ATI Unstable?

Marvlin · 4 Jul 2011 at 23:08

Okay guys, a few weeks ago I was advised to forego a gaming lifetime of allegiance to Nvidia GPU's.

I was going to buy the GTX 590 but was informed that they are unstable and will melt when you over clock them.

So following advise I got a 6990

Since installing it, I have had 3 BSOD's and had to re-install both the operating systems on my two seperate hard drives becuase the software for some reason put my monitors into sleep mode when I tried to extend my desktop.

For some reason the fault on the first OS managed to nerf the other one as well and I hadn't even changed the settings in that one LOL

I have had periodic black flashing screens in game and lock ups lasting 5 seconds or more.

I have just tried the latest catalyst driver (the 11.7 Beta) and I had wierd texture changes in the grass on BC2 and then another BSOD.

In short I am having a bit of a mare.

The GPU is not overclocked and from reading the AMD forums these are common issues.

In all the years I have been gaming, since well before "EA Game's BF1942" I have used NVIDIA and never have I had to suffer in this way.

Is this the wonderful world of ATI GPU's I can come to expect or is this just a momentary glitch in an auspicous history of faultless cards.

I have to tell you I am seriously thinking about sending this back and getting the GTX590 as previously planned.

I do, have and always will respect and appreciate the opinions of the members of this forum but guys. What is going on with the 6990? Am I the only one struggling with these issues?

gurusan · 4 Jul 2011 at 23:10

Obviously a separate, unrelated issue.

Randomface74 · 4 Jul 2011 at 23:14

Yep ATI is unstable, whoever gave you that advice needs a kicking.

KelDG · 4 Jul 2011 at 23:16

Been on both sides and never had a problem with any, and im talking 3D cards starting in the 3DFX era. I can quite easily go on a nvidia forum and show you a bunch of problems there, or the asus forums and show you problems there too or any forum of any manufacturer.

Just do the usual fault finding, you might just have a duff card. BTW what PSU do you have, both the 590 and the 6990 are monsters for power consumption.

Surveyor · 4 Jul 2011 at 23:29

billysielu said:
Yep ATI is unstable, whoever gave you that advice needs a kicking.

billysielu, come back when you can talk some sense.

Marvlin what PSU are you using?

Marvlin · 4 Jul 2011 at 23:32

I have this power supply

Surveyor · 4 Jul 2011 at 23:35

Marvlin said:
I have this power supply

Ample.

Have you tried using an earlier driver?

Have you checked what temperature the GPU's are operating at?

Are you running the card at stock speeds or have you enabled the overclocked BIOS?

Marvlin · 4 Jul 2011 at 23:47

Surveyor said:
Ample.

1) Have you tried using an earlier driver?

2) Have you checked what temperature the GPU's are operating at?

3) Are you running the card at stock speeds or have you enabled the overclocked BIOS?

Answers

1) No I have only used the 11.6 and the Beta 11.7

2) Nope, I can check next time I am gaming and let you know.

3) I have switched the little switch on top of the card but not messed about with the overclocking software as it worries me and I haven't got a clue what I am doing

MichaelM · 5 Jul 2011 at 00:05

Are the BSOD crashes linking to ati drivers?

Is your CPU overclocked?

Is your ram configured with stable timings and frequencies?

Have you tried running sticks of memory separately?

Surveyor · 5 Jul 2011 at 00:29

Marvlin said:
Answers

1) No I have only used the 11.6 and the Beta 11.7

2) Nope, I can check next time I am gaming and let you know.

3) I have switched the little switch on top of the card but not messed about with the overclocking software as it worries me and I haven't got a clue what I am doing

The AMD Radeon HD 6990 graphics card features dual-BIOS capabilities. This feature is controlled by an “Unlocking Switch” sitting closely next to the CrossFireX connector on your board. The switch toggles between the factory-supported Performance BIOS of 375W TDP (BIOS1), and a more extreme Performance BIOS (BIOS2) that unlocks higher clock speeds and up to 450W TDP of performance.

For end users to enable this higher performance BIOS, they will have to remove a label covering the dual BIOS switch and set the BIOS switch to the desired position outlined below:

Position 1 — 450W Extreme Performance BIOS (BIOS2).

Position 2 — (default shipping position) — 375W factory-supported Performance BIOS (BIOS1).

You've already overclocked the card by moving the switch.

Try putting the switch back again.

Marvlin · 5 Jul 2011 at 00:41

Surveyor said:
You've already overclocked the card by moving the switch.

Try putting the switch back again.

Okeedoke, I'll give it a go tommorrow

With reference to the RAM questions everything is as it was when I took it out of the packet and was perfectly stable when running my GTX 295 GPU up untill about a week ago.

It could well be my problems started when I switched the bios switch I'll try and report back. Be cool if that's solves the issues. Fingers crossed it will

Marvlin · 5 Jul 2011 at 19:51

Marvlin said:
Okeedoke, I'll give it a go tommorrow

With reference to the RAM questions everything is as it was when I took it out of the packet and was perfectly stable when running my GTX 295 GPU up untill about a week ago.

It could well be my problems started when I switched the bios switch I'll try and report back. Be cool if that's solves the issues. Fingers crossed it will

Okay, I switched the bios back to standard and the problem is exactly the same.

The screen flashing black for about 5 seconds after about 10 minutes of play. Then about 15 minutes in BSOD.

old gamer · 5 Jul 2011 at 20:39

the 6990 is just crossfire on a stick so to speak, it might be worth editing the reg and change the enableulps to 0

Marvlin · 5 Jul 2011 at 20:46

old gamer said:
the 6990 is just crossfire on a stick so to speak, it might be worth editing the reg and change the enableulps to 0

Fair enough, but I didn't sign up for editing the registry

I bought a GPU. It is compatible with my system. My system was built by over clockers and I have changed nothing.

I should be able to plug it in, install the drivers and play, not have to start messing about in the registry

I appreciate the suggestion but I am losing patience with this card, I have asked for my money back.

Omega · 5 Jul 2011 at 20:49

Well you got a xfire set-up and with all xfire or SLI set-ups you are required to do a little research yourself and do a little configuring to get the most of your system / making it stable...

If you wanted simple. Stick with a simple set-up.

drunkenmaster · 5 Jul 2011 at 21:08

Its possibly a bad card, Nvidia and AMD get bad cards, but the key culprit 95% of the time is someone going from a older lower power card to a newer higher power card, as in the system goes from say 400W under load to 600W, and people expecting exactly the same stability.

A PSU can ripple, or simply droop a heck of a lot more at a 50% higher load, which can cause instability. Most systems, but not all(these days lower voltage mem has changed things a little) tend to need a little boost in memory voltage, most is rated for above default voltage and many mobo's don't do this effectively. a 0.05V extra drop in voltage while under higher load could cause a cpu or memory to easily go from stable to unstable.

90% of AMD and Nvidia "driver is poopy and wants to kill you" type crashes are related to system stability and NOT the gpu itself or driver, they are simply by far the most complex and changable driver around and as such are almost the first to crash when an unstable system is running.

Personally, I've found it insanely rare for a bad gpu or a gpu crash to cause an OS to bork itself, I would say in order that would be memory, hdd, cpu thats likely to cause that and thats where I'd be focused at looking.

If you go to the Nvidia forums it will be 100% Nvidia problems, likewise AMD forums are filled with AMD gpu problems, that shouldn't be too surprising

Nor should AMD problems on normal forums as AMD are outselling Nvidia in enthusiast cards with the market share of DX11 cards MASSIVELY favouring Nvidia.

When Nvidia had massive dominance the forum was filled with Nvidia problems, thats the way it goes.

Have you updated everything since re-doing windows install, all windows updates, run dxupdate and get it to dl the latest DX 11 distro.

Marvlin · 5 Jul 2011 at 23:15

Omega said:
Well you got a xfire set-up and with all xfire or SLI set-ups you are required to do a little research yourself and do a little configuring to get the most of your system / making it stable...

If you wanted simple. Stick with a simple set-up.

There is a little configuring then there is messing with your registry which I am prepared to do and have done successfully many times in the past.

I also put a lot of effort into solving problems for myself before asking for help or advise. Indeed it was after a week of trying everything else that I eventually posted here.
Don't assume for one minute I am some noob who bought his first computer last week.

I do not feel (on principle) that I should need to start making registry modifications to make this card work.

If overclockers do refund me I will buy a GTX590 and if I do have to start messing with the registry to make it stable then I will come back to this thread and apologise for my lack of knowledge, perspective and my arrogance.

However, as I suspect will be the case. If I plug in the 590 GTX, install the drivers and everything is fine then I will still come back and make sure everyone knows about it

I think we have achieved anything constructive we are going to from this thread now and I thank everyone for your help and advise but let's just see what happens.

Omega · 5 Jul 2011 at 23:47

I am not implying that your a noob. I was stating that you should expect some minor issues when you purchased a dual GPU card.

It's also quite bizarre to me that you would rather ask for a refund than just simply making one regedit change which could possibly resolve the issue.

This maybe because I'm a techie for a living though. I tend to want to fix things myself before asking for my money back.

Good luck which ever way you go anyways

Mojo · 6 Jul 2011 at 00:16

It could well be just bad luck in getting a duff card. I had similar problems back in the day when I bought two 3870s for crossfire. They were causing lock ups, crashes and visual corruption. Got them sent back to OCuk for a brand new pair, and they worked perfectly

Get a replacement and see what happens. If you're having the problems in two different operating systems using different driver releases it probably isn't the drivers either.

Jay85 · 6 Jul 2011 at 00:24

Tbh the first thing i would try is trying the card in a totally seperate/different computer. Has anyone or your friends got a high end psu with a large psu to try the card on? If it does the same on theres then you know you have a dud card and it's RMA time.