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Flickering

twist3d0n3

twist3d0n3

twist3d0n3

Soldato
Joined
3 Aug 2008
Posts
10,477
Location
Bath, England
This is driving me absolutely bonkers!

I have a 5970 and 5870, running 3 monitors (one on DP, 2 on DVI). Now, the 2 monitors connected via DVI flicker, almost constantly. It looks as though it does it when clock frequencies change on the primary gpu, which can only be remedied by enabling overdrive via CCC then disabling it again, which sets the primary gpu to 400/1010 (on the 5970). The thing is, when I scroll in firefox, it changes the clock frequencies to OC speeds, then it'll drop them back to 157/300, causing things to go all flickery again... This again happens when i've finished playing a game, or watched a video on youtube, or watched an .avi in vlc player for example.

So far i've tried using MSI Afterburner to set '2D' clocks to the lowest i can set in there, which is 425MHz on the core (and i've experimented with memory at 300, 1010 and my OC speed of 1200), but it still won't stick if I do anything that causes the clocks to change. I've also tried setting profiles in CCC, which work again until something decides the primary gpu needs to be at a different frequency, and I'm back to square 1.

I'm very reluctant to create custom BIOS's for my cards, i've flashed them before (which went wrong 1st time but managed to sort it) but really don't think this should be the only method to resolve my issues.

I've tried every new driver since I got these cards, and the last ones that didn't have this ridiculous flicker was the 10.10e's (at least that's the last ones that worked fine for me).

Is there any settings that i should be using in either CCC or MSI Afterburner? For the record i've disabled GPU acceleration in both Firefox and vlc, so don't quite get why those are causing clock changes :confused:

Any help is greatly appreciated :)
 
Its not really a proper solution as your cards shouldnt be doing it
But you could try editing the CCC profiles to put all the clock speeds the same, the maximum, this is basically disabling the power saving feature of it, cant remember the name AMD use. So the card will run at full tilt all the time rather than switch between 2d/3d modes
Worth a try but as I say you obviously have an underlying issue, though cant think what it would be, sorry
 
thanks for the reply.

i've tried setting profiles so that the cards don't default to the single monitor clocks of 157/300.

i think what you're talking about is ULPS; which i've changed all entries to 0 for all 3 gpu's, but still get this damn flickering :(

one thing i have ascertained though, is it's purely down to the memory clock - i had the primary gpu sat at 400/300 for some bizarre reason yesterday, and the screen flickered every second on the second - was quite strange.

i'm wondering if there's some registry keys conflicting, and if it would be a worthwhile idea delete the drivers, finding all associated keys and deleting them also? if this was a reasonable course of action, does anyone know what keys i'd need to get rid of?
 
It's a known bug with the 5 series and multiple monitors. If the clocks are left at stock there is no problem. However, if the clocks are altered at all then it messes up the powerplay settings and the memory downclocks to a lower clockspeed than is neccessary for the other monitor to run stable.

I have found an solution (almost) in that I disable overdrive and set 2d clocks to default and 3d closcks to a stable overclock via Afterburner. This eliminates flickering 95% of the time. The only time i get flickering now is during situations where the clocks are in transitional mode such as loading screens which must be seen as neiher 2d or 3d by catalyst/ afterburner and the clocks drop to 157 core 300 memory.

I have tried altering various config files to eliminate any mention of 157 and 300 but they just revert to that by themselves again so i'm left thinking it is a bug hardcoded into the bios and and can't be entirely eliminated without flashing.
 
thanks for the reply dude.

when you say set the 2d clocks in AB to defaults, what defaults do you mean? i can't set AB to go any lower than 425/505, so are you referring to the default 3d clocks that the cards would normally go to under 3d situations?
 
Yeah apologies, default clocks. So I create a profile of 1.162V/ 850MHz/ 1200MHz and then another profile with the overclocked settings. For me it's quite a modest overclock to 1.162V/ 900MHz/ 1225MHz. I then apply the 1st profile to the 2D profile and the 2nd to the 3D profile. It then switches between these automatically depending on the situation, although as I say there are occasional situations when it appears to not know if its 2D or 3D and downclocks to idle speeds and flickering occurs, but these are only momentary until it shifts back into either 2D or 3D mode.

Hope this helps.
 
steve1873 said:
Yeah apologies, default clocks. So I create a profile of 1.162V/ 850MHz/ 1200MHz and then another profile with the overclocked settings. For me it's quite a modest overclock to 1.162V/ 900MHz/ 1225MHz. I then apply the 1st profile to the 2D profile and the 2nd to the 3D profile. It then switches between these automatically depending on the situation, although as I say there are occasional situations when it appears to not know if its 2D or 3D and downclocks to idle speeds and flickering occurs, but these are only momentary until it shifts back into either 2D or 3D mode.

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...

i gave that a whirl just now, and it didn't do a thing... not sure whether AB is fubar'd on my pc or what :confused:

i'm going to have a look at bios flashing reluctantly, this is ****ing me off too much!

thanks for the replies guys
 
right then, i've flashed them successfully, and the flicker has finally buggered off!

downside is now, if i try and clock my 5970 using AB, i either get a lockup or stripy screen of ****!!!

so far i've tried reinstalling the drivers and AB, but nothing seems to sort it :/ think i may have to flash it again but try different settings possibly.

anyone have any input on using Radeon Bios Editor? it's simple enough to set the clocks, but not sure what i should really be using (i just decided on using the default [stock] memory clock from the 5970 of 1010MHz).

cheers

e: games run fine at stock clocks n'all... this is bizarre
 
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