Radeon 5xxx Owners Report Grey Screens/Hangs

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

I don't know how credible Charlie Demerjian is but I ran Furmark while running prime95 for about 30-40 minutues with my Sapphire card with the thermal display function on and it reached 75*c and never crashed - pulled ~ 430w (XP Pro sp3 32bit rig 2)

 

[Keysplayr]

I don't know how credible Charlie Demerjian is but I ran Furmark while running prime95 for about 30-40 minutues with my Sapphire card with the thermal display function on and it reached 75*c and never crashed - pulled ~ 430w (XP Pro sp3 32bit rig 2)

He isn't really credible, I just threw it in there because it came up in google.
Yeah, 75C is supposed to be cake. I'm guessing a power management problem the more I read about it.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

I'm guessing a power management problem the more I read about it.

How can that end up being fixed? Driver? A call back like Toyota?

 

[at80eighty]

welp :-/ have these been before or after driver updates? if so whats the 'safest' driver version ?

 

[Keysplayr]

How can that end up being fixed? Driver? A call back like Toyota?

I would say driver. The 5870 is supposed to have a 45W idle draw, is this correct?
I would imagine this state is acheived when the system is set to have the monitor turn off after a specified amount of time in power saving settings. Imagine browsing the web, or in a 3Dgame and suddenly the power saving feature kicks in for some reason. Those gray bars would be something I'd expect to see if that happened.

So, a driver fix, or in a more severe case, a BIOS update for the cards. Meaning the whole 5xxx series line if a simpler driver fix can't be done. It would also be interesting to see what kind of connections most of these people are using. DVI? HDMI? Display Port?
Don't know if that would make any difference, but it wouldn't hurt to know.

 

[ViRGE]

I would say driver. The 5870 is supposed to have a 45W idle draw, is this correct?
I would imagine this state is achieved when the system is set to have the monitor turn off after a specified amount of time in power saving settings. Imagine browsing the web, or in a 3Dgame and suddenly the power saving feature kicks in for some reason. Those gray bars would be something I'd expect to see if that happened.

So, a driver fix, or in a more severe case, a BIOS update for the cards. Meaning the whole 5xxx series line if a simpler driver fix can't be done. It would also be interesting to see what kind of connections most of these people are using. DVI? HDMI? Display Port?
Don't know if that would make any difference, but it wouldn't hurt to know.

AMD isn't doing any power-gating (i.e. shutting anything off) on the GPU AFAIK. The 27W idle power on the 5870 is achieved solely through driving down the clocks on the GPU (along with a voltage drop) and putting the GDDR5 memory in its low-power mode. So unless I'm mistaken, nothing further is actually shut off when the monitor is put to sleep.

 

[Keysplayr]

AMD isn't doing any power-gating (i.e. shutting anything off) on the GPU AFAIK. The 27W idle power on the 5870 is achieved solely through driving down the clocks on the GPU (along with a voltage drop) and putting the GDDR5 memory in its low-power mode. So unless I'm mistaken, nothing further is actually shut off when the monitor is put to sleep.

Ok, sounds good. I didn't mean anything is shut off by the way, or a standby/hibernate state. Just lowering of voltages/clocks to the extreme to get a 27W idle power draw.

 

[stag3]

ah no wonder, i thought my pc itself was having issues, i started messing with voltages after, ran memtest, debated on reinstalling windows 7 lol.

nice to know its the 58xx that's causing the grey screens. it's done it probably 5-6x during gaming, and once while idle so far.

 

[nitromullet]

I had this issue as well in Borderlands when I had my 5870 OCed. Running at stock clocks fixed the problem for me though.

 

[Wreckage]

AMD is aware of the issue.
http://en.expreview.com/2010/02/01/amd-confirms-grey-screen-issue-promises-fix/6584.html

 

[happy medium]

AMD is aware of the issue.
http://en.expreview.com/2010/02/01/amd-confirms-grey-screen-issue-promises-fix/6584.html

I clicked this link and my virus detector went nuts.

 

[v8envy]

Firefox, noscript + flashblock and the web is a safe place again. I'm amazed what kind of sites are trying to force-feed me drive by javascript.

Re: the 58xx cards: feeling glad I wasn't an early adopter for once. Chip shortage in my favor, I guess.

 

[Jaskalas]

5850 here on Win7 64 and I have not had any issues with it. So if there is a problem out there hopefully it's not every card.

 

[zerocool84]

5850 here on Win7 64 and I have not had any issues with it. So if there is a problem out there hopefully it's not every card.

I hope not. I'm picking up my 5870 in an hour.

 

[ayabe]

Well I've only had my 5870 since Thursday but haven't had a single problem.

I have one of the new Vapo-X cards, supposedly these are different than the cards sent to reviewers and produced at launch. I'm not certain of the details but I'm wondering if it has something to do with this "problem".

 

[djnsmith7]

I'm running a 5850 on Vista x64 & haven't seen the referenced grey screen yet.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

I hope not. I'm picking up my 5870 in an hour.

Let us know how it goes.

 

[Damn Dirty Ape]

got my xfx 5870 2 days after launch (initial shipment from the egg), never a problem and I've gamed the hell out of it over the holidays and such.

I've edited my post to bring the attention to an article I recently read regarding my problem.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ATI-Radeon-Gray-Screen-Crash,9529.html?xtmc=radeon&xtcr=1

I just wanted to make this first post more relative to the topic which is also what I started discussing here.

A more detailed description of some of the diagnosing I have been doing is described here:

http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=279&threadid=126849&enterthread=y

 

[Keysplayr]

You all should say what drivers you're currently using along with whether or not your having any issues.

 

[Darkrage]

well my 5850 comes tomorrow hope i don't experience this....just curious.. all that had the problems, where you overclocking the cards and if you did ,,did you try running at stock to see if it still happened?

 

[zerocool84]

Let us know how it goes.

It seems great so far. Nothing wrong with the card at all. No crashing or artifacts or anything but now my computer has a separate problem with the PSU buzzing so have to RMA that but the card is great.

 

[HeXploiT]

I've had two XFX XXX 5870's. Both crashed with striped screens in 3d until I downclocked the cards from default 875/1300 to 850/1200.

Basically mine were just too aggressively overclocked at the factory and upping the voltage had little effect.
Yes there are many software issues with these cards. The release was premature and now there are 2 million+ 5xxx series cards on the street. Many issues will be resolved with updated drivers however many of those people having 3d issues will simply find that the card is clocked too high regardless of temps(and believe me the fan on these cards can keep them cool).
Do I regret selling my 295Hydro? No but when fermi hits the street you can bet I'm dumping this card.

 

[Kuzi]

Two of my friends got new Radeon cards, one with 5770 and the other with 5750, I asked them about this crashing issue, they said they didn't get a single crash. They game daily, and both are using Win7 64.

I will build a new system in a few weeks with a 5870, I'll let you guys know if I notice any problems.

 

[blanketyblank]

Only issue I've had with my 5770 was mass effect 2 had a massive slow down once. However the problem was windows 7 starting up windows experience index for some reason while I was gaming.

 

[zerocool84]

I've been playing Crysis all night max everything 2xAA and it runs fine. No crashes or anything. Hopefully mine stays good.