• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

Problems with HD 6950

Dan7

Dan7

Dan7

Soldato
Joined
11 Dec 2003
Posts
2,869
Location
Milton Keynes
Though it's currently on the MM, still thinking it could be an easy fix so might give it one last go tonight if it doesn't sell before then! Reached the end of my tether last night and gave up...in a slightly better mood this morning :p

MSI HD 6950 2GB OC Twin FrozR III, unlocked to 6970 shaders, bought from someone on the MM a few weeks ago - I bought two as a package (One for my PC, one for the Mrs), assuming they were ran in Crossfire as one (the one with problems) still had the protective covers over the DVI ports.

The problem isn't that easy to reproduce, but sometimes (sometimes during general use but usually under load - I've been using Furmark) the graphics card will cause artifacts to appear all over the screen, or on rare occasions cause the PC to freeze.

I've tried re-applying thermal paste (Gelid GC-Extreme) a couple of times which seems to have had a positive effect as artifacts/freezing is less frequent, but the problem still occurs :( Physically, the card looks fine and there's no damage to it.

Could something like the shaders unlock be causing this? Could it even be a driver issue - I'm using the latest drivers. Do things like BIOS flashing (MSI provide instructions themselves for this!) and replacing the thermal paste (the stock stuff was pretty messy :( ) void the warranty?

Any advice would be appreciated, though I'd rather not play with voltages etc :eek:
 
Last edited:
It sounds like your memory is going faster than the card will want to. You could try underclocking your memory with Afterburner. 50mhz should be ok and see how that goes.
 
Might need to bump up the voltage a smidge, sometimes these cards need more volts to get even the factory oc and with the shaders unlocked I expect its taking even more power.
 
Cheers guys, might have a look at clocks/voltage tonight then - any reason why a problem like this can start occurring out of the blue? I'm assuming it had never happened before as it wasn't mentioned in the adverts!
 
If he used it in xfire it might of been the second card, so less usage and not being pushed very hard (not at all when just in windows) as such if it is a volt/ clock problem it might never of hit the point at which this becomes an issue....or perhaps it did and the chap just thought it was random xfire glitches.
 
^^

I go with that. I doubt in CF he had an issue because of less stress needed. It could also just be a simple case of driver problems. Ask the seller what drivers he was on if the memory clocks or core voltage boost does not solve the issue.
 
Thanks :) I'll see how I feel tonight and may give it a go! Ended up taking it out of my system last night, put the old GTX 260 back in :(


If it's having problems at "Stock" (Being a factory overclocked card), are they grounds for an RMA - card was originally purchased from OCuK. Just wondering if the BIOS flash & TIM change affects things warranty wise. Can't see anything that specifically mentions it here : http://uk.msi.com/service/warranty/
 
Last edited:
I think tim change might be an issue. I suppose it could be grounds for RMA but unless you are really bothered by it and it only takes a small volt increase to fix it then personally I wouldn't see the issue. I have seen it quite often on this forum and others.
 
The warranties are not transferable I'm afraid, you'd have to send it back to the seller for a refund and then he'd have to return it, provided you had an agreement with him to do so.

Personally, I feel it's probably what others have said. It can't hurt to do some tweaking. First try underclocking the memory to 1000mhz and test for stability. I tend to be dubious about raising memory volts as in the past it has been known to kill the chips. If this doesn't solve it, bump the GPU core up by 25mV. Screen artefacts can be caused by memory or core. I would recommend MSI afterburner for this.

Alternatively, try flashing it back to 6950 BIOS. It might have had faulty cores.
 
Thanks for the advice, just plugged it back in and it's all taken a turn for the worse...it won't even boot into Windows now :(

imag00601.jpg


I guess that's it as good as dead now? :(
 
Shouldn't do what's in the pic dan, memory issue, possibly caused by excessive clocks on the vram.

Try flicking the bios switch, it should run@stock clocks.

Personally, I think you shouldn't have taken the cooler off and re-aplied tim as I wouldn't take it back from you(no offence intended).

Whether the original supplier/MSI takes it back could also be an issue I'm afraid, just don't tell them.

As above, don't use furmark, it might have helped it on it's way.
 
I have exactly the same cards and have the same problem with any small overclock, i think it may be an under voltage problem. Just flick the BIOS switch and load up the stock BIOS. Leave the clocks at factory and you should be good to go unless of course the damage is done. Mine loaded fine again with no problems though. Good luck.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom