Overclock Crossfire with ULPS enabled?

[mingsoup]

Is it possible? And if so how do I do it.

I want my cards to go into low power state when not in use. However, ever since I bought the cards, if I wanted to overclock them both, I'd have to disable ULPS or face blue screens.

Anybody? Its finally time I ask. I haven't had any luck.

 

[Shmee]

uh, which cards are you talking about? What are your system specs?

 

[mingsoup]

The cards are two 6970s.
Win 7 x64
i5-750
Asus P7P55-D Deluxe
8 gig ram.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

what version of the catalyst drivers are you using?

ULPS seems to work fine on my secondary card, even overclocked. (Although my "idle" speed is 400MHz instead of 300MHz.

 

[mingsoup]

Using 12.6 right now. I just was using 12.7 beta. Its really always been a problem.

 

[mingsoup]

Anybody have any ideas? The cards are completely stable where I have them, IF ULPS is disabled. If ULPS is enabled, insta blue screen. However, I'd like the low low clocks while on the desktop.

 

[Shmee]

good question. What OC tool are you using? what are the settings? I know I had some issues with MSI afterburner earlier on, sapphire trix seemed more stable.

On a side note, what resolution are you playing at and are you overclocking your i5? The reason I ask is because that could be a potential bottleneck I would think, depending on resolution and games played.

 

[mingsoup]

good question. What OC tool are you using? what are the settings? I know I had some issues with MSI afterburner earlier on, sapphire trix seemed more stable.

On a side note, what resolution are you playing at and are you overclocking your i5? The reason I ask is because that could be a potential bottleneck I would think, depending on resolution and games played.

Sorry. I'm never providing enough information.

I'm using MSI Afterburner. 2.2.2 Check now with beta checked reveals nothing newer. My voltage is 1155mV, 880 Core, and 1375 Memory clock. I have synchronize GPU clicked. I have Apply OC on boot not checked. These settings will cause BSOD if ULPS is not disabled.

Again, those GPU's are 6950's flashed 6970. I am overclocking my i5. It currently ramps up to 4.2Ghz when under load, and idles at 1.8Ghz. Maybe I'll give Saphire Trixx a go.

 

[Shmee]

Hmm, I didnt know that they were unlocked 6950's. What method did you use to unlock? Just unlocking the shaders, or did you do a full 6970 bios flash on the cards?

With that said, I have had a bit of issues OCing mine, mb cuz they were flashed, not sure. All I did was unlock the shaders though.

Honestly, if you can get a good stable OC without ULPS enabled, I would consider yourself luck that you got BOTH cards to UNLOCK and OC stable. Or, like I mentioned, try trixx. I can only think that you may be having driver conflicts with MSI afterburner and AMD drivers, and the unlocked 6950's might be making it worse, as I don't think those are supported officially.

 

[mingsoup]

I only unlocked shaders, as I recall, that was the less iffy solution when I was researching. "Pulled out the bios with GPU-Z. Modifed with RBE. Reflashed with ATIWinflash." Those are my notes. There was a tutorial somewhere, but I think I was mainly working off the techPowerUp thread. I thought taking my own bios rather than someone elses and modifying them myself, would be safer.

I'll give Trixx a try and remember that yes I am fortunate to have even got ones that unlock stable to 6970 speeds. I also very much appreciate the input and help. Its not the OC, I'm pretty sure of that, without ULPS I can bench AVP for 50+ minutes and last time I check, score dead on. Turn on ULPS in conjuction with MSI AB, insta BSOD.

 

[Shmee]

ya, just some weird driver/power issue. GL fixing it!

 

[MTDEW]

I have two 6950's i purchased at launch that i flashed to unlock shaders.
And they overclock 880/1375 just fine with ULPS enabled , using afterburner, trixx or AMD overdrive.

So, to answer your original question, it certainly is possible.

Anyway, maybe try doing the reg hack and overclocking with power tune/disabling afterburner and see if that helps you.
It is easy to do and i personally prefer it, since i saved my two reg files and just merge them when i update drivers.
READ HERE
I still run afterburner though, since i like having the OSD while gaming to see what my cards are doing.
I just dont overclock with afterburner and use AMD Overdrive instead now.

 

[mingsoup]

Thanks for the reply. Gives me hope. For a minute I thought of flashing full 6970 bios to my cards, so I wouldn't have to mess around with all this stuff anymore, but I'll give the Overdrive a try. When I tried it last time, I could get the first card to show over limits, but not the second card. Tried Trixx, but I was still getting a freeze when I started my benchmarks. Right now I'm reinstalling my 12.6 drivers as I've messed with the ULPS regs so much now, I want to try again clean.

Using those instructions does it unlock the new limits for the second card too? Thats where I ran into trouble.

 

[MTDEW]

Thanks for the reply. Gives me hope. For a minute I thought of flashing full 6970 bios to my cards, so I wouldn't have to mess around with all this stuff anymore, but I'll give the Overdrive a try. When I tried it last time, I could get the first card to show over limits, but not the second card. Tried Trixx, but I was still getting a freeze when I started my benchmarks. Right now I'm reinstalling my 12.6 drivers as I've messed with the ULPS regs so much now, I want to try again clean.

Using those instructions does it unlock the new limits for the second card too? Thats where I ran into trouble.

See the last post in that thread i linked to.
(i actually posted that there after reading your post here and looking for a good link for the reg hack, i added to that thread what worked on my cards)

One of my cards was \0001 and the other was \0002

I actually did the 6970 bios thing for about 4hrs , thinking the same thing...IT WOULD BE SO MUCH EASIER.
But it drove me mad thinking i could damage my cards, so i flashed them right back to 6950's w/unlock shaders and swore i'd never consider that again.
Besides , they ran hotter with the 6970 bios due to higher voltages.

So i still think its best to stick with a 6950 unlocked shader bios with default volts and overclock the cards manually.

 

[MTDEW]

To make it simple, i created .txt document with the following.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000]

"PP_PhmSoftPowerPlayTable"=hex:6f,01,05,01,00,04,04,10,18,58,00,68,00,b8,00,e8,\
03,e8,03,58,00,00,80,01,00,0f,00,00,02,08,3c,00,00,68,00,b8,00,00,18,01,09,\
00,18,01,26,01,83,01,00,00,a0,0c,00,00,30,01,40,01,4b,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
aa,00,00,00,78,00,00,00,60,ea,00,00,56,01,0a,00,00,00,14,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
00,01,01,02,03,02,02,02,04,03,02,02,04,80,38,01,48,e8,01,01,ff,7e,04,00,00,\
01,00,00,00,a8,61,00,98,3a,00,84,03,b6,03,00,00,01,00,00,00,50,c3,00,48,e8,\
01,e8,03,7e,04,00,00,01,00,00,00,80,38,01,48,e8,01,01,ff,7e,04,00,00,01,00,\
00,00,34,1b,01,48,e8,01,01,ff,7e,04,00,00,01,00,00,00,08,00,00,00,78,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,05,00,00,00,78,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,04,00,00,7a,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,f0,d2,00,00,40,9c,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,7a,00,00,00,00,04,\
00,70,11,01,00,c0,da,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,01,06,94,11,c4,22,54,24,60,09,3c,\
0f,88,13,0a,00,d0,78,02,00,90,d0,03,00,03,40,9c,00,84,03,50,c3,00,e8,03,68,\
3c,01,01,ff,02,98,3a,00,b6,03,48,e8,01,7e,04,02,98,3a,00,84,03,48,e8,01,e8,\
03,04,84,03,11,00,00,00,e8,03,1a,00,00,00,4b,04,28,00,00,00,4c,04,28,00,00,\
00

I made one with [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0001]
And one with [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0002]
Changed them from .txt to .reg and merged them.
Now i just merge those two reg files when i update my drivers.

Of course your cards may not be 0001 and 0002 like mine, but that is easy to look up in the registry and is easily explained in the first post of that link.

 

[MTDEW]

Here is a copy/paste again from that link to make its easier to understand how to check what keys your cards are under.

What you want to do once the drivers are in is look for the following reg entry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Class\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
Under this will be at least one key named 0000, and possibly others listed as 0001, 0002, etc..
What you want is to expand any or all of those.
One of them (or if crossfired two of them will), will have a bunch of other sub keys including some or all of the following in them:
ATI WDM Configurations
DAL2_DATA__2_0
Settings
UMD
VolatileSettings

This is the key you want.

Example on one of my computers:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Class\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000

This subkey, 0000 has all the sub entries listed above.

So, look which two keys have the sub entries and you'll know which ones are for your cards.
My \0000 had no sub entries unlike his.
As i stated mine had sub entries under \0001 and \0002, so those were for my cards.

 

[mingsoup]

Wow. Thanks so much. I'll get busy and get back. Awesome!
Identified my cards as 0000 and 0001, no other entries to consider so thats nice. Gonna reboot and tool around.

Thank you SO much for you incredible replies. Very easy thanks to you.

EDIT: Holy crap it worked. Both cards can now OC to 880/1375 in the ATI control panel. Now to figure out a correct power control setting. Shows up in GPUZ too for both cards.

One quick question. How does Power Control relate to a Voltage of 1155? Back when I did this a year ago, I identified 1155mV voltage to be a safe voltage for 880/1375. What setting of Power Control should I set? Or do I still need to set my core voltage in MSI?

 

[MTDEW]

I leave my power control settings alone, the only time i've ever seen my cards throttle at default power settings was in Furmark.
And i DO monitor them constantly with Afterburners OSD while gaming.

I honestly cannot remember If/how setting power control affected voltage , since its been so long since i touched it. (i never needed it for my 880/1375 overclocks, so i figured why bother making them run hotter than needed)
I'll do a quick test here and see.

 

[MTDEW]

Set power control to +20 in CCC and ran Heaven benchmark, it made no difference in voltage according to GPUZ VDDC voltage readings.
Both my cards stay at VDDC - 1.1000v regardless of PWR Control settings.

So , it looks like you'll need afterburner to adjust the voltage if you need to.
youre using AB 2.2.2, so that should be easy enough. :thumbsup:

But I'd at least try 880/1375 with power control at +20 first and see if it eliminates the need for the extra voltage tweaking.

 

[Shmee]

Good to hear you are having success. Congrats!

 

[Shmee]

Hmm, I may get back into OCing my 6950's more, see if new software/drivers is more stable. Temps might be an issue though, I run CF and the cards are right next to each other on this motherboard.

A few questions: what is a good safe temp for these cards? Idle right now my warmer card is at like 64C. Of course it is summer. Its just I would think they would get a lot hotter under load, certainly when OCd.

Also, any additional tips for OCing and OV? Also, reading through the thread on your link, I noticed someone made a tool to do the regedit for you. may just try that..

 

[MTDEW]

64c is still quite warm for idle temps.
My cards are pretty close together on my setup too.

and they have been idling around 45c/48c and 50c/53c on my warmer card here in the summer.
But i do have great airflow in my CM HAF case.

I dont use any custom fan profiles either since stock setting are quieter and my temps are what i consider good with the stock fan settings.

My hottest card can hit in the low 70c's when gaming, with my cooler card in the high 60c's, of course that really depends on the game.

Might wanna use GPU-z and see if one of your cards is not throttling down to 250/150 at idle.
I know some drivers cause that, i dont remember which driver it was, but one of them caused my 2nd GPU to stick in 3d clock mode all the time.

My cards still clock up occasionally when using firefox, it used to drive me nuts, but i learned to just live with it...LOL

Anyway, onto the other questions.

Also, reading through the thread on your link, I noticed someone made a tool to do the regedit for you. may just try that.

.
I never had any luck with that reg tool in that thread, and it was so easy to make the reg files myself and merge them, i just stuck with that.
Just remember to keep them, since you may need to merge them again when cleaning/updating drivers.

A few questions: what is a good safe temp for these cards?

As far as safe temps, well that is always very subjective just like cpu OCing voltage/temps.
You ask 5 different people and get 5 different answers.
But I'll give "MY OPINION"...anything under 80c Under Load should be just fine.
Anything 90c or more, i would not want to see those temps on a daily/regular basis.
But that is just my opinion, i'm not an "extreme gpu overclocker", so to speak.
I'm very conservative with my GPU's since they are where i usually have the most $$$ invested.

Also, any additional tips for OCing and OV?

Again this is subject to opinion.
My opinion is that the 6970's run at 1.175v so to "me" that would be my absolute upper limit on voltage.

Luckily i have a pair of Sapphire reference 6950's that do 6970 speeds with the default 1.100v so i needn't worry about voltage and temps.
i just flashed for the shader unlock, overclocked them to 880/1375 and i'm good to go.
Of course it helps not to be greedy and be happy with 6970 speeds. :biggrin:

 

[Shmee]

good points, keep in mind that there is no space between my cards. You at least seem to have a dual slot between them, so that would help. I myself have the haf X, similar setup to you but with no space between cards. What motherboard do you have? I have the asus p6x58D premium, per sig.

 

[MTDEW]

I have the Asus P8Z68-V Pro.
And if you look closely at my pic, my case came with a fan and shroud that fits over the cards, that helps direct fresh airflow over them from the front intake fan.
So yeah, my setup does help my temps i'm sure.

 

[mingsoup]

Again this is subject to opinion.
My opinion is that the 6970's run at 1.175v so to "me" that would be my absolute upper limit on voltage.

Luckily i have a pair of Sapphire reference 6950's that do 6970 speeds with the default 1.100v so i needn't worry about voltage and temps.
i just flashed for the shader unlock, overclocked them to 880/1375 and i'm good to go.
Of course it helps not to be greedy and be happy with 6970 speeds. :biggrin:

I'm still having trouble figuring out how to lock in a core volt oc, without using MSI, because if I use MSI, doesn't that stop my ULPS? or? Maybe I should just try it. I am unable to run my cards at 6970 speeds with +20% power control, i need some extra core voltage and now to figure out the best way to go about it. I thought I read once somewhere where someone was able to apply a volt oc in MSI afterburner once and then have it stick, without continual use.

I've been running the 880/1375 with +20% power control for a couple days now w/o any gaming and its been fine. AVP freezes within a couple seconds benching.

EDIT:
Started up MSI AB and just set the OC Voltage I wanted, 1155mV and then exited the program. Then I ran an AVP benchmark and it worked fantastic. Now to just test if it holds between reboots or how to get it to hold, and I think my problems are fine. Also, both my cards clock down to a nice cool 250/150 when not in use which is what I started this thread to accomplish!!!

EDIT2:
Looks like I also have to put in a custom fan profile too. If I don't, my main GPU will pop up somewhere momentarily above 90C and due a semi freeze of the system and fail benchmarks. I was never able to run these cards on the default fan profile without freezing even from the very get go. But its still working. I don't mind running MSI AB, just as long as I get to keep my ULPS, which I do with this setup. The Core Voltage setting in AB says it only effects the 3D voltage.