Hi All,
I've been experiencing microstutter/flickering since building my new machine some 5 months ago. I have 2 x MSI
7970 Lightning’s in Crossfire on a Rampage IV Extreme mobo (BIOS 4004) with 2 x Iiyama Prolite 24" 1920 x 1080 (60hz) Monitors. It is most prevalent when browsing. There will be a flicker/tearing towards the top of the screen, then the bottom and it will occur completely randomly. This also occurs in games (Skyrim, Diablo 3 etc). It does NOT occur during benchmarks however (Heaven, Kombustor etc), which is the strangest thing. Here's what I have & haven't tried so far to resolve this:
What I have tried:
1) Doing a full system rebuild 3 times: SSD Secure Erase. Clean OS install, all Microsoft Patches, latest
motherboard chipset drivers from ASUS Website and latest AMD 13.6 BETA Drivers (no CAP) installed - makes no
difference.
2) Setting CCC "Wait for vertical refresh" to "always on" and "always of" - makes no difference.
3) Setting refresh rate in CCC to 59hz/60hz (only options available at 1920 x 1080, but it will allow 75hz at
lower res; and changing to this seems to make the issue occur much less, but looks terrible) - makes no
difference.
4) Using MSI Afterburner s/w to limit frame rate to 60fps on a global system scale - makes no difference.
5) Disabling/Enabling ULPS using a 3rd-party tool to make the registry changes for me (reboots in between) -
makes no difference.
6) Disabling and re-enabling crossfire - makes no difference.
7) Disabling crossfire and running one card by itself - it still occurs but less than usual (it does this with
BOTH master and slave card) - makes no difference.
8) RMA the cards to be tested by supplier. Both returned as "no fault found" and passed benchmarks.
9) Changed the connections from 2 x DVI-I (this is all the card supports) to 1 x DVI-I & 1 x DP (with adapter),
2 x DP (with adapters), 1 x DVI-I & 1 x HDMI (with adapter) - makes no difference
10) Swapped DVI cables for new ones - makes no difference
What I have not tried:
1) Flashing the cards BIOS using MSI Live Update 5 - this was going to be my next step but I'm very wary of
doing this because MSI support has been diabolical (their technicians can't even construct a legible sentence and have the computer knowledge of a house brick)
2) Setting manual clock speeds in the catalyst 'profile' file held in c:\Users\[profile
name]\appdata\local\ATI\ACE\Profiles (as apparently the flickering may be caused by the memory clocks adjusting
constantly)
I was wondering if anyone has any ideas or has experienced similar issues? Ideally I'd like to try and resolve
this before flashing the card, but if I can't then I have no choice. I appreciate your time and feedback all
Many thanks
Malachor.
I've been experiencing microstutter/flickering since building my new machine some 5 months ago. I have 2 x MSI
7970 Lightning’s in Crossfire on a Rampage IV Extreme mobo (BIOS 4004) with 2 x Iiyama Prolite 24" 1920 x 1080 (60hz) Monitors. It is most prevalent when browsing. There will be a flicker/tearing towards the top of the screen, then the bottom and it will occur completely randomly. This also occurs in games (Skyrim, Diablo 3 etc). It does NOT occur during benchmarks however (Heaven, Kombustor etc), which is the strangest thing. Here's what I have & haven't tried so far to resolve this:
What I have tried:
1) Doing a full system rebuild 3 times: SSD Secure Erase. Clean OS install, all Microsoft Patches, latest
motherboard chipset drivers from ASUS Website and latest AMD 13.6 BETA Drivers (no CAP) installed - makes no
difference.
2) Setting CCC "Wait for vertical refresh" to "always on" and "always of" - makes no difference.
3) Setting refresh rate in CCC to 59hz/60hz (only options available at 1920 x 1080, but it will allow 75hz at
lower res; and changing to this seems to make the issue occur much less, but looks terrible) - makes no
difference.
4) Using MSI Afterburner s/w to limit frame rate to 60fps on a global system scale - makes no difference.
5) Disabling/Enabling ULPS using a 3rd-party tool to make the registry changes for me (reboots in between) -
makes no difference.
6) Disabling and re-enabling crossfire - makes no difference.
7) Disabling crossfire and running one card by itself - it still occurs but less than usual (it does this with
BOTH master and slave card) - makes no difference.
8) RMA the cards to be tested by supplier. Both returned as "no fault found" and passed benchmarks.
9) Changed the connections from 2 x DVI-I (this is all the card supports) to 1 x DVI-I & 1 x DP (with adapter),
2 x DP (with adapters), 1 x DVI-I & 1 x HDMI (with adapter) - makes no difference
10) Swapped DVI cables for new ones - makes no difference
What I have not tried:
1) Flashing the cards BIOS using MSI Live Update 5 - this was going to be my next step but I'm very wary of
doing this because MSI support has been diabolical (their technicians can't even construct a legible sentence and have the computer knowledge of a house brick)
2) Setting manual clock speeds in the catalyst 'profile' file held in c:\Users\[profile
name]\appdata\local\ATI\ACE\Profiles (as apparently the flickering may be caused by the memory clocks adjusting
constantly)
I was wondering if anyone has any ideas or has experienced similar issues? Ideally I'd like to try and resolve
this before flashing the card, but if I can't then I have no choice. I appreciate your time and feedback all
Many thanks
Malachor.
