MSI 7970 LIGHTNING's - Microstutter/Flickering - Anyone else have this?

[Malachor]

Hi All,

I've been experiencing microstutter/flickering since building my new machine some 5 months ago. I have 2 x MSI
7970 Lightning’s in Crossfire on a Rampage IV Extreme mobo (BIOS 4004) with 2 x Iiyama Prolite 24" 1920 x 1080 (60hz) Monitors. It is most prevalent when browsing. There will be a flicker/tearing towards the top of the screen, then the bottom and it will occur completely randomly. This also occurs in games (Skyrim, Diablo 3 etc). It does NOT occur during benchmarks however (Heaven, Kombustor etc), which is the strangest thing. Here's what I have & haven't tried so far to resolve this:

What I have tried:

1) Doing a full system rebuild 3 times: SSD Secure Erase. Clean OS install, all Microsoft Patches, latest
motherboard chipset drivers from ASUS Website and latest AMD 13.6 BETA Drivers (no CAP) installed - makes no
difference.
2) Setting CCC "Wait for vertical refresh" to "always on" and "always of" - makes no difference.
3) Setting refresh rate in CCC to 59hz/60hz (only options available at 1920 x 1080, but it will allow 75hz at
lower res; and changing to this seems to make the issue occur much less, but looks terrible) - makes no
difference.
4) Using MSI Afterburner s/w to limit frame rate to 60fps on a global system scale - makes no difference.
5) Disabling/Enabling ULPS using a 3rd-party tool to make the registry changes for me (reboots in between) -
makes no difference.
6) Disabling and re-enabling crossfire - makes no difference.
7) Disabling crossfire and running one card by itself - it still occurs but less than usual (it does this with
BOTH master and slave card) - makes no difference.
8) RMA the cards to be tested by supplier. Both returned as "no fault found" and passed benchmarks.
9) Changed the connections from 2 x DVI-I (this is all the card supports) to 1 x DVI-I & 1 x DP (with adapter),
2 x DP (with adapters), 1 x DVI-I & 1 x HDMI (with adapter) - makes no difference
10) Swapped DVI cables for new ones - makes no difference

What I have not tried:

1) Flashing the cards BIOS using MSI Live Update 5 - this was going to be my next step but I'm very wary of
doing this because MSI support has been diabolical (their technicians can't even construct a legible sentence and have the computer knowledge of a house brick)
2) Setting manual clock speeds in the catalyst 'profile' file held in c:\Users\[profile
name]\appdata\local\ATI\ACE\Profiles (as apparently the flickering may be caused by the memory clocks adjusting
constantly)

I was wondering if anyone has any ideas or has experienced similar issues? Ideally I'd like to try and resolve
this before flashing the card, but if I can't then I have no choice. I appreciate your time and feedback all

Many thanks

Malachor.

 

[Carfax83]

If that problem is occurring with only one card installed, then I suppose it cannot be pinned solely on Crossfire.

Did you already try switching to different PCI-e slots?

 

[VulgarDisplay]

The obvious thing you don't appear to have tried yet is a different monitor.

 

[BigChickenJim]

When you say "no CAP," do you mean that you haven't downloaded AMD's application profiles? I may be misunderstanding or getting stupid this late, but if that is what you're saying then you should roll back your drivers and download the latest CAP.

For the record, I also get strange artifacts and flickering while web browsing in CFX. I see it on both of my CFX rigs. I'm not sure what causes it, but it's par for the course.

Other things I'd suggest for in-game issues:

1. Try using RadeonPro to force Crossfire application profiles for other games. Certain profiles tend to correlate strongly with less microstutter in individual scenarios. For instance, Dead Island runs best on Call of Juarez's profile.

2. Make sure you have V-sync disabled both in game and in CCC. Also turn off any frame buffers you may have on; these tend to cause issues on my rig while I have a limiter enabled.

3. Use a different limiter. RadeonPro's "Dynamic V-sync" is often the silver bullet for microstutter.

4. Wait for AMD's frame pace driver to come out.

5. Evaluate your motherboard. The fact that the issue persists in single-card mode makes this worth a shot, especially since you already know the cards aren't faulty. However, the fact that the issues do not appear in benchmarks seems to suggest that your problem is software related and not due to faulty hardware.

I would definitely not recommend flashing MSI BIOS except as a very last resort; that way lies doom more often than not.

 

[Mushkins]

Physically keep an eye on the cards during some testing. I had *really* bad luck with MSI 7950 HAWX cards during my last build. The first one literally fried itself out after a week of light use, and the second one had power state fluctuation issues that probably also would've led to the card crapping out if I didnt catch it and send it back. I caught it because the fans would "click" when they'd turn off for a second and all the LEDs on the card would go out, then it would all kick right back up.

 

[country2]

From what I have read its a known issue with many of the Radeon 7XXX series with no fix. I have a 7890 that is having issues and just did some research the other day and found this out.

see this thread http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=368290

 

[BigChickenJim]

From what I have read its a known issue with many of the Radeon 7XXX series with no fix. I have a 7890 that is having issues and just did some research the other day and found this out.

see this thread http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=368290

That's an interesting thread, but everything in the OP seems to point to driver and/or application profile problems. If it were a problem with voltage regulation or clock speed he would see it in the benchmarks.

I think the browser artifacts/tearing are normal given that I've seen them in both of my CFX rigs, but the microstutter and in-game issues should be fixable.

For the record, I run two Gigabytes 7870s at stock and have only ever seen these issues in Far Cry 3. Even then a frame limiter fixed them right up. I'm not sure it's accurate to say that this is an inherent problem in the 7xxx series.

OP, we haven't heard back from you. Have you found a solution?