*** 7950/7970 2D Clock Problems***

[borley]

I have made a few posts about occasional flickers with my Gigabyte 7970 x3 GPU.
The symptoms that on occasions in games on cut scenes and on desktop i occasionaly got a flicker like someone turning on a light and it quickly interfering. Now i put this down to my PSU, but that should be powerful enough!
Well i done some googleing and most people point to the 2D clock

So i found a few threads and a lot of people with the 7950/70 seem to have the same problem when it changes to 3D or vice versa they get this flicker.
I noticed this in 3D Mark 11 once it finished loading a test it would flicker, that makes sense switching from the loading screen 2D to 3D benchmark, but i thought why does it in Batman AC and BF3 cutscenes, as i thought at least with Batman its using the in game engine for the scenes.
So i used afterburner to show my core/mem clocks in game and sure enough they drop to 2D clocks.

So this must be the cause, some people have tried disableing overdrive and other methods without much success. But whats annoying is that according to a few people AMD aren't aknowledeing this as a problem, i have to admit i wouldn't RMA because of it but it is something that needs fixing, perhaps its AMD's way of powering down that does it?
Any one else have this? and what suggestions?
Regards

 

[psychodil]

You could just disable ULPS on afterburner and see if that does the trick. Should prevent the card from clocking down.

 

[borley]

You could just disable ULPS on afterburner and see if that does the trick. Should prevent the card from clocking down.

Thanks i wil give it a try.

 

[AlfBaxter]

You could just disable ULPS on afterburner and see if that does the trick. Should prevent the card from clocking down.

How do you do that? I've been trying to get my 7850 to run at constant speed and voltage for a while now, because my OC is only unstable when the speed and/or voltage change. It's fine once I get into a game, but they sometimes crash on loading; get crashes when flash videos start or end; etc.)

I've tried 'force constant voltage' but that doesn't prevent downclocking, and sometimes doesn't prevent undervolting. Sorry if this is threadjacking...

 

[flopper]

set 3D clocks default and you can use profiles in afterburner to do so.
so the card always run same clocks when gaming.
1200/1500mhz for me when gaming and 500/900mhz or so idle due to 3 screens.

 

[borley]

Is there an option in afterburner to disable ulps or is it a registry setting?
regards

 

[psychodil]

Its an option in afterburner or trixx, can't remember now. Just have a look through all the settings.

 

[borley]

Its an option in afterburner or trixx, can't remember now. Just have a look through all the settings.

Can't seem to find it , i found the 3d/2d profile mode but doesnt say how i set up a 2d clock at stock.
regards

 

[borley]

Well using this tutorial i can change the 2d profile i will see if it helps.
http://www.overclock.net/t/941964/afterburner-5870-2d-clocks
I want it ti stay at higher speed on boot weather that helps.
Using the above method i have changed the memory clock to 400mhz as thats whats suggested may be the prblem not core will see.
regards
Well upped it and it seemed to make it worse so went back, what do people think?

 

[borley]

Sorry with al these questions, i found if i went up say 50mhz i went from 150mhz to 200mhz i would get the flickering far more often, so i tried jumping to what my 3d clock is stock 1375mhz and it seem better.
Is it ok to have your gpu mem 24/7 like that?
regards

 

[AlfBaxter]

I'd be careful using that tutorial you linked to. I tried it with afterburner, and also Trixx (which has the option to disable ULPS) and I got some scary looking crashes (blue flickering screen, lines, dots...). I don't think it's at all bad to leave your card at 3D clocks 24/7, btw - which is why I think there should be an overclockers' option to disable all this powersaving nonsense.

 

[borley]

I'd be careful using that tutorial you linked to. I tried it with afterburner, and also Trixx (which has the option to disable ULPS) and I got some scary looking crashes (blue flickering screen, lines, dots...). I don't think it's at all bad to leave your card at 3D clocks 24/7, btw - which is why I think there should be an overclockers' option to disable all this powersaving nonsense.

Hi thanks for the advice, well i set my idle/2D clock to the same as stock 3D clock 1375Mhz and no flicker at all in cut scenes so thats deffintly the culprit
Only down side at 1375mhz it raised my idle tempfrom 33-40c so am tring on 600mhz thats about 37c at idle.
Regards
Well after a bit of experimenting i can't go below the 1375mhz stock clock without a bit of flicker! if i match the mem 3d clock its fine. Just i don't like the higher temps, c'mon AMD fix this please!

 

[fishboyuk]

I had to raise my idle clocks on my 7870 slightly to stop it black screening on idle (only recoverable by a reset). It stopped it but I still get a slight flicker on the windows 7 taskbar sometimes while hovering my mouse over certain things in the browser.

Gonna try raising it a little more to see if it sorts it.

I must say AMD really need to sort out the drivers for this 7000 series, it's a bit of a let down so far, my 4890 was running rock solid on each new driver release the last 3 years

 

[PorkPieCat]

lol yeah i googled this extensively too. the typical issue is 120hz flickering bars near the bottom of the screen and when switching between 2d and 3d mode clocks afaik, and people fix it with ccc profiles.

my issues with the gigabyte at the very least were different to the ones mentioned online. my vtx issues are more similar, although changing clockspeeds and trying other things made it worse for me personally. any time i go above 150mhz the artefacting becomes very severe in browsing and desktop :/. worst of all when i artefact while browsing and then turn on a game, that game artefacts as well until i restart the pc. nightmare. though i think my card is borked anyway so it's probably an exception - apparently it artefacts in 3d mode as well (crysis 2 in dx9 and dx11). i get bars, whole screen flickers, etc. in 2d mode.

but for the reason that some form of flickering is a "typical" issue at all, when i return my vtx i'm not even going to bother trying a replacement. evidently amd haven't cared about 120hz since the 5xxx days

 

[jellofund]

I get these flickers too with my WF 7970 when in the browser or in game menu screens when the 2D clock kicks in. It became apparent fairly quickly that it was a 120Hz issue (in my case at least) as changing the refresh rate to 60 stopped it completely, as disabling the 2D clock.

As you say PorkPieCat it became pretty eviding after a bit of reading that this is a longstanding issue with AMD cards @ 120Hz and clearly not a priority fix for them. It doesn't seem to be a hardware fault per se and I'm otherwise pretty happy with the card so have learned to live with things. It is annoying that AMD haven't addressed it by now though esp. when these monitors are becoming far more commonplace.

Having the odd flicker seems preferable to increased temps (esp at this time of year) and power consumption, but neither is ideal.