HIS Radeon 5870 performance problems

Jakus · 5 Oct 2009 at 12:29

Ryx said:
Hi Jakus, all the problems set out in the opening post to this thread:

Screen shots from GPU-Z and details of what is running can also be found on the opening page. Thanks for your input.

I realize that, and you may have noticed it has not got us very far

It is clear You are quite handy with PC's but as You have not narrowed down the problem yet We need to look at a different angle ! So what works and what does not ?

Ryx · 5 Oct 2009 at 12:59

Very little works as it should - the display functions and at the correct resolution, catalyst works and recognises the card, 3dMark runs and attempts the tests that the card should be able to perform. The card is not overheating but it is running hot. The clock speeds are continually maxed and the card is under 25% load but nothing is running that should be putting load on it. I intially had audio problems too but moving to a differnt PCI-E slot fixed those.

Things that don't work - video playback will start but it quickly deteriorates into juddery images. In Media Player you get some screen flicker (a band across the middle of the screen) and continual judder. Quicktime slows down when there is fast movement on screen and quickly becomes juddery. Performance in 3dMark is exceptional one second and then awful the next (dropping from 170FPS + to 1 or 2 FPS) - this doesn't correspond to onscreen action and is seemingly random. Game performance is the same.

I've tried all of the driver versions, different PCI-E slots, different power supplies, a fresh install on a spare hard drive and all the other suggestions that have been posted. I'm really at a loss - as far as I can fathom it's either a conflict or a faulty card but I may be wrong.

Jakus · 5 Oct 2009 at 13:10

Waiting

Something is calling for 3d clocks from the card in desktop, I think that's a given ! but the Card should still be able to play a couple of videos at the same time !

Ryx · 5 Oct 2009 at 13:19

There is nothing running - I've gone through every process that's running and closed all applications with no improvement. My only fear is that it could be caused by the RAID card (although all logic suggests it can't be the cause) - the RAID set up has my CPU at a continual 17% usage which isn't really an issue but I've no idea how it could be impacting on the 5870 too.

Jakus · 5 Oct 2009 at 13:20

Ok, Have you checked IRQ's and DMA etc windows problem devices ?

I doubt very much it will be a faulty Card

First thing is do you have a spare HD and XP disc or even Vista ?

Jakus · 5 Oct 2009 at 13:24

Ryx said:
There is nothing running - I've gone through every process that's running and closed all applications with no improvement. My only fear is that it could be caused by the RAID card (although all logic suggests it can't be the cause) - the RAID set up has my CPU at a continual 17% usage which isn't really an issue but I've no idea how it could be impacting on the 5870 too.

Is the raid hardware ?, PCI , which slot, which slots are shared on your Mobo ?

Jakus · 5 Oct 2009 at 13:40

Ryx said:
There is nothing running - I've gone through every process that's running and closed all applications with no improvement. My only fear is that it could be caused by the RAID card (although all logic suggests it can't be the cause) - the RAID set up has my CPU at a continual 17% usage which isn't really an issue but I've no idea how it could be impacting on the 5870 too.

Well, I'll tell you now, You are going to need 100% of that CPU to get the full benefit of that 5870 in 3d, You cannot have an 8 disk server and a Gamer Pc in the same case, there are too many compromises !, You would have been better off with a Nvidia with it's CUDA in the GFX dept

gurusan · 5 Oct 2009 at 13:41

It's obviously some sort of software problem. As I stated before, I think the only thing left for you to try is a complete reformat.

Ryx · 5 Oct 2009 at 13:42

The RAID is hardware but it remains very processor intensive and it's a PCI-E card. The Mobo has 7 PCI-E 2.0 x16 slots - initially I had the 5870 in slot 1 and the RAId card in slot 4 but I have since changed that to slot 2 and slot 5. I think Slots 1,3 and 5 run at x16 while 2,4 and 6 are unoccupied - hence the change.

I will try a Vista install to see if that corrects the problem but unfortunately the RAID card doesn't like Vista.

Jakus · 5 Oct 2009 at 13:55

Ryx said:
The RAID is hardware but it remains very processor intensive and it's a PCI-E card. The Mobo has 7 PCI-E 2.0 x16 slots - initially I had the 5870 in slot 1 and the RAId card in slot 4 but I have since changed that to slot 2 and slot 5. I think Slots 1,3 and 5 run at x16 while 2,4 and 6 are unoccupied - hence the change.

I will try a Vista install to see if that corrects the problem but unfortunately the RAID card doesn't like Vista.

I would forget about the speeds of the slots and try to find out which slots share resources, then separate the hardware , Hope You installed with "non plug and play os" in the bios, I can't see any version of windows running that lot efficiently :eek:

Ryx · 5 Oct 2009 at 14:09

Gurusan - I've tried a complete reformat on a spare hard drive (XP and 7). I've not tried Vista simply because I had that before 7 and the RAID setup just didn't like it.

Jakus - I've just tried it without the RAID card even being plugged in a PCI-E slot (so no RAID at all) and all the problems are the same. Given that none of the other PCI-E slots were in use I can't imagine it's anything to do with shared resources. Yes - BIOS is set to non plug and play OS.

liquidex · 5 Oct 2009 at 14:30

Have you got another pc or a friend who can test the card just to check if its the card or whether its software related to your rig?

Jakus · 5 Oct 2009 at 14:32

Ryx said:
Gurusan - I've tried a complete reformat on a spare hard drive (XP and 7). I've not tried Vista simply because I had that before 7 and the RAID setup just didn't like it.

Jakus - I've just tried it without the RAID card even being plugged in a PCI-E slot (so no RAID at all) and all the problems are the same. Given that none of the other PCI-E slots were in use I can't imagine it's anything to do with shared resources. Yes - BIOS is set to non plug and play OS.

Wow !, that's some motherboard..Just took a look, I think I may be a bit out of date regarding interupts and PCIex it's serial based with lots of bandwith

Ok so the problem was the same with XP and no raid ? was the CPU still running at 25% in the desktop ?
First guess would be a conflict between ATI audio and on board audio, did You try disabling on-board in the bios ?
before I did anything I would check for new motherboard bios and update

Ryx · 5 Oct 2009 at 14:36

I've a friend who would test it but it won't fit in his case. I could knock one up from the spare parts I've got lying around but I'm half tempted to just return the card and try another one just to eliminate the worry that it's faulty.

Jakus · 5 Oct 2009 at 14:36

What I can tell You is video stutter is often caused by audio issues

Ryx · 5 Oct 2009 at 14:40

The bios was the latest version a week or so ago but I'll check for revisions. Yes the issue was the same in XP and no RAID: 25% GPU usage on the desktop and clock speeds at max even when idle. I've disabled the ATI audio and the sound is fine now but the display and performance problems persist. I'll try the other way around and disable the onboard sound.

Jakus · 5 Oct 2009 at 14:42

Ryx said:
I've a friend who would test it but it won't fit in his case. I could knock one up from the spare parts I've got lying around but I'm half tempted to just return the card and try another one just to eliminate the worry that it's faulty.

I would be very surprised, Yes a quick Mobo on the bench will be a quick and simple test bed

I'm thinking it's likely the Asus P6T7 WS is not playing nicely !, slightly worrying that Your 4870 was ok though

Jakus · 5 Oct 2009 at 14:47

Ryx said:
The bios was the latest version a week or so ago but I'll check for revisions. Yes the issue was the same in XP and no RAID: 25% GPU usage on the desktop and clock speeds at max even when idle. I've disabled the ATI audio and the sound is fine now but the display and performance problems persist. I'll try the other way around and disable the onboard sound.

Ok, that makes me think the cards goosed !or its bios is corrupted, can You save it with GPUZ and post it ?

SfnX · 5 Oct 2009 at 14:48

my main 4850 is at 55 constant with a windtunnel v2, excellent+++ airflow and everything but it must just be the card itself.
duno bout ur 5870, airflow?

drunkenmaster · 5 Oct 2009 at 15:35

have you tried unlocking the ATi Overdrive options in the CCC, forcing a lower clock see what happens.

The obvious thing here is something is causing the gpu load, which is interfering with everything else. Perfectly possible its a faulty card, could be the mobo drivers as its a rather odd board setup, with 2 nvidia chips onboard also. Is there anyway to install only intel drivers and only use a slot connected to the Intel northbridge, would that only stop you using the slots connected to the nvidia chips, or would the board simply not work.

Not quite sure why you're using that mobo, are you using multiple Nvidia cards for other workload, or is it just a storage system, aren't there far far far cheaper and easier ways to add a raid 5 setup of slowish drives?

Looking at a pic of the board its got a huge plate/heatsink thing going on, any chance its shorting out on the long card somewhere? Also I'd take the card out have a look at the pci-e connector, look for any damage there.

I'd try a fresh windows install, with basically only the ATi driver, do custom, don't install the audio driver, just CCC and display driver, see what happens.

EDIT:- for vista/win 7 also turn off aero, and try vid playback without hardware acceleration, try something like VLC, see how it does.