Fixed: Yeah, not happy with this HD6950 (excessive heat with multimonitor problem)

[darkswordsman17]

What OS are you guys using? I wonder if maybe something is being accelerated or something (possibly something that your previous card wasn't). The explanation about the change could definitely be part of it.

There was an article linked to in one of the threads on here about the changes made to 2D in Vista and Windows 7, and that makes me think that with beefier hardware the OS might be going to more aggressive 2D settings or just enabling features that weren't available on the old card possibly. You might look up some tweaks for that and see if it helps any.

Also, do you possibly have anything running in the background (say widgets or things like that)?

Did disabling the AA help any with temps/noise?

Also, were you maybe using some third party application like UltraMon or something?

 

[WelshBloke]

Welsh, download MSI Afterburner 2.1 Beta 5 and set 2 profiles.

Leave it at stock for 3D Apps (Hit apply, save it as #1)

Then set the clock speed to 600MHZ and the memory speed to 935MHz (Hit apply, save as #2)

Go to settings>Profiles> Assign profile 1 to 3D, assign profile 2 to 2D> OK

See if that changes the temps.

Clocks are lower than that already, plus it dosnt work anyway.

What OS are you guys using? I wonder if maybe something is being accelerated or something (possibly something that your previous card wasn't).

Also, were you maybe using some third party application like UltraMon or something?

Win7 x64, nothing running that wasn't running with my old card.

 

[ZimZum]

not my 5770 I don't know if that is just luck but i have never had problems running multiple monitors

The 5770 is such a low power low heat card to begin with. The power/temp increase when using dual displays probably wouldn't be noticeable unless you were measuring for it.

 

[mnewsham]

mnewsham, if you upgraded your drivers to something recent you'd probably experience the same issues. I remember (poorly) the hubbub from this issue a couple months back and the fix came via drivers increasing the clock speed when the second monitor was attached. *Some* people had flickering with dual monitors (since the 5xxx series underclocked so aggressively on the desktop), causing them to whine about it, likewise causing AMD management to call in this simple fix.

im using 10.12 drivers

 

[mnewsham]

The 5770 is such a low power low heat card to begin with. The power/temp increase when using dual displays probably wouldn't be noticeable unless you were measuring for it.

wouldn't a low powered card need to use MORE power to do the same thing as a high powered card? (i.e. a more noticeable increase in temp on the already lower temp card)

 

[Nox51]

There aren't that many reviews that tested multi-monitor setups, probably didn't bring them to light.

And yes I remember quite a few problems previously with cards down clocking very aggressively and flickering on the second monitor.

 

[Makaveli]

You have to go forward into the future. Nvidia and AMD are working on it but there will always be higher clocks with a 2nd display.

Consider the improvement that Nvidia made with drivers from THG link:

I find that interesting because i'm on a 4890 with the new preview drivers on dual monitors.

And my idle clocks are the same as in single monitor mode.

 

[apoppin]

I find that interesting because i'm on a 4890 with the new preview drivers on dual monitors.

And my idle clocks are the same as in single monitor mode.

How is tessellation on that 4890? Can you do 3 displays at once? eyefinity?
... no?

When i said you have to go into the future to the OP, i was referring *specifically* to a time in the FUTURE when these issues may be minimized by driver improvements.

Just because the OP is wailing about these issues does not mean that everyone else feels the same way about progress. i am sorry that he has mismatched displays. He could probably use a 2nd card to drive the display without these clocking up issues - or just send the new card back for a refund and use an older card like yours .. or buy matched displays.

i thought *everyone* knew about these issues. But then you guys are mostly only one forum. HardOCP members have been complaining about these issues for many months .. and the complaints are much less of late
.. in my book that IS progress and i expect things will get a bit better as drivers continue to mature. But they will never be perfect with the displays the OP has.
:\

 

[Makaveli]

If I close my eyes when i run the benchmarks for tessellation I got 2x fermi performance

I know its an older card just saying it works on Hd 4xxx series with the newest drivers!

Also i'm using the same branded monitors and same res on both.

i'm looking to go 6950 aswell and flash it to 6970 will let you know if I run into the same issue.

 

[WelshBloke]

How is tessellation on that 4890? Can you do 3 displays at once? eyefinity?
... no?

When i said you have to go into the future to the OP, i was referring *specifically* to a time in the FUTURE when these issues may be minimized by driver improvements.

Just because the OP is wailing about these issues does not mean that everyone else feels the same way about progress. i am sorry that he has mismatched displays. He could probably use a 2nd card to drive the display without these clocking up issues - or just send the new card back for a refund and use an older card like yours .. or buy matched displays.

i thought *everyone* knew about these issues. But then you guys are mostly only one forum. HardOCP members have been complaining about these issues for many months .. and the complaints are much less of late
.. in my book that IS progress and i expect things will get a bit better as drivers continue to mature. But they will never be perfect with the displays the OP has.
:\

Nice


So you think that somehow tessellation has something to do with AMD/NV not being able to make a card run two monitors properly? Or eyefinity? If not why are you bring up those subjects?

How long have these problems been happening? And why should they fix it with a driver hack when its AFAIK a hardware problem?

Sorry to wail about a rather obvious problem with my new hardware that cost quite a lot of money but I thought thats what these forums were for. And I still dont see how its progress when the newer cards behave worse than the old ones.

I'm not sorry I have mismatched displays, I like them this way, they fit nicely on my desk while giving me more desktop. I am sorry that AMD have chosen to not support this arrangement properly, I'm also sorry that this wasn't mentioned in any of the reviews I've read. Whats the point in having professional reviewers if I have to turn to forum members for any useful advice?

How the hell would I know the full extent of this issue, you didnt mention it in your review, neither did Anandtech or [H]ard.

And you think its progress that people stop complaining about a problem rather than the problem be fixed? Who exactly are you writing your reviews for? The consumers or the manufactures?

 

[Modular]

WelshBloke,
I believe the change from the old (working) generations to the new (busted) behavior with dual screens occurs because GPUs before the ATI x2xxx series used dedicated 2d hardware while everything is done in Shaders now. I may be wrong on the generation of hardware, but that'd be my conjecture for why there is such a massive change in temperature with the extra screen. [This is also partially why 2d acceleration took a step back with the advent of general purpose hardware, iirc]. Using the same monitors alleviates the issue by sharing resources (only need to generate 1 clock signal, probably share same space in memory, etc) if I'd have to guess.

An excellent first post from someone who signed up over a year ago...where have you been?!

Welsh, have you tried Rivatuner yet?

It's a fantastic tool that I use to lower my clocks on my 4850 at idle as well as to overclock the card. I believe there is a way to set 2D and 3D performance levels, but I'm not sure as I don't mind changing them manually. Give it a shot. I know it works with the latest ATI drivers (because I'm currently using them), but I don't know if it works with your card.

Just for comparison, on my 4850, it lets me decrease the core clocks to 300 and the memory as well (I just can't remember to what). That should yield significant power and heat savings for you.

To the rest, I think that you have to take into consideration what Imported and Nox51 have to say about the way that these modern cards work in general, as well as their downclocking efforts to reduce power.

 

[WelshBloke]

An excellent first post from someone who signed up over a year ago...where have you been?!

Welsh, have you tried Rivatuner yet?

It's a fantastic tool that I use to lower my clocks on my 4850 at idle as well as to overclock the card. I believe there is a way to set 2D and 3D performance levels, but I'm not sure as I don't mind changing them manually. Give it a shot. I know it works with the latest ATI drivers (because I'm currently using them), but I don't know if it works with your card.

Just for comparison, on my 4850, it lets me decrease the core clocks to 300 and the memory as well (I just can't remember to what). That should yield significant power and heat savings for you.

To the rest, I think that you have to take into consideration what Imported and Nox51 have to say about the way that these modern cards work in general, as well as their downclocking efforts to reduce power.

Afterburner cant downclock this card (at least not for me) and it gets updated more often than rivatuner (I think).

Thats pretty much what I did with my old card (or rather the card I'm going back to).

 

[Qbah]

If you really want to try downclocking, my suggestion is to extract your BIOS using atiflash, back it up and use RBE to change the idle values for 2 screens to the desired numbers. It sounds complex, but I did it many many times and didn't have a single issue with it. Not to mention your card has 2 BIOSes - and one is write-protected, so you can't really bork your card. If your clocks are too low, try higher values and retest. If none of the lowered values work, just flash back the original one that you backed up - using a 3rd party tool to downclock it won't work if the BIOS method also causes screen tearing and jerkiness. Also, you won't need any extra tools if there will be a combination of core+memory that iwll work for you.

As for which tool worked for me for downclocking? Only the new Sapphire Trixx software could do it - MSI Afterburner and something else. None of them allowed to lower memory clocks to a lower value than the "default" one with 2 screens. The lowest I could go on the core was still higher what was running at default too. Only Sapphire Trixx allowed me to force my Radeon down to 157 / 300 (and many values up to 400 / 1125) - none of them were usable though (same results with flashing my BIOS - did it like 20 times in one day ).

 

[apoppin]

Nice


So you think that somehow tessellation has something to do with AMD/NV not being able to make a card run two monitors properly? Or eyefinity? If not why are you bring up those subjects?

How long have these problems been happening? And why should they fix it with a driver hack when its AFAIK a hardware problem?

Sorry to wail about a rather obvious problem with my new hardware that cost quite a lot of money but I thought thats what these forums were for. And I still dont see how its progress when the newer cards behave worse than the old ones.

I'm not sorry I have mismatched displays, I like them this way, they fit nicely on my desk while giving me more desktop. I am sorry that AMD have chosen to not support this arrangement properly, I'm also sorry that this wasn't mentioned in any of the reviews I've read. Whats the point in having professional reviewers if I have to turn to forum members for any useful advice?

How the hell would I know the full extent of this issue, you didnt mention it in your review, neither did Anandtech or [H]ard.

And you think its progress that people stop complaining about a problem rather than the problem be fixed? Who exactly are you writing your reviews for? The consumers or the manufactures?

They now support THREE monitors.
- that IS progress .. and you can game across all three as a single display .. i love it!!

Again, i write these reviews for ABT's readers - and they are like me, particularly interested in gaming performance. i don't use multi-monitor for myself in productivity; i only use 3 displays for gaming; particularly racing games. ONE 30" 2560x1600 LCD is plenty for me for other than gaming.

ABT forum knows about these issues; no one there really cares. HardOCP forum has been covering this for AGES - they Do care. i guess you would have known if you had done a search. Several other major tech sites including THG covered this thoroughly.


Again, the problems are getting alleviated - albeit slowly by drivers; the extremes in the clocks are fixed for matched displays and a little better for mismatched ones like yours. i never said it would be fully fixed.

 

[WelshBloke]

They now support THREE monitors.
- that IS progress .. and you can game across all three as a single display .. i love it!!

They just only support one arrangement of monitors (identical resolutions and refresh rates), and its great that you love that but its got nothing to do with this thread.

Again, i write these reviews for ABT's readers - and they are like me, particularly interested in gaming performance. i don't use multi-monitor for myself in productivity; i only use 3 displays for gaming; particularly racing games. ONE 30" 2560x1600 LCD is plenty for me for other than gaming.

So what, you disable all your other monitors when youre at your desktop, or your computer is literally only used for playing games? And agin thats fine for you but its still got nothing to do with this thread and dosnt make the cards any less broken.

ABT forum knows about these issues; no one there really cares. HardOCP forum has been covering this for AGES - they Do care. i guess you would have known if you had done a search. Several other major tech sites including THG covered this thoroughly.

Right so we should ignore the reviewers as they don't do their jobs properly and just read the forums. Ok, but thats a strange spin on things coming from a reviewer.

Again, the problems are getting alleviated - albeit slowly by drivers; the extremes in the clocks are fixed for matched displays and a little better for mismatched ones like yours. i never said it would be fully fixed.

Any driver fix is never going to work that well if the hardware is borked, and they will never bother to fix it if people dont make a fuss about it.

 

[busydude]

They just only support one arrangement of monitors (identical resolutions and refresh rates), and its great that you love that but its got nothing to do with this thread.

Umm, no.

 

[WelshBloke]

Umm, no.

Umm, yes.

You go run more than one monitor with a differing res than your primary, take a look at your temps and then get back to me, ok?

 

[busydude]

You go run more than one monitor with a differing res than your primary, take a look at your temps and then get back to me, ok?

Is that your definition of support? I see. Anyway.. I have no temp issues that you speak of.. even while gaming my both cards never go beyond 80C.. and they idle at 45C.

How are your ambient temps BTW?

 

[WelshBloke]

Is that your definition of support? I see. Anyway.. I have no temp issues that you speak of.. even while gaming my both cards never go beyond 80C.. and they idle at 45C.

How are your ambient temps BTW?

If something has been broken for several generations with no real fix apart from some driver level bandaids then I'd call that a lack of support.

Its nice that you have no temp issue, I too have no temp issue with one monitor and idle in the low 40's, as soon as I connect the other one however... How are yours with"mismatched monitors"?

My ambients are fine, I live in the UK and we are having a cold, hard winter at the moment.

 

[mnewsham]

If something has been broken for several generations with no real fix apart from some driver level bandaids then I'd call that a lack of support.

Its nice that you have no temp issue, I too have no temp issue with one monitor and idle in the low 40's, as soon as I connect the other one however... How are yours with"mismatched monitors"?

My ambients are fine, I live in the UK and we are having a cold, hard winter at the moment.

my mis matched monitors are doing good at around 45c at the moment

 

[apoppin]

They just only support one arrangement of monitors (identical resolutions and refresh rates), and its great that you love that but its got nothing to do with this thread.

Actually it has everything to do with my readers. And since you called me out specifically, i am explaining why *i* bench the way that i do.

So what, you disable all your other monitors when youre at your desktop, or your computer is literally only used for playing games? And agin thats fine for you but its still got nothing to do with this thread and dosnt make the cards any less broken.

You are the ONLY one on ATF that has complained. Perhaps you should venture beyond here. i NEVER use multi-monitor except for Surround or Eyefinity for gaming. And when i tried mismatched multi-monitor for productivity, i did not get the extreme issues that you have.

Right so we should ignore the reviewers as they don't do their jobs properly and just read the forums. Ok, but thats a strange spin on things coming from a reviewer.

Strawman. i didn't say that. Check my answer above.

Any driver fix is never going to work that well if the hardware is borked, and they will never bother to fix it if people dont make a fuss about it.

Perhaps they will never fix it completely on 40nm. However, it IS getting better with drivers.


Finally, get rid of your beta drivers and install the WHQL Cat 10-12s without the preview CCC crap and see if you have the same extremes.
-- you can also install another video card to run your second display or you can set one of your monitors to the same resolution and refresh as the other one.

 

[WelshBloke]

my mis matched monitors are doing good at around 45c at the moment

You're using 5770's, yes? Crossfire?

It would be good for me if I can find out the most powerful setup that works properly.

 

[alienate]

I would wait for one more driver release before writing your setup off. The Cayman's were rushed out so am sure they overlooked some things.

 

[WelshBloke]

Actually it has everything to do with my readers. And since you called me out specifically, i am explaining why *i* bench the way that i do.

I'm not "calling you out" anymore than addressing someone thats responding to my thread. I'm also one of your readers.

You are the ONLY one on ATF that has complained. Perhaps you should venture beyond here.

Do we have to reach a quorum here before we are aloud to complain about something?

Strawman. i didn't say that. Check my answer above.

You specifically told me to read forums and not rely on reviewers.

Perhaps they will never fix it. However, it is getting better with drivers


finally, get rid of your beta drivers and install the Cat 10-12s without the preview CCC crap

I'm not using the preview CCC, apparently it doesn't support the 69x0 cards. I've tried the 10:12's and th 10:12 hotfix drivers, both with the same result.

I'd also appreciate it if you could dial back the attitude and maybe the use of bold. It doesn't strengthen your argument and certainly doesn't help solve my problem.

 

[WelshBloke]

I would wait for one more driver release before writing your setup off. The Cayman's were rushed out so am sure they overlooked some things.

I have 7 days to return the card without giving a reason, after that I'm relying on RMA's and warranties. I'd rather not bet on that.