• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Flickering 6950

S

skit

Weaksauce
Joined
Jan 27, 2008
Messages
68
Hi,

I just bought a MSI 6950 Twin Frozr III and I'm having the flickering issue on the second monitor (I'm using a Dell 2007wfp and a U2311h). However all the threads I see are about the 5 series cards and not the 6 series. Am I alone?

What do you think it might be?
Here's my system specs:
AMD 911 (stock speed)
4Gb GSkill ram (stock timing and speed)
Asus M4A89GTD
LC Power 600W TitanII 140mm V2.3 (maybe this is the problem?)
 
hm, not that I've really researched this at all, but I may have noticed a flicker on my second monitor (samsung BX2450) on a 6950 when I open or close certain apps...Is the flicker you speak of a constant issue, or just triggered on certain events? I wasn't even sure if I was having an issue or just imagining something out of the corner of my eye occasionally, but you saying this makes me wonder...

I apologize for not actually looking this up, but to be honest, I didn't even realize there was a documented flickering issue.
 
There is. And that is exactly what's happening to me. It only happens when I open some apps or some youtube video for example.
 
THe same issue affected the 4xxx series, so the 6xxx's almost certainly are affected the same way. ATI cards don't like abrupt changes in clock speed from idle to full and back. Bumping up your idle (or presumably dropping your max when not gaming) should fix it.
 
Skit: What clockspeed does AMD Overdrive say your card is idling at? Include both the core and memory clocks, please.
 
I've read something about this issue but never with a 6950. Maybe I just didn't find it.

It's idling at 450Mhz GPU Clock and 1300Mhz Memory Clock. It's a MSI 6950 Twin Frozr III OC/Performance Edition.

It's not that the card is not performing well but it's just annoying to see the second monitor flicker everytime.

In other forum some people pointed the finger at the PSU since they believe it's a big stretch for such a weak PSU.
 
Well, if it's only happening under certain circumstances (like opening a YouTube video) then it might be the "PowerPlay Downclocking" issue.

Watch what the clockspeeds do when you open a YouTube video. Does the memory clockspeed suddenly drop to 900MHz?
 
My does the same thing I'm running dual 6950's and also did it on my dual 5770's. To correct it on my 5770 I disabled overdrive. Doesn't work for my 6950's because I'm o/cing them.
 
Unknown-One said:
Well, if it's only happening under certain circumstances (like opening a YouTube video) then it might be the "PowerPlay Downclocking" issue.

Watch what the clockspeeds do when you open a YouTube video. Does the memory clockspeed suddenly drop to 900MHz?
Click to expand...

It doesn't drop to 900Mhz but to 1250Mhz and the Core Clock goes up to 500. Is this the problem? The drop in Mem clock?
 
Time to give 11.5 a try.

Edit: Nope. Still the same issue.

Edit 2: Even that preset trick didn't do it. Even when setting it to "force" 1300Mhz it goes down to 1250 when using Flash somehow ...
 
Last edited:
skit said:
Edit 2: Even that preset trick didn't do it. Even when setting it to "force" 1300Mhz it goes down to 1250 when using Flash somehow ...
Click to expand...

Ok, so that particular card glitches to 1250MHz in UVD mode rather than 900MHz, good to know...

Anyway, yes, the change in memory clockspeed leads to momentary flicker. The only way to (sort-of) work around the issue is to modify your video BIOS by hand. You'll need to overwrite the clockspeed values for UVD mode with the ones you're using for 3D mode.

The card will then run at full 3D clocks when you play hardware accelerated video. This still isn't correct behavior, but you wont get flickering, and 3D performance wont be impacted by playing videos anymore.
 
Thanks. I'll give it a try.

Edit: Sounds like something easier then done.
Whenever I change any clock on the BIOS all I get in a nice BSOD on the next boot.
 
Last edited:
What you can try is disabling hardware acceleration for flash.

Right click on your youtube video, click on the furthest right tab (settings) and uncheck "enable hardware acceleration".

That will prevent your video card going into UVD mode and fixing clock rates at 500MHz. I noticed my 6950 (2gb) would get stuck on 500MHz if I had a youtube video (playing or not) in the backround when I was gaming, but disabling hardware acceleration of youtube (flash) videos "fixed" that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top