MSI R6970 Lightning Issue

[Tylergoodguy]

Good evening Forum,

I purchased an MSI R6970 Lightning card in April, and began having a particular issue that I haven't been able to narrow down, and would like the forum's opinion before I contact MSI.

The issue that I receive is while playing a decently taxing game (Starcraft 2 or L4D2 max settings) I receive a lock-up that causes vertical lines on both my monitors. This started happening in June while I was at a LAN, and it happens just about every 4 hours of Starcraft 2. My temperatures do not exceed 66C, and I can run MSI's Kombustor utility for hours on end at max and not receive the problem.

I have the most recent drivers (11.7).

My hardware is the following:
ASUS P6X58D Premium
12GB Corsair Dominator
Intel i7 950
Corsair HX1000W PSU
2x1TB WD Black


Please respond if you have any constructive offerings, thanks!

 

[~CS~]

When did that start happening ? Have you ran memtest to rule out memory ?

 

[Tylergoodguy]

It started happening in June. I ran memtest, but if it's the graphic's card memory, does memtest cover that?

 

[Lord_Exodia]

Not sure how there are 2 threads for this but I replied in the other thread with the following info;

Originally Posted by Lord_Exodia
Interesting, have you tried under clocking the card to stock 6970 speeds to see if the problem happens or not?

880 Core
1375 Memory

Have you tried with the +20 power settings enabled in AMD Overdrive?

Finally have you tried to speed up the fan on the card to see if it prevents the problem from happening so soon, keep in mind your temps sound fine,

 

[Tylergoodguy]

I haven't tried returning the card to stock speeds yet. I'm currently at work so I can do that when I return home. Shouldn't the card be stable though with it's factory overclock? Seems detrimental if the company does its minor OC just to have it fail at the end user, if that's the case.

 

[Lord_Exodia]

I haven't tried returning the card to stock speeds yet. I'm currently at work so I can do that when I return home. Shouldn't the card be stable though with it's factory overclock? Seems detrimental if the company does its minor OC just to have it fail at the end user, if that's the case.

Absolutely, keep in mind now we're just troubleshooting. If it doesn't run at stock (lightning) speeds then the card isn't running up to lightning spec and should be grounds for an RMA or refund.

For the sake of troubleshooting you simply want to find what is wrong, once you know exactly what's going on the next step becomes simple and obvious in most cases.

 

[Tylergoodguy]

Ahh, good point. I got sidetracked on the idea that I might be able to fix it myself haha.

I'll be able to run this when I get home later and update.

Thanks again, in the meantime.

 

[haste]

Ahh, good point. I got sidetracked on the idea that I might be able to fix it myself haha.

I'll be able to run this when I get home later and update.

Thanks again, in the meantime.

expect a refund if you do RMA it. MSI has no replacement cards

 

[Tylergoodguy]

No replacements? How did you come about this information?

 

[haste]

No replacements? How did you come about this information?

i experienced it recently.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1625255

 

[Tylergoodguy]

Ohhh I guess that's not a big deal then, I've been looking at the ASUS 580 Matrix anyway.

 

[metallicaband]

You decided to return the card? Because I also have a 6970 lightning card and used to have problems with certain games getting stuck (like DA2 or Crysis demo), I looked at the GPU-Z log and saw that my clock speed hit 1000Mhz and memory @ 1415Mhz even though I didn't overclock the card.

It turned out that AMD overdrive feature automatically did that (I'm pretty sure I didn't enable this feature), I disabled it and everything has been running just fine using the original factory OC 940Mhz clock 1375Mhz memory.

 

[Tylergoodguy]

Hey thanks for your reply, I haven't returned it yet as I'm still waiting for a few things. I don't have AMD overdrive, can you tell me the method you used in CPU-Z for your findings?

 

[shantd]

I think he's referring to the overdrive tab in catalyst control center. I know it's not related but I found that my card actually runs 5C hotter with CCC running in the background so I've stopped using it, going with MSI Afterburner only and have no issues.

You'd mentioned earlier in the thread that you were going to try to return the card to stock speeds. Did you try that yet?

 

[Relayer]

I've read that Afterburner and CCC don't always play well together. I've seen where people have cured issues by not having Afterburner running in the background. The other option is to do as shandt suggested and turn CCC off. Without CCC though don't you loose out on some (all?) driver optimizations?

Another common problem (according to XFX, anyway) is system RAM not being set to spec. Some mobo's don't always set proper voltage and timings for the system RAM. Worth checking.

 

[shantd]

Yes that's what I'd heard, not to use both AB and CCC at the same time, so I always just ran one or the other but not both simultaneously. Everyone here also told me that CCC has a bunch of features that AB doesn't have. I'm sure that's true, but in terms of gaming I can't tell any difference. Only distinction between the two that I can see is CCC runs my card hotter than AB.

 

[metallicaband]

I think he's referring to the overdrive tab in catalyst control center.

Yeah that's the one I meant.

can you tell me the method you used in CPU-Z for your findings?

It's GPU-Z in-case that wasn't a typo and you're thinking about CPU-Z, it's a different application.

You can get it from here:

http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

Run the application, under the sensor tab check the box that says log to file, then play your PC games normally until your system crashes, after the restart open the log file and see your card's stats when it crashed and a bit before it, you'll be able to see the temps, GPU load, fan speed, clock speeds..etc

BTW I also use CCC and MSI AB with a custom fan profile, after disabling the AMD OD feature didn't face any problem so far running 'em together.