BenQ XL2420T + Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition = 144Hz nightmare!

[mrleelee123]

Hey everyone, sorry if this isn't in the correct forum but I'm not totally sure if I am having a problem with my graphics card or monitor!

Had my Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition for a while now and it's always done the job for me, but I recently upgraded to a BenQ XL2420T monitor and here is where my problems started!

It just refuses to play ball when I set it to 144Hz through dual-link cable. I get this weird flicking, like the screen is being distorted... but here's where it gets even weirder.

When I click on a certain vine video on twitter the whole screen goes into multicoloured lines jumping around, I have a picture of it but I am not to sure how to upload it here. My desktop never comes back, so I have to restart my computer.

When I switch to 120Hz I can play the video fine. After a few hours of 120Hz I think I notice small distortions start to happen at the top of my browser, but I am not 100% sure about this, I could just be imagining it!

I have seen quite a few people have problems with this card when trying to use 120Hz+, so I guess what I am asking is, does anyone know if my problem is the card, my monitor, or neither?

Thanks for any help you can give me

 

[ashmanuk67]

I would say this is a faulty monitor, I can run both 120 & 144Hz with no affects on screen.

I've not heard anyone say a 7970 does not work well with 120Hz monitors??

Are you using V-Sync? in the AMD control panel check any settings to do with the MONITOR.

 

[Yaayuh!]

Have you tried a different DL-DVI cable?

Check the pins on the cable and also the pins in the socket on the 7970, incase any are broken or pushed in.

 

[Rusty0611]

Sounds like the graphics card isn't clocking up high enough at idle to handle 144 Hz. Can you not just run at 120 Hz on desktop and 144 in game? Not ideal but the difference on desktop will be tiny.

 

[Besty]

Assuming you are not running any cable adapters, first thing I would do is overclock the card slightly to force the gpu clocks out of low power mode and see if the flickering on the windows desktop goes away.

 

[LtMatt]

Hey everyone, sorry if this isn't in the correct forum but I'm not totally sure if I am having a problem with my graphics card or monitor!

Had my Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition for a while now and it's always done the job for me, but I recently upgraded to a BenQ XL2420T monitor and here is where my problems started!

It just refuses to play ball when I set it to 144Hz through dual-link cable. I get this weird flicking, like the screen is being distorted... but here's where it gets even weirder.

When I click on a certain vine video on twitter the whole screen goes into multicoloured lines jumping around, I have a picture of it but I am not to sure how to upload it here. My desktop never comes back, so I have to restart my computer.

When I switch to 120Hz I can play the video fine. After a few hours of 120Hz I think I notice small distortions start to happen at the top of my browser, but I am not 100% sure about this, I could just be imagining it!

I have seen quite a few people have problems with this card when trying to use 120Hz+, so I guess what I am asking is, does anyone know if my problem is the card, my monitor, or neither?

Thanks for any help you can give me

Relax my good man. I come with a fix and its an easy one.


1. Download the latest beta of msi afterburner.


2. Copy my settings.

3. Restart your pc. Job done!

 

[Yaayuh!]

Jeez, these things you have to do to get AMD cards to work..

 

[ashmanuk67]

LOL LTMatt to the rescue nice one

 

[LtMatt]

Lets wait and see if it works first.

 

[mrleelee123]

Thank you all for the time you've taken to try get this sorted for me

I would say this is a faulty monitor, I can run both 120 & 144Hz with no affects on screen.

I've not heard anyone say a 7970 does not work well with 120Hz monitors??

Are you using V-Sync? in the AMD control panel check any settings to do with the MONITOR.

I changed a couple of settings in the AMD control panel, tried loading the vine video and the coloured lines all came up again.

Have you tried a different DL-DVI cable?

Check the pins on the cable and also the pins in the socket on the 7970, incase any are broken or pushed in.

Unfortunately I only have the one DL-DVI cable at the moment, but I have ordered another one.

Sounds like the graphics card isn't clocking up high enough at idle to handle 144 Hz. Can you not just run at 120 Hz on desktop and 144 in game? Not ideal but the difference on desktop will be tiny.

If I leave the desktop at 120Hz and have the game setting at 144Hz, will it be 144Hz? I tried playing a game with it as 144Hz on the desktop but it just kept crashing with weird colours again.

Assuming you are not running any cable adapters, first thing I would do is overclock the card slightly to force the gpu clocks out of low power mode and see if the flickering on the windows desktop goes away.

No, not running any cable adapters or anything. One thing I have noticed is that when I run at 144Hz and apply a small overclock in afterburner and click apply, the screen distorts the second I have clicked apply. Then when I go back to the normal clocks, it distorts again.

Relax my good man. I come with a fix and its an easy one.

I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch, but this could have sorted it!!!

I done what you said, then when using 144Hz on the desktop, when I click on the vine video it works fine! When I restart my computer the screen distorts for a split second, then goes black for a split second when afterburner loads up... is this normal? Also, when I change overclocks slightly, it distorts a little, then goes black but then comes back.

 

[LtMatt]

I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch, but this could have sorted it!!!

I done what you said, then when using 144Hz on the desktop, when I click on the vine video it works fine! When I restart my computer the screen distorts for a split second, then goes black for a split second when afterburner loads up... is this normal? Also, when I change overclocks slightly, it distorts a little, then goes black but then comes back.

Its an unfortunate side effect of the fix. You can try unticking 'reset display mode on unofficial overclocking' but im not sure how much difference that will make. You can try with powerplay support instead of without but this might bring back the old problem. Experiment a bit and see what works best for you. As i don't have a 144hz display screen myself i can't be of much help im afraid.

 

[mrleelee123]

Its an unfortunate side effect of the fix. You can try unticking 'reset display mode on unofficial overclocking' but im not sure how much difference that will make. You can try with powerplay support instead of without but this might bring back the old problem. Experiment a bit and see what works best for you. As i don't have a 144hz display screen myself i can't be of much help im afraid.

Well thank you so much for your help here! Seems to have done the job! Is this quite a well known thing then? I can handle the half a second of black screen if I never see them coloured lines again!

Thanks to everyone for your help, will test a bit more out and then come back and let you know if it's fully been sorted

 

[LtMatt]

Well thank you so much for your help here! Seems to have done the job! Is this quite a well known thing then? I can handle the half a second of black screen if I never see them coloured lines again!

Thanks to everyone for your help, will test a bit more out and then come back and let you know if it's fully been sorted

Happy to help.

 

[mrleelee123]

Bad news i'm afraid

After playing a bit of Crysis 3 with no problems (used to crash after 5 or 10 minutes playing when I had it on 144Hz) I clicked on the dreaded vine video again and the whole screen went grey

Restarted computer, clicked vine video again and it worked.

Does this seem like a graphics card problem to you guys or a monitor problem? If it was the monitor, surely it wouldn't play at all?

 

[LtMatt]

Bad news i'm afraid

After playing a bit of Crysis 3 with no problems (used to crash after 5 or 10 minutes playing when I had it on 144Hz) I clicked on the dreaded vine video again and the whole screen went grey

Restarted computer, clicked vine video again and it worked.

Does this seem like a graphics card problem to you guys or a monitor problem? If it was the monitor, surely it wouldn't play at all?

This was with without powerplay support selected in afterburner?

Another solution you can try is to setup a 2d/3d profile in afterburner. Check the profiles section in settings. You can set a 2d profile at lowish clock speeds for core and memory+low voltage. Save that to slot 1 in afterburner. Now set your 3d clocks, stock or overclocked with the right amount of voltage. Save to afterburner slot 2. Now go back to profiles and under 2d set profile 1 and under 3d set profile 2. Afterburner should now flick between the two profiles as needed.

 

[mrleelee123]

This was with without powerplay support selected in afterburner?

Another solution you can try is to setup a 2d/3d profile in afterburner. Check the profiles section in settings. You can set a 2d profile at lowish clock speeds for core and memory+low voltage. Save that to slot 1 in afterburner. Now set your 3d clocks, stock or overclocked with the right amount of voltage. Save to afterburner slot 2. Now go back to profiles and under 2d set profile 1 and under 3d set profile 2. Afterburner should now flick between the two profiles as needed.

Yeah it was without powerplay support. I tried changing it to with powerplay support about an hour ago and straight away it just started going all glitchy and distorted so quickly switched it back to without powerplay support!

I will give the 2d/3d profile thing I try now, thanks again for your help

 

[LtMatt]

Yeah it was without powerplay support. I tried changing it to with powerplay support about an hour ago and straight away it just started going all glitchy and distorted so quickly switched it back to without powerplay support!

I will give the 2d/3d profile thing I try now, thanks again for your help

Let me know how you get on. 2d/3d profiles without powerplay support might be the way to go.

Make sure you report this 144hz problem to AMD using the link in my profile.

Not ideal i know but if you lowered the hz down to 120 that would likely fix it.

 

[mrleelee123]

Let me know how you get on. 2d/3d profiles without powerplay support might be the way to go.

Make sure you report this 144hz problem to AMD using the link in my profile.

Not ideal i know but if you lowered the hz down to 120 that would likely fix it.

Hey again, I am on afterburners profile page in the settings but all I can see is "global profile hotkey". Is that the part you mean?

 

[LtMatt]

Hey again, I am on afterburners profile page in the settings but all I can see is "global profile hotkey". Is that the part you mean?

 

[mrleelee123]

Ah okay thanks, for some reason I already had the latest version of afterburner but those extra settings weren't available. Downloaded it again from the link you provided above and those settings are now there

Will give it a bash and let you know how I get on!