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Artifacts in Crysis when overclocking Core i7 920

W

WeatherB

Weaksauce
Joined
Sep 15, 2004
Messages
81
Hi - I have been trying to overclock my Core i7 920 (on the Gigabyte UD4P) for the last few days and I keep getting artifacts in Crysis no matter what overclock I use.

The stock settings are fine and no artifacts.

The slowest overclock that I tried was 150 BCLK * 20 Multiplier to get 3GHz. At this setting I left everything else on automatic, except the DRAM voltage which I bumped up to 1.6volts based on the specs of my OCZ memory.

I also tried 160 BCLK * 20 Multiplier to get 3.2GHz. I bumped the core voltage to 1.3volts, QPI to 1.33volts, lowered the UNCLK to 2.8GHz.

No matter what I do, I keep getting artifacts in Crysis. Other games are fine.

Interestingly, using only one video card doesn't cause this to happen. It is when I use my SLI setup that I get the artifacts on overclocked speeds.

Help!

Here are the CPU-Z for the 3GHz overclock.

Untitled-1.jpg

Untitled-2.jpg

Untitled-3.jpg
 
Shoot, looks like the replies disappeared.

Here are my components:

Gigabyte UD4P motherboard
Intel i7 920 CPU
2 x BFG GTX 280 (stock speed)
Cooler Master 750w power supply

The CPU temperate is 55degrees, GPU about 70degrees, motherboard about 50degrees. All are "under load" temperatures.

The PCI-E bus is running at 100MHz, 1.5 volts.

I just bought a Corsair 1000W power supply and will give it a try tonight. Hopefully that resolves my issue.
 
I would have to say it's the game, i would try uninstalling and reinstalling the game. Make sure you have all the updates and patches. Look to see if your V. syc is unchecked. Double check your resolution also. I really believe uninstalling and reinstalling the game will fix the issue.
 
Changing the power supply had no effect.

Same with reinstalling the game.
 
WeatherB said:
Changing the power supply had no effect.
Click to expand...

Wish I could help you w/ your problem (no experience w/ SLI), but as to your 1000W PS: you should get a kill-a-watt for $30 and measure your system's power draw playing crysis (i.e. loaded-up GPUs) as keep prime95 running the the background to insure a load CPU. The kill-a-watt will show the Watts being drawn. I'll bet you're WAY under 80 % of 1000W with your setup :)

My system has a 620 W PS and when it's fully loaded, I only hit 212 W for example.
 
have you tried lowering your timing on your memory to see if thats the problem.. i notice the memory is rated at 610 8--9-9-19 and your running it at 600 8-8-8-24.. it might be a shot in the dark but try changing it to 8-9-9-19 and see what happens..
 
Thanks for the suggestion. Noticed that yesterday as well so I tried 10-10-10-30 and it made no difference. :(
 
Have you isolated if it's the CPU or GPU yet. So if your CPU is at stock does it still artifact?
 
flak-spammer said:
Have you isolated if it's the CPU or GPU yet. So if your CPU is at stock does it still artifact?
Click to expand...

Yes, I am definitely sure it has something to do with SLI and the "system" not being able to handle the added stress when overclocked.

I tried running each video card separately and didn't get any artifacting.

Not artifacts with the CPU at stock speed.
 
I took some captures of my bios settings. Anything look obviously wrong? Note that I fixed the QPI PPL to 1.1volts (pictures show 1.0volts)

P1000879.JPG

P1000880.JPG

P1000881.JPG

P1000882.JPG

P1000883.JPG

P1000884.JPG

P1000885.JPG


Here is what I get sometimes in Crysis Warhead.

P1000867.JPG
 
That doesnt really look like artifacts to me.

Check the monitor cable to the gpu; see if its loose etc and then try using another cable.

Also you can try increasing the PCIE Clock Drive to 800mV and see if that does anything.
 
DeadSkull said:
That doesnt really look like artifacts to me.

Check the monitor cable to the gpu; see if its loose etc and then try using another cable.
Click to expand...

That's one of them, other times I get black "triangles". Don't think it's the cable since all other games and things run fine.

I'll try connecting the monitor to another video card input to see if that helps.
 
WeatherB said:
That's one of them, other times I get black "triangles". Don't think it's the cable since all other games and things run fine.

I'll try connecting the monitor to another video card input to see if that helps.
Click to expand...

I hope you also noticed this. I edited my message so you may not have caught it.

Also you can try increasing the PCIE Clock Drive to 800mV and see if that does anything
Click to expand...
.
 
Thanks for the suggestions. No luck on all accounts.
 
Last edited:
Hmmm
Well try out increasing PCIE Clock Drive to 900mV then 1000mV.

If that fails try increasing your southbridge voltages (what handles gpu etc)
ICH core
ICH I/o

Now if IOH core is also related to Southbridge ops I'd increase that too.

I hope you tested out your overclocks already and those speeds are stable with p95/IBT.

Since the "effects" don't look anything like unstable gpu artifacts your cards are not the issue.

You already tested everything with HX 1000 and this problem is still around so PSU was not the issue.

I'm starting to lean toward your motherboard being the culprit here. Are both Graphics cards firmly seated in PCIE slots?
 
DeadSkull said:
Hmmm
Well try out increasing PCIE Clock Drive to 900mV then 1000mV.

If that fails try increasing your southbridge voltages (what handles gpu etc)
ICH core
ICH I/o

Now if IOH core is also related to Southbridge ops I'd increase that too.

I hope you tested out your overclocks already and those speeds are stable with p95/IBT.

Since the "effects" don't look anything like unstable gpu artifacts your cards are not the issue.

You already tested everything with HX 1000 and this problem is still around so PSU was not the issue.

I'm starting to lean toward your motherboard being the culprit here. Are both Graphics cards firmly seated in PCIE slots?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the other suggestions, I will give them a try tonight.

The overclock is Prime 95 stable (tested it for about 7 hours). I've never used Intel Burn Test, any value is giving this a try or is Prime 95 enough?

The cards are firmly seated.

I still don't understand why the motherboard works fine at the stock speed but even a 300 MHz overclock causes issues.
 
Tried all the suggestions and still no go.

Even tried a brand new Asus P6T Deluxe V2 motherboard and had the same exact problem.

So that leaves the CPU, memory, or video cards as the culprit. I've tried swapping around the memory sticks, even running just one of them with no luck.

Any more suggestions? :(
 
Can you try to test a diff set of cards to see if you still have that problem?

Test your cpu with Linx.
 
viets7ylez said:
Can you try to test a diff set of cards to see if you still have that problem?

Test your cpu with Linx.
Click to expand...

I'll see if I can get my hands on two other video cards, but I doubt it.

What is Linx? I've tested it with Prime 95 and 10 runs of Intel Burn.
 
Judging from the screenshots it definitely seems that the artifacts are indicative of a GPU related problem from my experience.

Forget about changing system memory timings etc; you're barking up the wrong tree.


To confirm it's the GPUs; try underclock the GPU cores and see if it goes away.


If it does then it would seem to me that you have some kind of power issue regarding your graphics cards. I would have thought your PSU would have been enough though. You might try upping the voltages to the NB, SB, and PCI sata even (if you have that option) because it seems to me that power across your board is the root cause here.

If all that fails, try using the older (pre big-bangII) 178.24 drivers.

For some reason that I can't explain, no one seems to have noticed the artifacts and stuttering in some games e.g. GRID introduced by the Big Bang (and subsequent) drivers, so that might fix it.


Hope that helps.
 
spine said:
Judging from the screenshots it definitely seems that the artifacts are indicative of a GPU related problem from my experience.

Forget about changing system memory timings etc; you're barking up the wrong tree.


To confirm it's the GPUs; try underclock the GPU cores and see if it goes away.


If it does then it would seem to me that you have some kind of power issue regarding your graphics cards. I would have thought your PSU would have been enough though. You might try upping the voltages to the NB, SB, and PCI sata even (if you have that option) because it seems to me that power across your board is the root cause here.

If all that fails, try using the older (pre big-bangII) 178.24 drivers.

For some reason that I can't explain, no one seems to have noticed the artifacts and stuttering in some games e.g. GRID introduced by the Big Bang (and subsequent) drivers, so that might fix it.


Hope that helps.
Click to expand...

Underclocking the video cards does not help, already tried. Same with upping the SB and NB voltages.

I will give your suggestion of changing to an older driver a try.

One thing to note, in Crysis where the game shows a screenshot preview of the save game, I do see the artifacts there. This means that the artifacts are present when the system takes a screenshot. What does this mean?
 
Still no luck...

Tried the 180 release drivers and had the same issues. I could not use 178.24 as it would not detect the SLI because of the X58 chipset.

Tried replacing my two GTX 280s with two GTX 260 Maxcore, same issue still.

Interestingly, if I do NOT overclock the processor but turn on the manual BCLK control, I have the same artifacting issues. Hopefully this will ring some bells for someone.

For now I have given up and am running just the one GTX 280 @ 3.7GHz without any problems.
 
Another update...

Tried one GTX 295 today and the same problem again.

Tried a refresh install with Windows XP, SP3, and only bare minimum divers. Same problem again.

This must have something to do with multiple GPUs.
 
is this the only game its doing it in? if so have you gotten all the updates for the game that fix the multiple gpu support problems?
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
is this the only game its doing it in? if so have you gotten all the updates for the game that fix the multiple gpu support problems?
Click to expand...

So far it's only Crysis and Crysis Warhead that are doing this. Tried FEAR 2, Half Life 2, and Team Fortress 2 without any problems.

I got Crysis and Crysis Warhead through Steam, so they should be up to date.

Oh ya, interestingly I get a lot less artifacting in the Crysis demo than I do in the full version of Crysis.
 
id check to make sure they are fully updated.. but thats interesting its only doing it with those 2 games.. have you tried maybe disabling dx10 support and using dx9 to see if the problem is still there? just an idea since i believe those other games dont use dx10..
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
id check to make sure they are fully updated.. but thats interesting its only doing it with those 2 games.. have you tried maybe disabling dx10 support and using dx9 to see if the problem is still there? just an idea since i believe those other games dont use dx10..
Click to expand...

I checked and it's currently the latest version.

I am using DX9 already. No DX10 support in Windows XP.
 
Hey OP, i have some insight for you.

honestly, its just the game.

see, I had owned Radeon 2900 series cards at one point.

now here's what would happen. My radeon 2900XT would work fine at stock clocks (core was 743 mhz, don't remember memory speeds)
Anytime I overclocked that card, i'd get artifacts. didn't matter of the fan speed, or what speed core clock i used, it just always did it.

now fast foward to 6 months later i ended up getting a radeon 2900 Pro. same card, slower clocks.

Clocked it up to 743 core, zero artifacts. went to 750 core, CONSTANT ARTIFACTS.

its ONLY Crysis. Warhead was not out at the time so I wasn't able to test that game.
 
AmongTheChosenX said:
Hey OP, i have some insight for you.

honestly, its just the game.

see, I had owned Radeon 2900 series cards at one point.

now here's what would happen. My radeon 2900XT would work fine at stock clocks (core was 743 mhz, don't remember memory speeds)
Anytime I overclocked that card, i'd get artifacts. didn't matter of the fan speed, or what speed core clock i used, it just always did it.

now fast foward to 6 months later i ended up getting a radeon 2900 Pro. same card, slower clocks.

Clocked it up to 743 core, zero artifacts. went to 750 core, CONSTANT ARTIFACTS.

its ONLY Crysis. Warhead was not out at the time so I wasn't able to test that game.
Click to expand...


i agree.. the game engine used in crysis is actually probably one of the worst gaming engines made.. sure the game looks good.. but its insanely inefficient..
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
i agree.. the game engine used in crysis is actually probably one of the worst gaming engines made.. sure the game looks good.. but its insanely inefficient..
Click to expand...

That is probably true, but doesn't explain why I seem to be the only person getting these artifacts nor why everything runs okay if I leave the manual BCLK control disabled.

I am going to try installing Vista and see if that resolves the issue. Maybe I'll have better luck with DX10?
 
its possible you would i dont see how.. unless its the nvidia drivers your using.. while on the same note you could always try screwing around and changing the pci-e bus to 105mhz and seeing if it fixes the problem.. usually the 5 mhz change wont effect the system but sometimes fix gfx errors on some motherboards.. possible you got one of those motherboards..
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
its possible you would i dont see how.. unless its the nvidia drivers your using.. while on the same note you could always try screwing around and changing the pci-e bus to 105mhz and seeing if it fixes the problem.. usually the 5 mhz change wont effect the system but sometimes fix gfx errors on some motherboards.. possible you got one of those motherboards..
Click to expand...

Increasing the PCI-E speed had no effect.

I also tried a different set of memory modules and had the same problem.

So this means that the only part that has not been swapped out so far is the CPU. However, I doubt the CPU is the issue since Prim 95 and IBT run fine.
 
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