GTX 670 ASUS TOP Issue running Heaven?

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Aldyrin2

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I had issues previously with a Gigabyte OC GTX 670, and ended up returning that, so I jumped on the ASUS TOP 670 when it came into stock on Newegg.

I figured I should run Heaven a few loops to make sure temps are reasonable... Well, they are.... at least they are until Heaven crashes. This is using stock settings and the 301.42 drivers in Windows 7 64-bit. Temps rise to 69 C before I get the crash.

I reinstalled the OS last week since I got a 3570k and a P8Z77-V Pro. A 4870 was installed at the time. Today, I removed the 4870, installed the 670, booted into windows, removed the catalyst software (and all drivers), and then installed the 301.42 Nvidia drivers.

Any suggestions? I'm pretty amazed that I've had issues with two GTX 670s in a row, from two different vendors. I'm hoping it is just a software/driver synergy situation. I'd hate to have to send back another 670 at this point.

The only components that are the same between my old and new builds are the HDDs, the PCI sound card (X-fi), and the power supply (650 watt).

I'm running Heaven with:

API: DirectX 11
Tesselation: Extreme
Shaders: High
Anisotropy: 16x
Stereo 3D: Disabled
Multimonitor: No
Anti-aliasing: 8x
Full screen: No
Resolution: 1600x1200
 
Sure sounds like an unstable card. The TOP cards have the highest stock speeds of any vendor at the moment out of the box, but you're not the only one to report instability with these cards. I'm wondering if some just aren't stable at the stock speeds when running Heaven. That sure would be a pity since I don't think Heaven is any more intense than some of the more demanding games on the market, its certainly not like Furmark.
 
Do you guys think it is worth reinstalling the OS to see if that resolves things?

I'm not sure what newegg's replacement/return policy is on these things. Amazon was about as smooth as possible with the Gigabyte return.

I see some reviews on Newegg now that talk about red rings of death or something... I'm not getting that, just driver crashes during Heaven. I've been playing D3 with it for a bit now, and all looks OK. The rare mob packs may have been a bit... blinky though. Not sure.
 
I installed my Asus TOP tonight. I got a blue screen upon entering the Windows desktop the first time I started the PC after putting it in, but I think I'd done something weird trying to get the driver uninstalled prior to taking out my 460 SLI setup, and it just went weird. I booted into Safe Mode after that, made sure the drivers were uninstalled, then restarted, installed drivers, and haven't had any issues.

I've let Heaven loop for a probably twenty minutes, and ran the actual benchmark two or three times pretty much maxed out at my resolution. I've also played a bit of Ys Origins, Witcher 2, and Final Fantasy XIV tonight on the card and haven't had any issues.

Out of the box it's boosting to 1280core which seems to be pretty good. The only change I made was to use Afterburner to set a custom fan profile (I just enable the default custom profile that's included with it). That keeps me about 5c cooler than the standard fan behavior. I haven't done any overclocking or any other tweaking adjustments though.
 
Mine is going back to NE as well. Mine isn't stable out of the box, and I am no way underclocking to get it running stable. Did ASUS test these for longer than 2 minutes?
 
I just got a couple DC2Ts in today. Was looping Heaven for probably 10-15 minutes before the screen went black, had to hard reboot. I'm also getting random crazy color issues which I had chalked up to a bad SLI bridge, but that changed when I realized that if I ALT+TABed and came back to the game the color issue went away. I'm thinking drivers. Didn't have time to try any others but I will be. I'm running whatever the latest ones are off the NVIDIA website.
 
Aldyrin2 said:
Do you guys think it is worth reinstalling the OS to see if that resolves things?

I'm not sure what newegg's replacement/return policy is on these things. Amazon was about as smooth as possible with the Gigabyte return.

I see some reviews on Newegg now that talk about red rings of death or something... I'm not getting that, just driver crashes during Heaven. I've been playing D3 with it for a bit now, and all looks OK. The rare mob packs may have been a bit... blinky though. Not sure.
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I don't think the OS is your problem. I believe you have a card that just doesn't like to run at the factory OC'd speed. Amazon's return policy is awesome, Newegg not so much. I blame that on the fact that people have abused Newegg over the years buying PC components and returning them as defective even when they clearly weren't just to get another CPU or video card that overclocks better. Newegg can't afford to resell used products at a loss everytime so they started increasing restocking fees to compensate.
 
I uninstalled the drivers, restarted, reseated the card, reinstalled the drivers, and it still fails at clock speeds in Heaven at the above settings in under 3 minutes. Sending it back.

This makes me pretty mad (2nd bad 670 card). Starting to think that in addition to the low quantities of the 6xx series cards, they are low quality as well.

My 4870 has been a champ... Wondering if I should just go with a 7970 instead. I don't want to, but the in-stock hassles on top of the quality problems are really souring my opinion of Nvidia quickly. Think I'll give them one last chance though.
 
I just installed the heaven benchmark, used the settings I posted, and let it run for a (short) while. If it runs 10 or so loops without getting excessively hot at stock speeds, crashing, or artifacting, I think you should be OK.
 
I've been using Heaven for stability testing for a while, if your card can't pass loops for 30-60 minutes, its not going to be fully stable in all games. Run Heaven at the highest settings, DX11, Tesselation Max, 16AF, 8xAA and if it doesn't crash or error after 30-60 minutes, its safe to say its most likely stable in all games too.
 
Yes it has a free version and paid version. No need to pay to do stress testing.
 
Puzzling that there are so many problem reviews in NE compared to the other 670's. I had my eye on picking up one of these but am now having second thoughts.
 
Just got the card (Asus DirectCU II 670) installed, newest driver installed, Heaven DX11 installed and ran it. My results?

Render: direct3d11
Mode: 1920x1080 fullscreen
Shaders: high
Textures: high
Filter: trilinear
Anisotropy: 4x
Occlusion: enabled
Refraction: enabled
Volumetric: enabled
Tessellation: moderate


FPS: 99.6
Scores: 2508
Min FPS: 13.6
Max FPS: 209.7

Ignore Min FPS, its from that split second when the benchmark starts and your FPS is low. It ran through all 26 stages perfectly.

Max temp: 60c
GPU Clock: Max 1201.0MHz
Mem Clock: Max 6008MHz
Power Target Status: 102.0%


Then again, i just played BF3 and it was beautiful, 130+FPS on Wake Island 64 player..i quit out and it goes to windows fine, but after 20 seconds it goes completely white screen, nothing i can do, had to just restart PC.

Just played again for 10 minutes and quit out and everything is fine, no white screen again. I did have FRAPS and ASUS GPU Tweak open, its possible one of them is buggy (most likely Asus Tweak).

(Do we really think its the CARDS having issues? At least i mean do we think its anything physical? Seems like the issues being had could be driver related dont you think?)

After running Heaven for 30 minutes on max everything, my driver failed and i got the following error: " Unigine: Fatal Error. D3D11App\Window::swap_window(): Device Removed".
 
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I got that same error, but 3 minutes into Heaven...

Failing in Heaven at all (at stock speeds) seems to me like grounds to return the card.

I read some places that some of the overclocking utilities have been attributed with causing the installation to be more unstable, although I'm not sure how conclusive these determinations have been.

I ran Heaven without any overclocking utilities installed to make sure they weren't contaminating the assessment.

Edit: Like some people said earlier, I'm beginning to wonder if Asus cut some corners in the Quality Assurance department on these cards and didn't perform enough testing to ensure that they were stable at the stock overclocked speeds...
 
Aldyrin2 said:
I got that same error, but 3 minutes into Heaven...

Failing in Heaven at all (at stock speeds) seems to me like grounds to return the card.

I read some places that some of the overclocking utilities have been attributed with causing the installation to be more unstable, although I'm not sure how conclusive these determinations have been.

I ran Heaven without any overclocking utilities installed to make sure they weren't contaminating the assessment.

Edit: Like some people said earlier, I'm beginning to wonder if Asus cut some corners in the Quality Assurance department on these cards and didn't perform enough testing to ensure that they were stable at the stock overclocked speeds...
Click to expand...

I dont know, i would really like to know though, especially before my 30 days are up to return the card. If a driver update or official asus announcement is released by then, i am going to play it safe and return the card, and wait for everything to come out in regards to the DirectCU II Top and other 670's and THEN purchase another.
I just clicked up the GPU boost clock a few ticks to 115x (which at full load boosted up to 1255MHz) and in 30 seconds Heaven failed with the error.
Im not expert at all, but i would be shocked if your right..these are cards that would work perfectly at stock 670 clocks..were factory overclocked and dont work at that factory OC, let alone i am supposed to be able to get close to 1300MHz?
 
I got 2 of these for SLI. The cards were completely unstable in most games. Any game that pushed the GPU utilization would crash after a few minutes.
After testing for a few hours last night I determined that one of the cards can't run at its stock boost speed which is 1230. if I downclock it just a little bit, 5 or 6 points, it is stable. My other card boosts to 1306 and is perfectly stable. I think I will probably RMA the card that can't run at stock.
 
Got mine on Tuesday and just got around to installing it today and it's not stable even at stock clocks out of the box. Heaven fails after about 2min and BF3 fails in about 5. Temperatures on the card are fine just looks like a bad card. I'm probably just going to RMA it to Newegg and wait a while before picking up another 670.
 
All these unstable Asus DCII TOP cards are just unacceptable. You guys that have them need to be contacting Asus and returning the cards to show there's a problem. Holding on to them and hoping for a better driver or some magical solution or even worse, underclocking them just to keep them stable is not going to help you or Asus.
 
Blkout said:
All these unstable Asus DCII TOP cards are just unacceptable. You guys that have them need to be contacting Asus and returning the cards to show there's a problem. Holding on to them and hoping for a better driver or some magical solution or even worse, underclocking them just to keep them stable is not going to help you or Asus.
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Mine got dropped off to go back to Newegg today. I'll gamble with a replacement, and I say gamble because based off what I'm reading, I'm not very confident I'll get one that works out of the box. If it works, then great. If not, then it'll go back for refund and I won't bother with another TOP card.

A bios update may or may not fix the issue. Dropping the clocks would mean their base clock would have to drop below advertised spec. Also, everyone's Keplers boost different, so dropping them may result in stability for some users, but not for all. Finally, what I noticed on my card was the power target seemed a bit low while running loaded - around 95% or so. Others were reporting much higher. But adjusting the slider did nothing for me. I believe if my card was able to run at say, 110% power, it would have been stable. Maybe a bios update can fix this? Either way, I don't care now. Mine is now sitting in a UPS Store.
 
I ran Heaven for about 20 minutes, Furmark for about 20 minutes, and Diablo 3 for a few hours without any issues so far. What is the recommended way of stability testing GPUs these days?

I'm running the 301.42 64bit WHQL drivers. I didn't install any of ASUS's software.
 
Sgraffite said:
I ran Heaven for about 20 minutes, Furmark for about 20 minutes, and Diablo 3 for a few hours without any issues so far. What is the recommended way of stability testing GPUs these days?

I'm running the 301.42 64bit WHQL drivers. I didn't install any of ASUS's software.
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If it passes Heaven loops at max settings. DX11, Extreme Tesselation, 16AF, 8xAA for at least 30 minutes, preferably 60. Its likely stable in any game. After it passes that, you could try playing BF3, Crysis or Crysis 2 for a while and see if crashes. If it does, you really shouldn't have to move the clocks down very far. Heaven is a great tool to get you VERY close or EXACT to stable clocks.
 
Blkout said:
If it passes Heaven loops at max settings. DX11, Extreme Tesselation, 16AF, 8xAA for at least 30 minutes, preferably 60. Its likely stable in any game. After it passes that, you could try playing BF3, Crysis or Crysis 2 for a while and see if crashes. If it does, you really shouldn't have to move the clocks down very far. Heaven is a great tool to get you VERY close or EXACT to stable clocks.
Click to expand...

+1, I would even let Heaven run for 3-4 hrs at highest settings. I left my when I go to bed after BF3 sessions... :D Also I found forcing adaptive vsync in BF3 helps unstable clocks, by lowering / throttling gpu to produce constant 60fps. At least in my case adaptive vsync helped unstable gpu to run fine, however by removing adaptive vsync, the game would crash after 1-2hrs of gameplay.
 
blade52x said:
Mine got dropped off to go back to Newegg today. I'll gamble with a replacement, and I say gamble because based off what I'm reading, I'm not very confident I'll get one that works out of the box. If it works, then great. If not, then it'll go back for refund and I won't bother with another TOP card.

A bios update may or may not fix the issue. Dropping the clocks would mean their base clock would have to drop below advertised spec. Also, everyone's Keplers boost different, so dropping them may result in stability for some users, but not for all. Finally, what I noticed on my card was the power target seemed a bit low while running loaded - around 95% or so. Others were reporting much higher. But adjusting the slider did nothing for me. I believe if my card was able to run at say, 110% power, it would have been stable. Maybe a bios update can fix this? Either way, I don't care now. Mine is now sitting in a UPS Store.
Click to expand...

I received my TOP from Amazon last week and after reading all these reports of issues, it's going back unopened. Too bad, I really wanted the Asus due to the quiet cooling solution, but I don't want to have to deal with Asus for warranty repairs.
 
fsh42na said:
I received my TOP from Amazon last week and after reading all these reports of issues, it's going back unopened. Too bad, I really wanted the Asus due to the quiet cooling solution, but I don't want to have to deal with Asus for warranty repairs.
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Don't blame you there. The Gigabyte Windforce 670 is just as quiet, overclocks very well and doesn't have any issues so far by customers. Windforce owners are happy.
 
DisposableHero said:
wow this has issues just like the 7970 one? asus is really failing
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I was very surprised to see this too. I can't believe how many people are still standing behind Asus on this. Their 79xx DCII's had issues and now their 6xx DCII TOP's have issues. if I had one I would be screaming at an Asus customer service rep telling them to get their shit together.
 
Blkout said:
If it passes Heaven loops at max settings. DX11, Extreme Tesselation, 16AF, 8xAA for at least 30 minutes, preferably 60. Its likely stable in any game. After it passes that, you could try playing BF3, Crysis or Crysis 2 for a while and see if crashes. If it does, you really shouldn't have to move the clocks down very far. Heaven is a great tool to get you VERY close or EXACT to stable clocks.
Click to expand...

I did max out all the settings on Heaven when I ran it. I didn't modify the stock overclock, I just want to verify it is stable at stock first. Unfortunately I don't own BF3, Crysis, or Crysis 2, but I will use Heaven to do the stability test. Thanks for the info.

If it is of any importance on Furmark the temps maxed out at 76C after ~20 minute run.
 
Sgraffite said:
I did max out all the settings on Heaven when I ran it. I didn't modify the stock overclock, I just want to verify it is stable at stock first. Unfortunately I don't own BF3, Crysis, or Crysis 2, but I will use Heaven to do the stability test.

If it is of any importance on Furmark the temps maxed out at 76C after ~20 minute run.
Click to expand...

Probably stable if you ran Heaven at max settings for 60 minutes or so. I wouldn't worry too much about it crashing a game because it likely wont.
 
So far both of mine have been stable. I'm not able to SLI yet as I need to get my hands on a working SLI bridge, but testing them individually they are beasts. One boost clocks to 1280, the other to 1267. Both maintain 60-62C under load with my fan profile.
 
xSystemFailurex said:
So far both of mine have been stable. I'm not able to SLI yet as I need to get my hands on a working SLI bridge, but testing them individually they are beasts. One boost clocks to 1280, the other to 1267. Both maintain 60-62C under load with my fan profile.
Click to expand...

Those clocks are good, but I don't know if I would call them beasts. Anything over 1300 is pretty rare. Lots of people get 1250-1280 clocks. Good to see you that you have two working cards though.
 
Blkout said:
Those clocks are good, but I don't know if I would call them beasts. Anything over 1300 is pretty rare. Lots of people get 1250-1280 clocks. Good to see you that you have two working cards though.
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I was merely referring to how a single card absolutely wipes the floor with my previous card (5970). Literally double the score in Heaven. I haven't OC'd yet.
 
xSystemFailurex said:
I was merely referring to how a single card absolutely wipes the floor with my previous card (5970). Literally double the score in Heaven. I haven't OC'd yet.
Click to expand...

Oh yea, the 79xx series and the 6xx series this generation are awesome cards.
 
fsh42na said:
I received my TOP from Amazon last week and after reading all these reports of issues, it's going back unopened. Too bad, I really wanted the Asus due to the quiet cooling solution, but I don't want to have to deal with Asus for warranty repairs.
Click to expand...

Since you have it on your hands, why don't you just try it? If you are not satisfied with your product I think you have 30 days return policy. Maybe some please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he should be ok to return it without taking any restocking fee penalty...
 
amd7674 said:
Since you have it on your hands, why don't you just try it? If you are not satisfied with your product I think you have 30 days return policy. Maybe some please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he should be ok to return it without taking any restocking fee penalty...
Click to expand...

You are correct. Amazon will accept a defective video card and issue a full refund minus your shipping to send the card back to them. Their return policy is so much better than Newegg's policy.
 
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