Need to force full 3D clock speeds on xfired Tahiti LEs

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Dark12

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Dec 13, 2003
Messages
1,897
Hey everyone. I have been having an issue with my cards, but I am sick of hijacking other people's threads so I thought I would make my own.
I get very unstable and/or low fps in the games I play with my Powercolor 7870LEs. I have noticed that one of my cards is clocking at 501/1550 while the other one jumps between 900-925/1500.
I have tried overclocking them with CCC and Afterburner. I have installed several drivers. I have used driver sweeper in between installs to ensure that is not the problem. I have disabled crossfire and re-enabled. I have the power set to +20%.
It appears it is stuck in a dual monitor 2D speed. One of the cards doesnt even seem to be taking the overclock because it is stuck at stock speeds. Usage is very very spiky between the 2 GPUs during gaming. It is not evenly distributed AT ALL like it was on my previous 2x 6950 setup.
To get an idea of what we are talking about, my 3dmark 11 score is P9211 with both monitors enabled. With just one monitor enabled it jumps to P11920, but still the core speeds jump around and will not hold the full speed during the run. I know 3dmark scores dont really hold much weight around here, but the difference is staggering and shows an obvious correlation.
So my question is, does anyone have any experience with how to fix this? Is there a way I can force constant 3D clocks.
Any input is greatly appreciated!
 
Core speeds are still stuck at 500mhz for the most part. Rarely will jump into 925 or 1100 but only for a few seconds.
Will a BIOS flash be necessary?
 
Core speed(s)? You said it was one card stuck at 500. If it's still the same card at 500 when you switch slots it probably needs to be replaced.

I don't have this issue with the same cards on an ASUS Maximus IV. Just for the hell of it I'd try the second and third slots, or first and third slots.

What PSU?

Your 3DMark should be close to 13,000.
 
Psu is a corsair tx750
I will try other slots tonight. Seems like other people have had the 500mhz issue with different amd cards. Anyone hear of this?
 
I have discovered that my 7870 myst only does 975 if I turn the power limit to +20. But I don't have it dropping to 500. I hop you get it sorted out.
 
get radeon pro, go to the overdrive tab under global profile, enable graphics overdrive, always use high performance clocks while gaming. be sure to save the profile.
 
I appreciate the suggestion. I will give that a shot before i switch slots. Thanks!
 
I got RadeonPro, but I can't find anything to do with overclocking or overdrive. Hmm I feel stupid.
 
So in the overdrive tab in RadeonPro I click the lock to unlock it, but all the overclocking settings are still grayed out.
 
hmm it is for me too, strange i thought u could setup a global profile to use overdrive settings. you can still setup individual application profiles though and then the overdrive tab is available to modify.
 
So all I did was install Radeon Pro. That made both the cards run at stock speed throughout the test instead of dipping to 500mhz frequently. That got my score up to P12910 with 2 monitors on. That is awesome!!
So I just need to figure out how to get the overclocking to work in radeon pro and I am set.
You are the best! Thanks for this suggestion!!!!
 
Ok so apparently through RadeonPro you can only use overdrive with single profiles so you have to make a profile for each game it seems.
EDIT: haha same time
 
Ok so the overclocking options in RadeonPro don't work, but just having it open in the background ensures my core speed stays at 925 and memory stays at 1500 which is stock.
So now I just have to figure out why my cards arent taking the overclock or powertune. These 7870 LEs really benefit from a nice overclock so I would like to get that taken care of.
But so far this is great progress!!
 
Fooshnik said:
You updated your sig so I assume you got them to OC.
Click to expand...

Hey,
Yea I had that in my sig when I first overclocked them and thought they were actually at that speed in-game. So it is inaccurate.
As an update that I just posted in another thread: I was just on the phone with the Powercolor tech dude and he told me I can flash the BIOS myself and void the warranty or ship him the cards. He would need permission from his manager to release the newer BIOS revision and that is probably going to take a couple days if ever.
 
Nice update here.
The user picket23 hooked me up with the 032 bios and I flashed both of my cards from 031 with atiflash.
The issue is completely resolved!
I have tried several games and it never dips below my overdrive speed when I have a 3d application open. No throttling or anything. I re-crossfired and I am now experiencing the same smoothness that I enjoyed with my 6950s. The difference is night and day.
picket you are the man!
I have the bios and I would be happy to help anyone else fix this problem too.
I am very happy I did not have to send the cards in.

btw this is the post I am referencing:
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1039668953&postcount=11
 
Nicely done.

I guess unlike the 7950/7970, these cards aren't 15 months old and still have some maturing to do. Hopefully the bios works for everybody.
 
After flashing I am now getting P14651 score in 3dmark. It was at P12910.
It's a synthetic benchmark I know, but get over it.
 
Can someone link the bios?

I just got it and very confused. I got it watered and 1200 /1550 .
Core stays under 35c, vrm under 50c.

Afterburner says it took clocks, but....

Valley extreme 1430 score
3dmark11 is pitiful. 6378.
Graphics 6148
Physics 7808
Combined 6422

On myst and 3579k @4.2
?????
 
ptrout said:
3dmark11 is pitiful. 6378.
Click to expand...

You should be about 8300. Sounds like you increased your power limit? Does Afterburner show 100% usage during the benchmark?

Dark12 said:
After flashing I am now getting P14651 score in 3dmark. It was at P12910.
It's a synthetic benchmark I know, but get over it.
Click to expand...

What's your core speed/temps of your inside card?
 
Yeah its set at +20, I tried in both CCC, and MSI afterburner, same results.

Its says its hitting 1200, but its looks like series of super quick spikes 925-1200.

You wouldn't have access to that .32 bios would you ?

Thanks man
 
ptrout said:
Yeah its set at +20, I tried in both CCC, and MSI afterburner, same results.

Its says its hitting 1200, but its looks like series of super quick spikes 925-1200.

You wouldn't have access to that .32 bios would you ?

Thanks man
Click to expand...
Same problem will the .32 bios fix?
@ptrout dose catalyst eventually crash, under load, for you with the spikes between 925-1200?
 
I have the new bios, but I need email addresses to send the file to.
Everyone that asked in pm and gave me your address has it now.
My core speed for that run was 1130. memory was at 1560.
Gpu temps are kind of high I guess. Maxing at around 75C-80C. Nowhere near an issue though.
 
Thanks Dark for the BIOS. I flashed it even though I wasn't having the same issues. Good news: I managed to get stable/artifact free from 1025 to 1150 on the core.

Bad news: My memory clock OC seems to be borked. I can't overclock any more than 1500. 1501 I lock up with orange bars. If you're going to flash 032 make sure you reset your clocks first. Seems to be some sort of bug, perhaps the cards that shipped with 028 aren't compatible with the new BIOS.

Regardless, I'm not going to flash back. I'm getting better performance with the core OC than I was with the small memory OC (1530). Took single card from 8400 3dmark 11 to 8900.

I had the computer apart so I figured I'd replace the TIM on one of the cards with Prolimatech. One card ran about 15 degrees warmer than the other. One of the mounting posts wasn't all the way through the PCB. Even with that it appeared to be making good contact.


cardandheatsink.jpg



The heat sink actually doesn't seem all that bad. The finish is a little rough while the GPU is mirror finish.

gpube.jpg



Lowered temps by about 5 degrees at idle. Not sure what it did under load as before when running Furmark I'd kill it at 86 degrees, which it got to in 30 seconds, now it stabilizes at 80 degrees which sounds warm but it's better than it was. I did the other card the same, it tops out at 77. Unfortunately when i buttoned up the case the temps weren't much better than before. I think my mATX has breathing problems. If I can fit it I'll put my Antec 620 on the inside card.

I take it I'm the only one getting orange bars?
 
Sorry to hijack, but how can I see my 2d clocks with the 7870 myst? My Catalyst control panel overclock tab seems to disappear when I enable it so I can't see my clocks. What 2d clock does the 7870 myst suppose to run at?
 
I updated to bios 32 this afternoon without problem. Furmark doesn't bounce around anymore. I set powertune to 10% and clocked up to 1100. Card has trouble maintaining that on Furmark and bounced between 925 and 1100 with card temp stable at 87 degrees. I didn't want to increase powertune any further because the heat.

When I ran Crysis 2, the card clocked up without problem to 1100stable without any problem and was stable at 77 degrees. I see if I can lower powertune a bit and still stay at 1100 without trouble. The fan noise a bit more high pitched than my 6950 so more noticeable.
 
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