Gigabyte 7870 WF problems

Heisenberg · 8 Sep 2013 at 20:46

Hi guys, My work mate recently got into PC gaming (after me persuading him to ditch his xbox). He bought a overclocked bundle from here and added a Gigabyte 7870 windforce from a competitor which may or may not rhyme with eflyer (i know i know). His system works fine in games/benchmarks but when general browsing it sometimes flickers. Watching videos on Youtube or through Facebook makes horizontal lines flicker across the screen quite bad. We have tried playing about with settings in CCC to no avail.

I have tried his card in my system and the exact same thing happens. He contacted the retailer and arranged for the card to be returned and explained exactly the problem and when it occurs. They stress tested the card and returned it saying there was no fault.

Would his next step be to contact Gigabyte and arrange return through them? He is obviously wary of doing so incase they test the card and find no fault like the retailer. Anyone got any advice where he stands? He has a video of it occurring which i could get off him to upload if that would help. Cheers

NoobCannon · 9 Sep 2013 at 07:53

Its gonna be a prolem with your 2d clocks.

Best thing to do would be to download afterburner and theres a way you
Can set up a profile for 2d and 3d. Prob
Need slightly more voltage on your 2d clocks.

Cant help anymore than that im afraid but
Someone on here will know what to so. Its quite a common problem
I think.

Edit :- wth has my iphone done to this post! Wont let me correct it either :s

jellofund · 9 Sep 2013 at 08:24

I used to get really bad flicker on my 120hz monitor when browsing the web or during game load / menu screen, and it was a 2D clock issue (voltages being set to low I think). No issues when running games etc. or in 60hz mode.

Looking around flickering seems to be a fairly common issue with AMD / ATI cards and there were various workarounds suggested. None were really ideal as they meant either editing profile files to raise the clock speed (didn't work for me), running a youtube video in the background whilst browsing (a faff) or using Afterburner to either raise 2D clock speeds (didn't help with my card) or to force 3d clock speeds all the time (hot, inefficient etc.).

When I first got my card it was a real issue but with with subsequent video driver releases the flickering died down a lot, but not entirely. I then stumbled across this thread where Gigabyte suggested the OP update his 7850's vga bios: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=21968212

I went to the Gigabyte UK website and found the flash tool and appropriate bios for my card and since flashing the bios I've had no issues at all. Might be worth a try or perhaps your workmate could e-mail Gigabyte first to see what they suggest (that way if he flashes on their instructions, and things go wrong, he's covered his back).

LtMatt · 9 Sep 2013 at 08:54

What browser is he using, firefox? Try chrome or IE.

Heisenberg · 9 Sep 2013 at 09:16

LtMatt said:
What browser is he using, firefox? Try chrome or IE.

He is using latest version of IE. The problem happens at desktop and in Windows media player etc. He also just told me that he tried to play Half Life 2 and the problem occured. Would that point to it being a problem with the 2D clocks needing a touch more voltage as i know when i recently replayed HL2 with my 7950 it downclocks a lot?

Cheers for the help

LtMatt · 9 Sep 2013 at 09:16

Heisenberg said:
He is using latest version of IE. The problem happens at desktop and in Windows media player etc. He also just told me that he tried to play Half Life 2 and the problem occured. Would that point to it being a problem with the 2D clocks needing a touch more voltage as i know when i recently replayed HL2 with my 7950 it downclocks a lot?

Cheers for the help

Is he using un-official overclock mode in afterburner?

jellofund · 9 Sep 2013 at 09:32

Thinking back I did actually get in-game flicker in one game that wasn't particularly demanding (Vessel). I was monitoring it using Afterburner and it was constantly swapping between 300mhz (2d clock speed) & 1000mhz (factory OC speed) on my card. Whenever it hit 300mhz the issue started.

Possibly the same thing is happening in HL2?

I do think it's voltage related and guessing something GB addressed in their bios revisions.

Heisenberg · 9 Sep 2013 at 09:36

No Oc'ing tools running. It is the OC version which is pre overclocked to 1100mhz. Apparently upping the power limit in CCC to +20% helped a little but still happened sometimes.

I have asked him to check what BIOS version the card is running to see if it can maybe be fixed with a simple BIOS flash from Gigabyte. Do you know if these cards have the Dual BIOS switch?

LtMatt · 9 Sep 2013 at 09:51

Heisenberg said:
No Oc'ing tools running. It is the OC version which is pre overclocked to 1100mhz. Apparently upping the power limit in CCC to +20% helped a little but still happened sometimes.

I have asked him to check what BIOS version the card is running to see if it can maybe be fixed with a simple BIOS flash from Gigabyte. Do you know if these cards have the Dual BIOS switch?

You can stop the flickering by doing the following.

Download and install the latest version of MSI Afterburner.

After installing and running it for the first time follow the prompt to restart. You need to then set the core and memory clocks as low as they will go in afterburner. You can also lower the voltage a bit if you feel comfortable enough doing that. Save these clocks to profile 1. Now set the stock clocks and voltage and save that to profile 2. Now go to settings, profiles and set 2d clocks to profile 1 and 3d clocks to profile 2.

Heisenberg · 9 Sep 2013 at 11:05

Cheers Matt. Getting him to check what BIOS the card is running tonight. If that doesn't cure it will try your' method. Will report back tonight. Thanks again.

LtMatt · 9 Sep 2013 at 11:22

Gigabyte do have bios updates on their site so worth a shot. Use their own flashing tool as well. It prevents you from flashing an incorrect bios so its pretty fool proof.

Heisenberg · 9 Sep 2013 at 18:54

Right, there was no BIOS update available for his card. Have also tried your method Matt which seems to have made it worse and is causing a driver crash when trying to load games. I have got him double checking he done everything correctly in Afterburner but it seems easy enough to follow.

LtMatt · 9 Sep 2013 at 19:05

Heisenberg said:
Right, there was no BIOS update available for his card. Have also tried your method Matt which seems to have made it worse and is causing a driver crash when trying to load games. I have got him double checking he done everything correctly in Afterburner but it seems easy enough to follow.

On the 2d clocks profile leave voltage at stock rather than lowering it. That should stop the crashing. I guess you lowered it way too much.

Heisenberg · 9 Sep 2013 at 19:24

He says he tried with it low (1000mV) and it caused BSOD. Moved it back up to same as 3D clocks but it just seems to be the same. I think i'll need to go over to his house and make sure he's doing it correctly. Otherwise it must be a faulty card. In my opinion, the GPU should be working correctly out the box at standard settings which it clearly isn't. The joys off PC gaming? haha

LtMatt · 9 Sep 2013 at 19:27

Heisenberg said:
He says he tried with it low (1000mV) and it caused BSOD. Moved it back up to same as 3D clocks but it just seems to be the same. I think i'll need to go over to his house and make sure he's doing it correctly. Otherwise it must be a faulty card. In my opinion, the GPU should be working correctly out the box at standard settings which it clearly isn't. The joys off PC gaming? haha

Yes he's either doing it wrong (voltage way too low) or the card is faulty i reckon Heisenberg. Let me know how it goes.

Heisenberg · 9 Sep 2013 at 19:32

Will hopefully get over to his to check it out. When monitoring in game in HL2 with GPU-Z, the clock kept jumping down to the standard 2d clock, not the 2d clock we set in Afterburner. I tried it with my system too and it was jumping down to 300mhz when the 2d clock was 500mhz in AB. Is this normal? Sorry to keep pestering you with this mate, but I've really tried all i can think off

LtMatt · 9 Sep 2013 at 19:40

Heisenberg said:
Will hopefully get over to his to check it out. When monitoring in game in HL2 with GPU-Z, the clock kept jumping down to the standard 2d clock, not the 2d clock we set in Afterburner. I tried it with my system too and it was jumping down to 300mhz when the 2d clock was 500mhz in AB. Is this normal? Sorry to keep pestering you with this mate, but I've really tried all i can think off

Kind of sounds like the game is not demanding enough hence its forcing the card into a low clock state. One possible solution could be to use radeonpro. Setup a profile for the game, find and select the game exe, then select use maximum clocks while gaming option as in this screenshot i uploaded.

[

Or you could try and disable powerplay in afterburner settings and restart. That would stop the card clocking down.

Un-official Overclocking without powerplay support

Heisenberg · 9 Sep 2013 at 20:03

Yeah, it seems to be normal in a few less demanding games I've played, but obviously it's causing him issues in these games and also in general browsing etc. Will try the RadeonPro suggestion for one last throw off the dice. After that i think he should return it again. I don't think i would put up with it. Suppose the 7950's are slightly cheaper now, maybe a silver lining for him haha. Cheers mate

LtMatt · 9 Sep 2013 at 20:07

Try chrome. If it happens in that when watching videos or what not you can disable hardware acceleration via settings. I use chrome and it works fine here and i have hardware acceleration enabled.

jellofund · 10 Sep 2013 at 08:43

That's a pity about GB not having a bios file for the card and AB not helping.

Out of interest what drivers is your friend using? Might be worth trying the 13.10 betas if he hasn't already as newer drivers definitely alleviated the problems for me to the point where I got the odd flicker on the desktop every few minutes.

Hopefully either that or the things LtMatt has suggested will do the trick but if not RMA'ing again or contacting GB (may have a new bios that isn't on the website yet) seems to be the way to go as the flickering really starts to grate the longer you live with it.