5870 keeps switching clock speed, how stop?

[PoorBehavior]

Got a 5870 a month or two ago, probably my last ATI video card. Card is great but as everyone knows the drivers suck. I forgot how bad because I just have not worried about drivers at all the entire time I owned my 8800gt.
Anyway, I am playing dragon age and keep getting this graphical half screen flipping kinda glitch every 30-45 seconds. I am thinking the card is a bust and is dying. I pull up GPUID and realize that for some reason it is running at 400mhz and the glitch comes every time it speeds up to 850mhz. It seems DA is not enough of a problem to force it to run at 850 all the time, just whenever I launch a fireball or something. I have tray tools but I am afraid to use it because I did so previously and spent three days trying to uninstall and install new drivers, for some reason ATI drivers would not install, drove me nuts. I am not overclocking and when I turn off the option for the drivers to pick between 400-850 it will only run at 400.

What are you guys using to control these cards? Card is obviously powerful and I think should last me a good long time but I am amazed even after hearing all the complaints just how bad these drivers are.

 

[UtopiA]

The screen glitch you're seeing is a voltage change, as it occurs when your clocks go up.
The cards do not have clock speed scaling as you describe, it doesn't very speed based on demand. It should run at 850/1200 stock at all times in 3D performance.

400/900 should only be used for hardware accelerated video playback (HD movies).

 

[Crosshairs]

You can try using MSI afterburner to set a 3D clock profile.

 

[PoorBehavior]

The screen glitch you're seeing is a voltage change, as it occurs when your clocks go up.
The cards do not have clock speed scaling as you describe, it doesn't very speed based on demand. It should run at 850/1200 stock at all times in 3D performance.

400/900 should only be used for hardware accelerated video playback (HD movies).

If that's the case I have something goofy going on with my drivers because it stays at 400/1200 all the time except in most 3d. Thanks for that info though, I dread messing with these drivers again.

The other thing it does is if I try to change the default clock speed, even one mhz, up or down, the core clock goes to 157mhz and the memory goes to 500. With any program including the ccc.

Just weird and unnecessary.

 

[UtopiA]

157mhz and the memory goes to 500

That's the normal 2D setting (desktop) when you're not doing anything.

400/1200

There's a thread about it here:
http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=260&threadid=120949
http://www.semiaccurate.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2272

If you find out what's causing that clock state, you can solve the problem.

 

[SHiZNiLTi]

1. Open CCC

2. Unlock and Enable Overdrive if they aren’t already.

3. Go to Profiles also called Presets. Create a new profile. Under composition make sure “ATI Overdrive” is checked. Save and Close, DO NOT ACTIVATE.

4. In windows go to: C:\Users\{yourusername}\AppData\Local\ATI\ACE\Profiles (you will need to have “show hidden files” turned on for this)

5. Open the xml document with the name of the profile you just created (notepad is fine)

6. Change the values of the Clock and Memory speeds to look like this ...

Feature name="CoreClockTarget_0"

Property name="Want_0" value="60000"

Property name="Want_1" value="60000"

Property name="Want_2" value="90000"

Feature

Feature name="MemoryClockTarget_0"

Property name="Want_0" value="120000"

Property name="Want_1" value="120000"

Property name="Want_2" value="125000"


7. Save and close. Go back to CCC and activate the profile you just created.

This will make the card idle at 600core, 1200memory.



This is also the fix for when you have flickering running extended desktop with 2 monitors on a overclocked card.

 

[GotNoRice]

Are you running the game in windowed mode?

Running a game in any form of windowed mode, even a maximized window (which in many games is functionally equivalent and indistinguishable from true fullscreen) will not have the GPU using it's 3d clocks.