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6970 stuttering issue

colinmcr

colinmcr

colinmcr

Associate
Joined
17 Mar 2009
Posts
2,475
Location
Scotland
HI folks,

I bought HIS 6970 IceQ Turbo from this site back at end of October. On installing it all seemed fine until I went to try a few games. First off was BF3, as soon as the game started and I began moving I noticed what I can only describe as "stuttering" similar to what some folks get when running in xfire. I was not running in xfire its just a single card install I'm using. The other symptom that appeared as soon as the game loaded was the cards fan went to 100% (very loud). On quitting the game the fan returned to idle.

So I load up World of Warcraft to see what its like, same issue as soon as I begin to move around there is "stuttering" and the card fan ramps up to 100%.

This happened for all the games that I tried, so I decided to download Fraps and see what my fps is. So on running BF3 again the fps reports 55, however to the human eye, its looks like I'm doing 10, with the same "stutter". All the games I trying report "normal" fps but to the eye they are defo "stuttering".

I did all the driver stuff I could think of to no avail. So I take the card to my brother's pc and try it in there and same problem on his machine. Therefore I decide to RMA it back to OCUK.

They have just sent me the card back and an email stating that they ran various benchmarks etc etc and the can find no fault with the card so sent it back to me.
I stick it back in my now upgraded, clean installed pc (new mobo, ram, hdd etc) effectively a totally new machine and exactly the same problems occurs. I haven't even got my new machine overclocked atm. When I put back in my old 5870 everything runs fine, there are no issues when its installed.

If anyone has an idea what's going on then please let me know, I don't know where I stand as a customer, after OCUK saying there is no issue with the card. Its certainly no use to me as far as I'm concerned and I'm a lot of money out of pocket for a card that I consider to be defective (somehow). I am dubious about them running only "benchmarks" as like I said fraps shows the fps you'd expect, but to the human eye its defo not doing what fraps says.

Any advice welcome
 
colinmcr said:
HI folks,

I bought HIS 6970 IceQ Turbo from this site back at end of October. On installing it all seemed fine until I went to try a few games. First off was BF3, as soon as the game started and I began moving I noticed what I can only describe as "stuttering" similar to what some folks get when running in xfire. I was not running in xfire its just a single card install I'm using. The other symptom that appeared as soon as the game loaded was the cards fan went to 100% (very loud). On quitting the game the fan returned to idle.

So I load up World of Warcraft to see what its like, same issue as soon as I begin to move around there is "stuttering" and the card fan ramps up to 100%.

This happened for all the games that I tried, so I decided to download Fraps and see what my fps is. So on running BF3 again the fps reports 55, however to the human eye, its looks like I'm doing 10, with the same "stutter". All the games I trying report "normal" fps but to the eye they are defo "stuttering".

I did all the driver stuff I could think of to no avail. So I take the card to my brother's pc and try it in there and same problem on his machine. Therefore I decide to RMA it back to OCUK.

They have just sent me the card back and an email stating that they ran various benchmarks etc etc and the can find no fault with the card so sent it back to me.
I stick it back in my now upgraded, clean installed pc (new mobo, ram, hdd etc) effectively a totally new machine and exactly the same problems occurs. I haven't even got my new machine overclocked atm. When I put back in my old 5870 everything runs fine, there are no issues when its installed.

If anyone has an idea what's going on then please let me know, I don't know where I stand as a customer, after OCUK saying there is no issue with the card. Its certainly no use to me as far as I'm concerned and I'm a lot of money out of pocket for a card that I consider to be defective (somehow). I am dubious about them running only "benchmarks" as like I said fraps shows the fps you'd expect, but to the human eye its defo not doing what fraps says.

Any advice welcome
Click to expand...

What temps is the card reaching? Is it running at 99%?

I never use automatic fan profile, always manual. When I go into games I set the fan to 55% and then back to 35% when idle.
 
Yeah it was on automatic and I was able to reduce fan speed manually, I set it to 50%. I'll be honest I didn't look at the temp and I'm currently abroad so I cannot check atm. Do you think the stuttering (which tbh is my main concern) is temperature related?
 
What PSU do you use? You mention you got new components but didn't say whether you got a new PSU. I have read that people experiencing this problem sometimes cure it with a better PSU.

What drivers are you using?

Have you adjusted the Overdrive power slider thingymabob in the CCC?

I can understand your frustration with it all as I have been in this exact situation before.
 
I'm using a brand new Corsair Professional Series AX750. Previous psu in my old x58 setup was enermax galaxy 1000w. I think the AX750 should be more than adequate for my system.

Asus z68, x2 ssd , x2 hdd, x1 blu-ray, asus d2x soundcard

Deleted AMD drivers and installed 11.12.

I have never used overdrive in CCC. Although I did install AMD Catalyst Application Profiles, because I was under the mistaken belief I could xfire the 6970 and 5870.
Now I should have mentioned this in my OP, I did actually connect these two cards in xfire (in my old x58 mobo setup) and ofc it didn't work. I realised after reading on net that different generation cards can't be used.
Could this have screwed up the 6970 somehow? I did wonder if it was possible that this affected the card bios?? Clutching at straws here.....!
 
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If you have a 2600k have you disabled hyperthreading? because that causes stuttering in BF3 liek you are mentioning, I was getting the same problem but turned off hyperthreading and is nice and smooth now.


And also what is your GPU temp at load? thats what you need to know, if its a good temp like 65-75 then the fan going at 100% was probably just a mistake in the default fan profile so you would be fine making your own aslong as the cards not faulty and you have normal load temps.

If still having problems it would probably be best to clean all the old drivers out and do a fresh install
 
I am using an 2500k and hyperthreading will be enabled by default I suppose in my bios. I'm currently not in the UK so I can't check my temps atm.
The thing is the stuttering happens in all games not just BF3.

I'll give it a try in 10days and see how I get on.
 
guys have an update for you. On a totally clean install all win7 64bit all updates completed and using amd 12.1. Have only installed HWMonitor and Unigine Heaven benchmark.

On first run card crashes within 5 sec of starting loop (windowed so i can see temps)

Default clock=900Mhz Mem= 1400Mhz Fan on auto, Power control= 0%

Tried several times and crashing still, temps rise rapidly to around 76 then crash occurs. So I manually set fan to 100% and start loop of heaven. It last longer but continues to crash, although temp is around 80 by this time.

So I start lowering the GPU clock and the loop begins to run much longer, but temp steadily increases to 85, then crash.

I'm now at 860Mhz highest temp 87 its hovering a few degs lower but fluctuating. Its been running for last 20mins and just crashed again.

Thoughts ?? Now OCuk say nothing wrong with this card when I RMA'd it, but there clearly is. Its certainly not capable of running at 900Mhz.

Should I try removing the cooler and checking for/reapply some TIM? Or call OCuk again and tell them of my findings. Even though they said they ran lots of benches without issue.

At time of posting I'm down to 850Mhz temp 84
 
Everything your doing now + maybe some more tests, format it nicely in a letter and explain you previous RMA and tests conducted.

Also try leaving the case covers off / leave it near a window to try to keep temps down. If all works then clearly overheating because cooler is not doing job correctly. Should be under warranty.

Post this letter in web note to OCUK asking for the best course of action "Without voiding the warranty"

If it's not achieving what is advertised [900MHz] (clearly overheating), and under warranty then you are entitled to a replacement.
 
I videoed mine.

I got quite a few. Fallout 3 crashing then computer making odd beeping sounds, Crysis benchmark locking up and then "driver stopped working" and so on.

Intermittent faults are a super, duper, royal PITA.
 
I may have already voided the warranty ! I removed the heatsink and fan, low and behold only 50% gpu cover by TIM. I removed old TIM and put some Artic Silver on, heatsink reattached and run on test...worse temps !
Removed again, on closer inspection it looks like the backplate which surrounds the copper heatsink is sitting proud. I removed it from the heatsink and on the underside there were ridges and solder "blobs". I filed these off so it is now perfectly flat. I applied TIM to the copper of the heatsink and put everything back together then disassembled again to check if the TIM was touching gpu core, maybe 70% coverage. So I'm in the process of trying to get the backplate to sit flush with the copper base.

Will let you know how it goes.
 
colinmcr said:
I may have already voided the warranty ! I removed the heatsink and fan, low and behold only 50% gpu cover by TIM. I removed old TIM and put some Artic Silver on, heatsink reattached and run on test...worse temps !
Removed again, on closer inspection it looks like the backplate which surrounds the copper heatsink is sitting proud. I removed it from the heatsink and on the underside there were ridges and solder "blobs". I filed these off so it is now perfectly flat. I applied TIM to the copper of the heatsink and put everything back together then disassembled again to check if the TIM was touching gpu core, maybe 70% coverage. So I'm in the process of trying to get the backplate to sit flush with the copper base.

Will let you know how it goes.
Click to expand...

Sheesh your very hand's on aren't you!

Good luck...
 
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Just wishing I had access to a surface grinder would shave off a 0.3mm would defo get me some decent contact with the gpu core :D
 
Ok so the backplate is attached by four screws to the plastic enclosure for the heatsink. I realised that if i shaved approx 1.0mm off these plastic standoffs the backplate would sit lower. So I got out my trusty dremel and shaved off 1.0mm.

When I then screwed on the backplate the copper heatsink base was defo now sitting higher than the backplate. I covered the base with TIM and rebuilt the card to test if the TIM was covering the entire gpu core.

Hey presto when I removed the heatsink again the entire gpu core was covered in TIM.....mucho happy

So I install into my test rig and the idle temp with the core clock at 850Mhz is 38degs (it was 50ish previously)

Its now running Heaven benchmark gpu temp is now 89 degs fan on auto @ 40%...No crashes so far and its been 20mins.

I'm gonna start upping the core clock to what its supposed to be (900Mhz) Fingers crossed I've solved my problem.
 
900 Mhz no crashes, have set the fan to manual at 65% core temp 68degs, I didn't like the auto fan speed (41%) as the core was sitting at 89 degs. Just want to keep the temp lower. ;)

Hope my findings may help someone in future. Seems like the quality control on my HIS Ice Q Turbo 6970 was lacking, must have been a Friday afternoon build !!!
 
Well done colinmcr :). After a bit of tweaking sit on your rear end and reward yourself with some gaming.
 
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