Random visial artifacting with xfx 5850 black edition

[Nazgvl]

Ok, so i just installed my brand new xfx 5850 black edition video card (runs 765 core 1125 memory stock) and after a random ammount of time ( i cant seem to replicate it in the same ammount of time no matter what i do) i get full screen artifacting on the desktop.

At first i thought it might have something to do with a new soundcard i just installed (x-fi gamer) and switching from gamer mode to entertainment mode in that cards software seemed to solve it, or at least postpone it some as the next bit of mass artfacting didnt show up till later then usual, but then again that could have just been random too.

Using the newest 10.2 catalyst drivers.

Rest of my system...

c2d e8400 (3ghz)
8gb ocz reaper ddr2 (6-6-6-18 timings)
evga 780i (15.46 nforce drivers)
windows xp 64bit

Anyone have any idea whats causing this? Card seems to idle at about 40c (fan speed set manually to 40%) and only got up to the low 60s when i tested some gaming (eve online) during that one long bout of normal operation. So i cant imagine its heat. Can it be that the card doesnt like the factory overclock? If so then whats triggering the artifacting? Anyone?

 

[v8envy]

How old and what type of power supply? Do you have both 8 and 6 pin PCIe connected?

If possible remove any extraneous cards and peripherals (that soundcard, e.g.) and USB devices you aren't using and see if the problem improves.

Thirdly, does this happen under load or idle? I recall there were problems with at-idle display corruption from overly aggressive downclocks for 2D mode. You may wish to try the latest drivers.

 

[MegaWorks]

Those damn black edition cards from XFX! The memory is clocked ready high, it's causing your card to produce artifacts. Try lowering your memory clock and see the problem disappears, if it does then you have a memory faulty card which it needs to be RMA.

 

[soccerballtux]

Yikes, now that is odd. Especially Odd that screenshotting it works.

 

[Dark4ng3l]

It's also bizarre that it's not the entire screen. Parts of the bottom and top of the screen aren't corrupted...

Maybe you should look at the temperatures on the card to see if it's going too high. Try installing different drivers.

 

[Nazgvl]

How old and what type of power supply? Do you have both 8 and 6 pin PCIe connected?

If possible remove any extraneous cards and peripherals (that soundcard, e.g.) and USB devices you aren't using and see if the problem improves.

Thirdly, does this happen under load or idle? I recall there were problems with at-idle display corruption from overly aggressive downclocks for 2D mode. You may wish to try the latest drivers.

Its a thermaltake toughpower 850w, and yes ive got a normal 6pin and an 8 pin going into an adapter for 6pin, would that cause the problem?

Its been happening at idle. Only had it under load once sofar and it hadnt happened there. And im using the newest drivers.

 

[Nazgvl]

Yikes, now that is odd. Especially Odd that screenshotting it works.

It only seems to effect open windows and anything you can rename (ie icons on the desktop) but not the desktop itself or the taskbar or tops of the windows.

 

[happy medium]

This is gonna sound crazy but download Msi Afterburner and overclock you gpu just a little.
It should keep your idle clocks at stock and override the power saving features.
Not a fix but it could be the root of the problem. It wont hurt to try.

 

[*kjm]

Its a thermaltake toughpower 850w, and yes ive got a normal 6pin and an 8 pin going into an adapter for 6pin, would that cause the problem?

Its been happening at idle. Only had it under load once sofar and it hadnt happened there. And im using the newest drivers.

Have you used the two six pins?
If this is yours one 8 pin is a power connector.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&cm_re=toughpower_850w-_-17-153-102-_-Product

 

[Nazgvl]

Ok, so i tried downclocking the memory back to the 1000 default of the 5850s, and it still artifacted out after about an hour, hour and a half.

*kim, the 8pin i was using is one of the two 8pin pcie cables that come with that psu, not the 8 pin power cable. I used that one 8 pin originally with my other video cards (8800 gt sli) because it was longer with the adapter attached. The standard 6pin cables wouldnt reach the lower card. Thats not a problem now though with both cables going to an upper card, so i just switched the 8 out for a normal 6. See if that does anything.

(also, set my memory back to 1125 to see if it will make the artifacting happen sooner)

 

[Imp]

It's probably ATI/Catalyst's shitty power saving feature. Google "grey screen of death" and "desktop idle crash". The former may be a card defect, but the latter is more than likely caused by the idle GPU clock being too low.

I have a 5770 and get no grey lines or artifacts as bad as yours, but every 2 or 3 days, the driver becomes stable at random times while surfing on the desktop, and it keeps trying to recover. It has not once become unstable in games when it is running at high loads. Other 5700/5800 and 5970 owners are getting artifacts when running one or multiple monitors because of the low idle power (or horseshit coding).

If it doesn't crash/artifact during higher loads, and just in windows, it's probably the issue I just described. If it does, card defect. Either way, let XFX know. It's lifetime warranty i you register, so RMA it if you feel like it. Most signs point to the drivers though, and there have been reports of this since last October when the cards came out, so don't hold your breath (they STILL haven't fixed the enlarged mouse cursor). I'm going back to Nvidia next time.

 

[happy medium]

It's probably ATI/Catalyst's shitty power saving feature. Google "grey screen of death" and "desktop idle crash". The former may be a card defect, but the latter is more than likely caused by the idle GPU clock being too low.

I have a 5770 and get no grey lines or artifacts as bad as yours, but every 2 or 3 days, the driver becomes stable at random times while surfing on the desktop, and it keeps trying to recover. It has not once become unstable in games when it is running at high loads. Other 5700/5800 and 5970 owners are getting artifacts when running one or multiple monitors because of the low idle power (or horseshit coding).

If it doesn't crash/artifact during higher loads, and just in windows, it's probably the issue I just described. If it does, card defect. Either way, let XFX know. It's lifetime warranty i you register, so RMA it if you feel like it. Most signs point to the drivers though, and there have been reports of this since last October when the cards came out, so don't hold your breath (they STILL haven't fixed the enlarged mouse cursor). I'm going back to Nvidia next time.

Thats why I told him to overclock the gpu with MSI Afterburner to bring up his 2d clocks. I don't know if he tried it yet.

 

[Imp]

Thats why I told him to overclock the gpu with MSI Afterburner to bring up his 2d clocks. I don't know if he tried it yet.

Does the MSI tool overclock the idle loads too? I have an XFX and am using ATI drivers, and think that only affects "load" clocks. There is another "fix" by creating your own profile under catalyst and editing an .xml file to boost idle loads, but I read that you'd have to activate it everytime you reboot.

 

[happy medium]

Does the MSI tool overclock the idle loads too? I have an XFX and am using ATI drivers, and think that only affects "load" clocks. There is another "fix" by creating your own profile under catalyst and editing an .xml file to boost idle loads, but I read that you'd have to activate it everytime you reboot.

Yes Msi Afterburner will lock in your clocks.. well for me it did.

 

[Nazgvl]

Well, i guess the switch up of the power cables did it, almost 4 and a half hours now with no artifacting at the factory oc with the fan set to 40%. Odd that something so trivial like an 8 pin to 6 pin adapter would do it.

Unless of course im just being lucky right now, or the error requires me to be doing stuff on the pc while its idling to manifest, rather then letting the pc just sit idle with a few open ie windows. I dunno.

Just this kind of thing though that made me swear off ati after my 9800xt.

 

[Nazgvl]

I was wrong. Apparently i was lucky last night, as the machine artifacted in record time when i booted up this morning. So i guess its not power cable issues.

Downloaded msi afterburner and set it to 768 core (smallest increment i could) but its not forcing the card to stay at the ful clock speed. Still drops down to the power saving speeds. What am i doing wrong?

 

[Tempered81]

okay do what happy medium suggested. get afterburner here:

http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm

install, open it, settings "enable voltage control" "enable voltage monitoring"

goto your installation directory open msiafterburner.cfg in notepad and make this change to enable unofficial oc method, and disable powerplay:

Overclock the core mhz slider by a few mhz.

Now you wont "drop down to the power saving speeds"

 

[Tempered81]

The problem is that your card is not stable in its lower power voltage settings. You can fix that with a different bios that sets your default 2d/idle/uvd voltages higher than what they currently are.

Afterburner disabling powerplay is forcing you to operate at 7xx mhz, 1.089v / 1125mhz during all 6 power states, boot, idle, 2d, uvd, throttle, 3d. Well maybe not boot, since its drivers intialize in windows.

So your particular card is unstable at non-3d voltages... Increasing your fan speed might also stop those artifacts from appearing. The cooler the core, the less leakage, and less requirement for volts to keep stability.

 

[Nazgvl]

Thanks for the help, that did it. Running at full speed all the time now at about 43c while web browsing at 40% fixed fan rate. Is that normal for this situation or should i be letting the fan control its own speed? Or raising the fixed level?

 

[Tempered81]

Just let it auto, it will probably drop below 40 until you fire up some 3D. You are consuming more power now.

You are consuming full board power the entire time you computer is on. (it's like you're constantly running crysis)

 

[Nazgvl]

After having left it on for about an hour and a half at the full speed at 40% fan, it ended up sitting about about 45c on idle. Turned auto fan back on and temp rose to about 53c pretty much instantly, with the fan staying at about 24%. So am i to expect full load temps at idle now because the cards always at full power?

 

[Tempered81]

Yes. What you've done by disabling powerplay is not a proper solution, so you could expect high temperatures. Your solution is RMA for a different card, or provide your own bios with increased 2D voltage. If the noise level at 40% doesn't bother you, then leave it for desktop use. But be prepared to change it back to Auto if you run a 3D bench or game. You don't want to get to the point where the card is heating up and a fixed 40% fan isn't sufficient to keep it cool.

When the fan is set to Auto, the cards temperature sensors dictate the fan speed. So according to ATI/XFX 53C is no problem for 24%.

 

[Nazgvl]

Well, the overclocking solution didnt solve the problem. Artifacted on me anyway about 5 minutes after i made my last post. So if the clock speed isnt the issue what else could be? Power to the card? Afterburner is listing it at 1087 mV.

 

[happy medium]

Well, the overclocking solution didnt solve the problem. Artifacted on me anyway about 5 minutes after i made my last post. So if the clock speed isnt the issue what else could be? Power to the card? Afterburner is listing it at 1087 mV.

If that didn't work, RMA the card.:\

 

[Imp]

If that didn't do it, really, just RMA the card. I'm really tempted to RMA my card and ask XFX to give me a GTS 250 in return. Only problem is I don't want to give up DirectX 11 support.

I'll try the clock increase when I get home. Kind of makes sense that is isn't just the clockspeed since if it was, they'd have fixed it by now (4 months after release).