Help with 7970 Lightning artifacting (mostly in DOTA 2)

[hughythomas]

Hi guys

I bought a MSI Lightning 7970 3GB off of the famous auction site and patiently waited for months whilst stock of the EK full cover blocks came in at OcUK.

I am experiencing some black 'spider' graphical artifacts in DOTA II (the game I am playing the most currently).

My temperatures are excellent and I even reseated the block on the card yesterday to apply TIM to the voltage regulators and memory chips around the GPU (as I realised I had not and the VRMs were getting quite toasty peaking at 75c they now peak at 45c).

Guys I really need some help with this card - is there anything I can use which will be a more effective artifact tester than DOTA 2?

What is artifacting at stock a sign of? I haven't noticed any artifacting in NS2 btw...

Cheers!

 

[Cleeecooo]

What is artifacting at stock a sign of?

Dead/damaged VRAM

Try heaven to replicate game performance or furmark to just rape your card with fluffy rendering hell that'll show up any flaws

OCCT is also a great tool

 

[hughythomas]

Hey man

Thanks for the reply.

I have here 10 minutes of FurMark:

No noticeable artifacting. Is 10 minutes long enough?

I ran Heaven and it was fine also...

Maximum temp on FurMark was 37c and the card idles at 22c. This is all at stock clocks (1070Mhz Core / 1400Mhz Memory)

 

[pgi947]

Sounds as if its a defect in the game in that case then? Heaven especially when its maxed out its excellent for finding any graphical flaws.

Have you tried other drivers to rule that in/out?

 

[martynpd]

i have a 7970

like you i thought it was a problem with my card. i get the odd black tears now and again.

 

[Cleeecooo]

Heaven and prime should find faults withing 5 minutes really.

Try OCCT and run the fault finding test if you want to be 100% sure.

It does sound like a game fault though

 

[martynpd]

i have a 7970

like you i thought it was a problem with my card. i get the odd black tears now and again.

i meant odd tears in dota 2

 

[hughythomas]

i have a 7970

like you i thought it was a problem with my card. i get the odd black tears now and again.

Specifically on DOTA 2 though?

Mine seem to happen a lot - although I do not notice such behaviour in other 3D applications...

Thanks for the replies btw guys (esp. Cleecooo)

 

[martynpd]

Specifically on DOTA 2 though?

Mine seem to happen a lot - although I do not notice such behaviour in other 3D applications...

Thanks for the replies btw guys (esp. Cleecooo)

ONLY on dota 2

 

[hughythomas]

ONLY on dota 2

Sweet man!

It's reassuring to hear my 2nd hand 7970 isn't done for then!

 

[hughythomas]

Sorry to reignite this thread but I am still having problems with this card (I think?).

Am playing Chivalry: Medieval Warfare and am experiencing artefacts still!

I have clocked the card back to default and was still getting random artefacts although I noticed similiar graphical corruption on my other system (7850 based). Can any other Radeon users confirm that they are experiencing the same or is my card truly done for?