6990 core overclock problem

CallsignVega said:

Anyone ever have one of their cores on the 6990 down-clock compared to the others? My core #1 keeps going to 800Mhz even when I have the setting at 970Mhz. The 3 other GPUs stay at 970. Also strange that it goes to 800Mhz instead of 880 as I have the BIOS switch moved over.

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Ugg, anyone have even the slightest clue on this? Has one core of anyone's 6990 ever run at a different core speed than the other one? I have 2x 6990s and core #1 keeps dropping down to 800Mhz and there is absolutely nothing that will get it back without re-installing the driver. That is a HUGE pain in the ass to do every couple of times I run my computer.

Changing the overclock setting in MSI Afterburner or CCC changes the other three GPU clocks just fine. GPU #1 gets locked at 800Mhz, all the while I have the overclock BIOS switch moved over (all four GPU are flashed with 1.25v BIOS). I have "enableulps" turned off on all registry entries.

If I re-install the driver, all four GPUs will work fine at my set Mhz for at least one game iteration. I leave the game and/or reboot, come back and try another game and core #1 is back to 800Mhz.

Every time I re-install the driver, I use ATIMan uninstaller and set the registry entries for "enableulps" back to 0 every time. For some reason when I uninstall the AMD software and run ATIMan, it leaves behind the old enableulps entries. When I search through the registry for enableulps now I have to go through all of the old ones to get to the current ones, literally have like 50 enableulps entries now.

Could I have hardware failure on core#1? Is there some sort of safeguard build in to the BIOS/driver to throttle back to 800Mhz? My temps are just fine and I don't go over 70C at 100% GPU utilization. This problem also occurs with all versions of drivers, from 11.8 on up to 11.12 beta.

It sounds like power tune is kicking in. Go to CCC and go to Overclock settings and increase powertune to +20%, Either that or google "Disable ULPS".

Ya, I have "enableulps" all set to 0. There is something else awry here...

Vega said:

Ugg, anyone have even the slightest clue on this? Has one core of anyone's 6990 ever run at a different core speed than the other one? I have 2x 6990s and core #1 keeps dropping down to 800Mhz and there is absolutely nothing that will get it back without re-installing the driver. That is a HUGE pain in the ass to do every couple of times I run my computer.

Changing the overclock setting in MSI Afterburner or CCC changes the other three GPU clocks just fine. GPU #1 gets locked at 800Mhz, all the while I have the overclock BIOS switch moved over (all four GPU are flashed with 1.25v BIOS). I have "enableulps" turned off on all registry entries.

If I re-install the driver, all four GPUs will work fine at my set Mhz for at least one game iteration. I leave the game and/or reboot, come back and try another game and core #1 is back to 800Mhz.

Every time I re-install the driver, I use ATIMan uninstaller and set the registry entries for "enableulps" back to 0 every time. For some reason when I uninstall the AMD software and run ATIMan, it leaves behind the old enableulps entries. When I search through the registry for enableulps now I have to go through all of the old ones to get to the current ones, literally have like 50 enableulps entries now.

Could I have hardware failure on core#1? Is there some sort of safeguard build in to the BIOS/driver to throttle back to 800Mhz? My temps are just fine and I don't go over 70C at 100% GPU utilization. This problem also occurs with all versions of drivers, from 11.8 on up to 11.12 beta.

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I noticed on any of the Preview drivers (at least for me) that my 6990 clocks looked like they were throttling when I used Furmark (and check on bf3 did it as well)

I tried out these new 11.12 EARLY drivers and it corrected my issue with BF3 (at least int he clock speed issue)

Other then that right now AMD has confirmed there is a System memory/6990 bug that they are working on.

P.S. not using Cap3 or Cap4

Do you have any links that describe the bug that they are working on? I am currently using 11.12.

Vega said:

Do you have any links that describe the bug that they are working on? I am currently using 11.12.

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First one is tomshardware (i know yuck) But they did contact AMD

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/battlefield-3-graphics-performance,3063-8.html

"At first, the Radeon HD 6990 wouldn’t run at all with the Catalyst 11.10 Preview 3 driver installed, locking up before I could complete any benchmark run (and on the only two boards in my collection). The Radeon HD 5970 worked, but dropped a GPU after every resolution change, requiring a game restart. A subsequent install cratered the 5970 altogether, preventing us from generating anti-aliasing scores with it. None of our two-board setups functioned at all.

Then, I spent a full day trying to drum up answers. Replacing cards, power supplies, switching motherboard slots, swapping SSDs, reformatting SSDs, installing beta Application Profiles…none of it helped. On a whim, I pulled the 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) Crucial DDR3-1333 memory kit I used for my Bulldozer review and replaced it with 8 GB of G.Skill modules. Suddenly, I could run benchmarks. They’d still crash when I changed resolutions. But I could generate results, at least.

I asked AMD what interaction CrossFire had with system memory that wasn't part of a single-card config and would cause a system memory compatibility problem, but didn't get an answer. The company did, however, confirm that it's seeing the same CrossFire-based issues in its own lab."

Next up Guru3d

http://www.guru3d.com/article/battlefield-3-vga-and-cpu-performance-benchmark-test/4

"For those that wonder what about the Radeon HD 6990. We did install it and applied the new CAP4 patch for multi-GPU support. This however made the card crash at desktop, hence the results lacking. once the final driver is out we'll have another look.

Each card runs on the same PC with the same operating system clone. GeForce cards use the 285.62 WHQL 64-bit driver and for AMD Radeon we used the latest 11.10 Preview 3 driver with the Catalyst Application Profile 11.10 CAP4."

So right now...it seems our 6990's are kinda borked.....at least I am having issues, but mine might be PSU related.....Just ordered a AX1200...hopefully fixes my problem.

Oh thanks, it's good to know that AMD is aware of a problem. Although, with the AMD driver teams track record it might be a while before we see any resolution!

Vega said:

Oh thanks, it's good to know that AMD is aware of a problem. Although, with the AMD driver teams track record it might be a while before we see any resolution!

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From my understanding ULPS and powertune are 2 different things. You mentioned having ulps set at 0, but isn't that only going to keep your second card from disabling when not in 3d?

Powertune is supposed to be a TDP cap when your in 3d by the video driver to keep the card from exceeding a certain power draw. It does this by lowering your gpu clocks dynamically.

For shits and giggles try forcing +20 powertune on all of your gpu's/cards. Try it anyway even if it defies logic to you.

I am going to wipe everything and start from scratch with the new official 11.10 and see what happens. Try out everything before installing MSI Afterburner.