Should I RMA?

[Blu_Haze]

I'm getting the distinct feeling that the new Radeon HD 5770 I purchased is having some issues.

In any of the other games that I've tried it with so far (TF2, GTA4, HL2: EP2, etc) it's performed fine with no problems, however in WoW I have had 3 separate occasions where anomalies have appeared. Twice while flying, the most serious of them while standing in Dalaran.

While flying, I have twice now experienced an issue where the certain drawn portions of the screen would disappear completely, among them being the UI itself, the wings of my mount, and water effects. Below is a screenshot for reference:




The most serious though, and the one that's leading me towards wanting to RMA it, is while standing in Dalaran one night before a raid my entire screen turned ot nothing but beige vertical lines. After a hard reboot everything was fine again, however until then it was basically a complete system lockup.


Typically symptoms like this lead me to believe that there is something faulty with the video card, however I would also appreciate any input as to whether this could also be something software related.

 

[kcuestag]

You might want to stress your GPU with Furmark @ Stress option with post-processing activated too.

If you say other games work well, I don't think it is your card, WoW is very CPU dependant and any old car with a proper dual core over 2,60Ghz will perform good in WoW, ur HD5770 is not even being used by a 40% of it's total power.

Try some GPU demanding games like Crysis, Bad Company 2, Metro 2033, Just Cause 2... etc

But I would say it's a wow issue, I personally quitted wow because I got pissed that my signature's rig ran worse on Dalaran than my old laptop, made no sense at all, however any other game it performs as it is supposed to (Bad Company 2 @ 1920x1080p > High on everything > AAx2 > HBAO ON always over 80-90fps even on heavy fights).

I would say first try demanding games, if you get more issues, RMA it, but if it's only on WoW, could be a driver incompatibility with WoW, what driver version you using?

Or could just be WoW, I personally think it is crap optimized, some pple with a 400€ PC can run it better than people with a 1500€ Pc... It's crazy.

 

[FaRKle0079]

one night before a raid my entire screen turned ot nothing but beige vertical lines

Sounds like the GSOD (grey screen of death), or were they really all a light brown color (beige)?

 

[Blu_Haze]

You might want to stress your GPU with Furmark @ Stress option with post-processing activated too.

This is one of the things that I had tried right before posting here, however I've just now heard of Furmark today and I'm unfamiliar with it. I had only let it run for about 10 minutes while I was making lunch, but I'm going to take a guess that like other stress tests it's something you should run for as long as possible, preferably overnight. One thing that I did notice though, is that the temperatures, as reported by GPU-Z, were getting up there a bit while performing the xtreme-burning mode.

They peaked at about 89°. Under normal load though (as in playing a game), the highest I've noticed was in the mid 60's, although I haven't made a point before now to watch it closely.

If you say other games work well, I don't think it is your card, WoW is very CPU dependant and any old car with a proper dual core over 2,60Ghz will perform good in WoW, ur HD5770 is not even being used by a 40% of it's total power.

I've updated my signature with the rest of my systems current specs, everything was purchased at the same time, approximately less than a month ago.

But I would say it's a wow issue, I personally quitted wow because I got pissed that my signature's rig ran worse on Dalaran than my old laptop, made no sense at all, however any other game it performs as it is supposed to (Bad Company 2 @ 1920x1080p > High on everything > AAx2 > HBAO ON always over 80-90fps even on heavy fights).

You bring up some good points, and I agree that in recent years the game has taken a bit of a nosedive as far as stability and compatibility is concerned. For some reason it seems to run great on certain configurations, and on others you get sub-par performance on a machine that you would think could blow it out of the water.

I would say first try demanding games, if you get more issues, RMA it, but if it's only on WoW, could be a driver incompatibility with WoW, what driver version you using?

The driver version I'm currently using is atiumdag 8.14.10.0743 (Catalyst 10.4) / Win7 64

Sounds like the GSOD (grey screen of death), or were they really all a light brown color (beige)?

As best as I can remember, the screen was completely filled with thick vertical lines, alternating in color between a lighter tan, and a slightly darker beige. Thus far it's only happened once since I've had the new hardware installed, and hasn't reoccurred since then.

Also the graphical anomalies as shown in the above screenshot has only occured twice that I know of as well. Both times it only happened while the camera was positioned in certain directions, in example if I panned the camera towards a different direction, the missing elements would flicker back on, then off again as I looked towards the offending area once more.

 

[shuang]

Do NOT run Furmark overnight, that program kills cards.

 

[einz]

Do NOT run Furmark overnight, that program kills cards.

Another vote here. I ran furmark, left to grab food, came back 30 min later and noticed that temps were getting higher than anything I get playing actual games. Be careful with that thing!

 

[aintz]

furmark for 5-10mins will determine the stability of ur card (if it doesnt artifact and such)

wow can have prettycolors due to load texture errors. ive had a couple happen to me but only when i recover from alttab. and you pointed out that it doesnt happen in other games so im assuming its fine. my 5870 use to cra* out playing a source mod.