 

[midix]

So I tried to get right into Catalyst and forget about GPU Tweak.

With the latest Catalyst I had a problem that I could not enable Overdrive - it just disappeared after I clicked Accept button. I found the following instructions which helped me:

Here is another simple solution that fixed the OverDrive page for me:
In regedit navigate to:
HKCU\Software\ATI\ACE\Settings

Right click on the Settings key, select Permissions then Advanced.
Make sure your account has full access, and check "Replace all child object permissions with inheritable permissions from this object".
Click OK and OK to apply the changes.
Restart the CCC process (relogin/reboot/kill it).

Then I had to edit profiles.xml file in C:\Users\myusername\AppData\Local\ATI\ACE
and after that, set it to read-only so the CCC does not overwrite it.

At first I tried GPU/RAM speeds as 400/200 MHz, but for some weird reason CCC set the RAM to max 115000. So I decided that it does not like those values, and as recommended in one forum for 7770, I set it to 500/800 MHz. Now GPU-Z confirms that these settings are correct. Let's hope these settings will help get rid of those horizontal lines.

But Catalyst does not keep Overdrive on after reboot, so now I have 300/150 again - I have to open Catalyst and check that "Enable Graphics Overdrive" checkbox after each reboot. Is there any way to force those 2D frequencies to stick between reboots?