Problem with new MSI 5850 Twin Frozr

nlel1975 · 9 Jan 2011 at 12:30

I first noticed the problem when I went to install the chipset drivers which I did after installing the graphics driver.... the screen just went blank

So I uninstalled the graphics driver and installed the chipset driver ok, then I reinstalled the graphics driver.

But while I was installing 3D Mark Vantage the screen went blank again after I rebooted I managed to start up 3D Mark Vantage but it just shows a blank red screen where the static image of the first test should be shown. Sometimes it gets past this but it never starts the test just goes blank.

So basically I think my card is faulty.

Also when booting up sometimes the screen is garbled.

EDIT: I friend is bringing round a nvidia card tommorow so I will test the system with that.

Cleeecooo · 9 Jan 2011 at 14:10

I have a black screen problem with my 6970. Does your fan go ti 100% fir a second afterwards?

nlel1975 · 9 Jan 2011 at 14:13

Cleeecooo said:
I have a black screen problem with my 6970. Does your fan go ti 100% fir a second afterwards?

I have requested an RMA, when the system boots I can hear the fan running I do not know if its at 100% - when the screen goes blank the graphics card fan noise lowers right after.

I disabled the graphics card and the system seems to run fine.

EDIT: and when I uninstall the driver the screen goes blank but after reboot its uninstalled but using the default Microsoft driver which I tried to uninstall but the screen went blank and its still there after a reboot so I disabled it and the screen went blank but it came back again 5 seconds later then it runs OK.

welshdragon · 9 Jan 2011 at 21:16

Whats the rest of your system?

Have you updated your bios and is the psu powerful enough? I assumed you've connected the necessray pcie cables (I know but sometimes people forget)

nlel1975 · 9 Jan 2011 at 21:41

welshdragon said:
Whats the rest of your system?

Have you updated your bios and is the psu powerful enough? I assumed you've connected the necessray pcie cables (I know but sometimes people forget)

PSU is Antec Basiq 550W rest of the system is a P8P67 8GB RAM WD Hard Drive i5-2500k and yes I connected the PCI-E cables.

I think its def graphics card related seeing as sometimes it will not POST if it went blank before the first following power cycle and a couple of times I have seen garbled image on screen while booting.

welshdragon · 9 Jan 2011 at 21:43

And its running the latest bios with any onboard gfx disabled?

Looking at the board you should ahve no problems - RMA time it is then. Sry couldn't be more help.

mrfil13 · 10 Jan 2011 at 10:06

When you say the screen was garbled do you mean Artifacts, such as weired lines across the screen or random dots/squares on the screen?

I have the same card, when the driver is installed it runs at 157 core/300 mem at idle and 55% fan speed, when its running in 3d mode 725/1000 it seems to be fine, ive used MSI afterburner to get it running at 724/1000 and its ok, not sure if i should send the card back for that, im not too bothered as long as its not a sign that the card is abit foobard and will fail soon.

I didnt get the black screen though, just the glitches.

nlel1975 · 10 Jan 2011 at 12:45

mrfil13 said:
When you say the screen was garbled do you mean Artifacts, such as weired lines across the screen or random dots/squares on the screen?

I have the same card, when the driver is installed it runs at 157 core/300 mem at idle and 55% fan speed, when its running in 3d mode 725/1000 it seems to be fine, ive used MSI afterburner to get it running at 724/1000 and its ok, not sure if i should send the card back for that, im not too bothered as long as its not a sign that the card is abit foobard and will fail soon.

I didnt get the black screen though, just the glitches.

Yeah when I say garbled I suppose artifacts is the best way to describe it, it was basically the normal screen image flying around the screen in lines and stuff - when I saw that I knew something was wrong with the card.

Overclockers have got back to me saying have I tested it in another machine, well I am going to do that this afternoon. Taking the machine up to my brothers where he has a few machines and we are going to test the card in another machine and also a 6970 in my machine.

mrfil13 · 10 Jan 2011 at 15:56

Did you find that if you run a game it works ok?

nlel1975 · 10 Jan 2011 at 16:23

mrfil13 said:
Did you find that if you run a game it works ok?

No if you run anything which stresses the card it blank screens. Sometimes it will blank screen simply by saying yes to allow windows to run a program also the computer will not start maybe 3-4 times with the card in anyway....

I took the card round to my brothers, he has a i7 920 system with a 6970 the first thing I did was show him the problems I am having then we took the 6970 out of his machine and put it into mine and it ran all the benchmarks everything no problem.

Then we put the MSI Radeon 1GB 5850 Twin Frozr II into his machine and the first thing it did was cause the BIOS to reset, then it loaded up and we tried to run 3D Mark 11 and it simply blank screened as per what was happening in my machine.

Then we rebooted and tried the Heaven benchmark and again it started loading but blank screened before running the test his machine was running the latest drivers as well.

So I am going to get back onto ocUK and ask for an RMA number now that I have proved it does not work in another machine ruling out my Motherboard, CPU, RAM and PSU as possible suspects.

mrfil13 · 10 Jan 2011 at 17:01

Ah ok, mine works fine once its running at normal speed and not the 2d speed.

Yours sounds foobard then.

nlel1975 · 10 Jan 2011 at 18:06

mrfil13 said:
Ah ok, mine works fine once its running at normal speed and not the 2d speed.

Yours sounds foobard then.

Overclockers have raised an RMA it will be going back tommorow. Just got unlucky this time but that is what warranties are for right!

fowler002 · 10 Jan 2011 at 20:11

if it's within the dsr, might be better to use that option(even if you get stuck with the delivery charge) as ocuk/msi maynot find any fault and you'll get stuck with the delivery charge both ways.

on the note of new installitions, is it better to first install the motherboard/chipset drivers or graphics card drivers? I'm going to be doing a re-format of the hard disk and installing windows 7(have vista at the moment), currently have the 2900pro 1gb but got the 5850 10days ago and not installed it yet.

rest of the system s a q6600(but have a q9450 as well), asus p5q-deluxe, 4gb ballistix pc6400 cas4, samsung f1 750gb, creative x-fi xtreme gamer.

the cpu is currently watercooled but I'm removing that and going to be using a arctic freezer 7 pro rev 2, the pc is 2 1/2years old has lots of dust which I'm going to be cleaning before fitting the 5850 and the cpu cooler.

the watercooling coolant is in need of draining and refilling, the cleaning, installing the 5850 and installing windows 7 will take enough time so I'll deal with the watercooling at a later date tho might leave the pc on air cooling(and use the radiator etc on another build in the future).

Paul_Robson · 11 Jan 2011 at 01:14

I think you just got unlucky dude. I have the same card as you and im very happy with it.

mrfil13 · 11 Jan 2011 at 09:04

Ive gone through MSI and they said to send mine back to the reseller for repair.

Damn graphics cards, at least i still have my 4870 for now.

nlel1975 · 11 Jan 2011 at 11:01

fowler002 said:
if it's within the dsr, might be better to use that option(even if you get stuck with the delivery charge) as ocuk/msi maynot find any fault and you'll get stuck with the delivery charge both ways.

I would find it hard to believe they would not find a fault as the machine will often not POST with the card in and it blank screens when you try to do anything with it. Yeah sitting in windows not doing anything it displays an image but once you start using the machine or trying out something that uses the graphics BAM! blank screen...

Paul_Robson · 11 Jan 2011 at 16:39

Sounds like the card is getting too hot. I had same prob with an 8800gtx once. It was happy in windows but once i open a few windows up or tried to play a game the screen would black out on me.

nlel1975 · 11 Jan 2011 at 17:59

Paul_Robson said:
Sounds like the card is getting too hot. I had same prob with an 8800gtx once. It was happy in windows but once i open a few windows up or tried to play a game the screen would black out on me.

I have just sent ocUK another webnote stating that as I am within 7 days and the card is faulty I would like a refund rather then replacement.

They are also getting low on stock of these cards so by the time they are ready to replace there might be none available.

Hopefully they will agree to give me a refund then I will be free to order something else.

Paul_Robson · 11 Jan 2011 at 20:26

Ive always found OC really good, they have never let me down so touch wood, u shud be ok

Darkst4r · 11 Jan 2011 at 20:32

I had a refund for one of these from OCUK today. Bought the card on Xmas eve and RMA'd it after 40 mins use because it started making a fizzing noise and kept changing my desktop to basic desktop at random. The guy on the phone said he wouldnt send me a replacement as they had so many back with problems already. Thing is they are still for sale on reduced price.

I hope you have an easier time with the RMA than I did. It took me several webnotes, about an hour on the phone and 2 complaints forms before they decided it was "borderline faulty".