Weird Problem with HD 7970

Zabuzaxsta

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Jan 19, 2012
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The description on my youtube video says it all, but I'll try and explain it a little before you check out the video. Basically, I got a second hd 7970 to run crossfire on a eyefinity triple monitor setup. I plugged it in, got it all working, gave it a nice 1260/1725/1.3 gpu/memory/volts overclock, did some 3dmark11 tests, and crap hit the fan. I get weird, dynamic primary color bursts (they look like SUPER botched lens flares) popping all around the screen, and they get progressively worse. In some games, textures will flicker horribly. Here's the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKW9GVm4ZXo&feature=g-upl&context=G20f18f2AUAAAAAAAAAA

Pay closer attention to the beginning of the video, that's really what it looks like. In the latter part, something got lost during encoding and it sorta looks like that but without the black outlines of shapes and whatnot. The whole screen becomes a dazzle of blue, red, and green flares, then the program crashes. What's going on here, do I have a defective card?

I feel the need to mention that when I ran the same overclock on just one HD 7970, everything was fine. The moment I put them into crossfire, however, that crap started happening. Usually, it happens whenever I get over 100fps (though for some reason that video says the FPS was 60 - I think FRAPS records at 60 FPS, so it slowed the framerate down).

EDIT: Oh, and at stock clocks on the xfire everything runs fine.
 
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.... Your edit just answered your entire post..

What exactly are you asking for now?
 
OC'ing two cards in xfire is not the same as with just one card as one of them may not be a good OC'er. Since both your 7970s are running fine together at stock speeds, enjoy the performance your getting from two cards.
 
might be able to oc each a small amount, but when xfired, both cards will be at what the card with the lowest oc is at. SO if i have 1000/1500 and a 950/1450, both will go to 950/1450, and your wasting the extra.
 
.... Your edit just answered your entire post..

What exactly are you asking for now?

An answer to the question. Go read it again. When I OC'ed the one card, everything was fine. The fact that OC'ing them both results in a problem is evidence for several underdetermined theories. In essence, there are multiple equally likely explanations for what the issue is - it could be that crossfired cards do not overclock well, that the second card I got is very temperamental or defective, that 1.3 volts is too much/too little juice, that I have a generally unstable overclock, that I'm not overclocking the HD 7970s well (i.e. they, as a whole, could be very specific about what voltages/frequencies they like), that the current drivers for the cards are terrible, that the current crossfire drivers result in this issue at high overclocks, that I have a defective xfire bridge, that I'm overrunning the buffer at this OC (they are in two x8 lanes), that these cards do not crossfire well, etc., etc.

The fact that you tried to be a smartass and ended up just sounding stupid is hilarious, imo. I'm looking for someone to tell me what the stuff in my video is and what some potential explanations are for it. It's obviously achieved at a high overclock in my particular instance, but that isn't necessarily an exhaustive explanation of the phenomenon. At any rate, such an observation hardly explains WHY it happens at a high overclock or if it can be fixed. Comments like yours are not helpful.

Vegasr, the xfx black edition hd 7970 has been demonstrated to be a very good overclocking card, and since the original post I have found that they overclock in xfire very well. Some people are getting them to 1.3GHz and above, and they are very stable. That being said, I think you are right that it might be some problem with xfire overclocking.

thrgk, thanks for pointing out I didn't make this clear - both cards are OC'ed to 1260/1725/1.3
 
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overclocking 2 video cards in sli/crossfire is stupid imo.

you don't get it man....


Zabuzaxsta - try to switch card and run the second card alone on the clocks of the primary card (just one card in the computer) and see if it is capable of being stable at that overclock,
even though the cards might be of the same brand/manufacturer chips are not cloned and sometimes one perform better than another one.
Once you tested what's the safe/stable speeds for the weaker card you could bring the second one to those clocks

I had the same issue with my 5870 - they were in the same computer, but one was weaker and would give blue screen once I bring it up too high.
 
overclocking 2 video cards in sli/crossfire is stupid imo.

Seriously, where is this coming from? Do I even know you? People like you should be banned from posting in the forums; this is a ridiculous comment to make on someone's post.

If you're trying to mock me because I said someone was "sounding stupid" when they accused me of answering my own question earlier, that's an epic fail. If I go to the CPU overclocking forum and ask people why I get a BSOD when I overclock my i5 2500k to 4GHz (but at stock clocks it's stable), people wouldn't respond with "You just answered your entire post...what exactly are you asking for now?" I mean, to state that you're having this problem because you're overclocking the CPU borders on being ludicrously obtuse, or intentional asshat-ery.

Come on, people...give me something helpful here. Shaks, I'll go ahead and give your suggestion a try - I thought of trying that earlier, but I didn't know if this phenomenon indicated a weaker/less stable second card. Given that it could, I'll test it out.
 
i get it, 170fps feels smoother than 150fps.

you won't be able to tell the difference, it's just what you can get before and after overclocking, who knows how long a regular owner of card like that would stick to it? 3,4,5 years? overclock would be needed at that time

PLUS benchmarking))
 
i get it, 170fps feels smoother than 150fps.

Oh my good god, man...I freaking said it was an Eyefinity triple monitor setup. At maximum settings, I'd be lucky to get 60-80fps on modern games @ 6036 x 1080 pixels. Seriously, STOP TROLLING.

As per my last post, it's quite clear now that you're being brainless or an asshat, so bug off.

EDIT: +1 shaks...overclocking is fun in itself and benchmarking's fun, too. Never would have guessed I'd have to defend the inherent fun of overclocking in this forum.
 
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While the insults aren't necessary, he's on the right track. With a 2nd card you're now introducing a lot more heat into your system, thus you may not be able to maintain your original OC on the first card, much less over both cards. Bring down your OC substantially, then work it back up until it is stable and you have no more artifacting on your screen.

That, or upgrade your cooling and look at your airflow.
 
Zak, you need to calm down.
Your 1260/1725 is simply NOT stable. Are you running on air or water?
Testing has shown that the following things tend to happen:

1) If the voltage is too low, the cards will simply black screen or VPU recovery.
2) If the voltage is high enough, but the cards are clocked too high, they will start to artifact at a certain temperature. The higher the clocks, the lower this ceiling will be. You can get a pretty safe feeling for when this happens by using GPUtool's stability test (NOT the power virus that is furmark). If you start seeing yellow error markers at a certain temperature, then you need to keep the cards BELOW that temperature.

Also, I found that certain things on the cards start failing from artifacting, that may not be readily apparent, depending on what programs you are using. But GPUtool's stability test is a good indicator of where you need to keep your temps.
 
Patient: Doctor, it hurts when I poke myself right here.
Doctor: Stop poking yourself.
Patient: Oh.

Seems pretty simple.
 
Zak, you need to calm down.

Not really sure why you said this. I asked a guy who popped in to say overclocking graphics cards was stupid to stop being a troll. After that, he mocks the difference between 170fps and 150fps on a system that cannot achieve either (I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why he said that). I then pointed out that he had his facts wrong, and that he was being an ass.

Patient: Doctor, it hurts when I poke myself right here.
Doctor: Stop poking yourself.
Patient: Oh.

Seems pretty simple.

Yeah...when I hear this joke, it's a joke about how stupid the doctor is being (unless the patient is poking himself in the eye or something). If I told my doctor it hurts when I move and he said, "Well, stop moving" that would be silly, right? Again, would you tell a guy asking for advice because he got a BSOD from overclocking a 2500K to 4.0GHz to just go back to stock clocks and forget overclocking? Or if I had a lawnmower that shut off whenever I turned left, that I should just make three right turns?

Again, I'm trying to get someone to explain what exactly is going on here, so I can make adjustments and attempt to fix the problem (and by "fix" I mean fix, not just not do the thing). With that in mind, thanks Falkentyne for explaining some likely possibilities - that is helpful. Perhaps I got a bit too irritated, but having someone pop into your post and say what you're doing is stupid (when it's not), following that up with some nonsensical comments, and then mocking you is, well, irritating.
 
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Zak, you need to calm down.
Your 1260/1725 is simply NOT stable. Are you running on air or water?
Testing has shown that the following things tend to happen:

1) If the voltage is too low, the cards will simply black screen or VPU recovery.
2) If the voltage is high enough, but the cards are clocked too high, they will start to artifact at a certain temperature. The higher the clocks, the lower this ceiling will be. You can get a pretty safe feeling for when this happens by using GPUtool's stability test (NOT the power virus that is furmark). If you start seeing yellow error markers at a certain temperature, then you need to keep the cards BELOW that temperature.

Also, I found that certain things on the cards start failing from artifacting, that may not be readily apparent, depending on what programs you are using. But GPUtool's stability test is a good indicator of where you need to keep your temps.
Would you please elaborate on Furmark being a "Power virus"
 
EDIT: Oh, and at stock clocks on the xfire everything runs fine.

Ok.. so uh.. Bad stuff happens when you overclock.. Bad stuff doesn't happen when you don't overclock..

let me think... hmmmm.. i guess it might mean the overclock is not stable!! OMG!!!!11!!1

To think that two different cards will overclock the exact same way at the same voltages is just silly..

To think that one card is "defective" for not being able to overclock as well as another is just plain stupid..
 
just will ask you another question - what size screens are you using, that resolution seems to be a little off, try to set it up to 5760*1080 to make it 16:9 and see what it brings

also might be an issue with a driver, hopefully that can be fixed soon...
 
7970s not oced is a waste. if you can get a heavy oc on a single card then it comes close to crossfired at stock. remember these are monster overclockers

The cost/performance for crossfire on these 7970s is crap compared to what you can get from a single powerful oced card
 
Ok.. so uh.. Bad stuff happens when you overclock.. Bad stuff doesn't happen when you don't overclock..

let me think... hmmmm.. i guess it might mean the overclock is not stable!! OMG!!!!11!!1

Go back to my reply to your original post, and I think you'll see that there are lots of equally likely potential explanations. My PSU could be faltering, I could be hitting the x8 bottleneck, the cards could be overheating, crossfire or graphics card drivers could be the problem, I could have a bad bridge, etc. You're just repeating yourself, and it's a terrible argument, so quit repeating it - each of these possibilities I mentioned fits the evidence equally well, so there's no reason to take your explanation over these others. I need some help eliminating alternative possibilities, as I have some evidence that this overclock is stable (the overclock has been run by many different review websites and is considered stable, my first card ran the overclock stable, etc.) Be constructive! Saying something to the effect of "You just answered your own question, idiot" isn't what people come to a forum for. Even if I did answer my own question (which I don't think I did), you could have been nicer about it.

To think that two different cards will overclock the exact same way at the same voltages is just silly..

To think that one card is "defective" for not being able to overclock as well as another is just plain stupid..

You mean like you do? Here's your post from another thread (link: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1037897982#post1037897982):

Dude.. you will not notice any difference on the 2600k if you run it at 5ghz or if you run it at 4.3ghz (which all of them should be able to achieve without any problems)

Here, you clearly state that you believe all 2600k processors should be able to achieve a 4.3, no, wait, a 5.0 GHz overclock "without any problems." Now, given that you are clearly talking about all (and therefore different) 2600k processors, this directly contradicts what you put in my thread. After all, you said it was stupid to think that different CPUs/GPUs of the same model will be able to achieve the same stable overclock. Also, with that "should" you put in there, you clearly think something would be amiss with a 2600k processor if it couldn't achieve such an overclock.

So yeah, maybe I overstated things a bit with "defective", but it's quite clear that you think there is something wrong with 2600k processors that can't get up to 5.0GHz. If I had one that could not safely get above stock clocks, as I am beginning to suspect with this card, it would seem to be flawed in some way, as you assert in your other post. At any rate, I certainly have reason to believe this card should be able to sustain an overclock that's been empirically verified to be stable.
 
just will ask you another question - what size screens are you using, that resolution seems to be a little off, try to set it up to 5760*1080 to make it 16:9 and see what it brings

also might be an issue with a driver, hopefully that can be fixed soon...

My monitors are all 23". When I set up eyefinity, it lists it as one of the possible resolutions, so I just clicked on it. I'm still messing around with it a little bit, though, 'cause I noticed (like you did) that it is not the normal 3x wide resolution. The testing I've been doing in 3dmark11 has been on one monitor only, with 1080p resolution (which is why my video wasn't freakishly wide). This artifacting (artifacing?) happens at all resolutions when I turn up the dual OC.

To your point earlier, I unplugged the first card and ran the OC on the second card by itself and the OC is completely stable. This is a phenomena, much to the chagrin of some of the other posters, that arises only from OC'ing in xfire. It even happens when I set the fan speeds to 90% and keep the cards really cool (65/50 at load)....*sigh*

Beginning to think it's a driver issue.
 
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