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Radeon 5 Series Dual Monitor Flickering Problem

F1aw1ess

F1aw1ess

F1aw1ess

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15 Oct 2009
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560
Just wondering whether they actually fixed it?

I had a 5870 initially but sent it back when I found I couldn't overclock the card because the moment I did the second monitor would flicker?

I have stuck with my trusty GTX275 until the Fermi cards came out and I have to say I'm not really impressed so I'm thinking of going back to ATi and getting either 2 x 5850's or a 5970.

Did they ever fix the problem in CCC or can I now overclock with another program and get round the problem that way?

I currently use RivaTuner, Unsure whether that works with ATI cards?

Cheers lads
 
The flickering happens when it lowers the memory speed, using the new betas and although my memory is at 1200 all the time so what doesn't add any temps really as the gpu is at 400 instead of the 980 i use in games, that's when the card heats up.
 
I have dual screens and never had any flickering on either of my two monitors since I got the card, used both the 10.2 and the 10.3 preview drivers :)
Even using MSI Afterburner to OC the card, still no flickering problems.... card runs at 400/1125 in 2D and then 850/1200 in 3D :)
 
RavenXXX2 said:
^^^Looks like your card has an updated bios to raise 2d clocks with dual monitors.
Click to expand...

I figure as much, only had the card a month or two... most likely ;)
Still, using the profiles in CCC, I though you could manually set the clocks to over come this issue, certainly can with MSI Afterburner?
 
Its not difficult, use any overclocking tool to keep clocks above the low clocks.

THe normal drivers actually do stick to 400/900 clocks IF you don't overclock, the fix is months and months old, as soon as you unlock the overdrive panel and start overclocking though it will revert back to the too slow errm, 150ish/300 clocks, whatever they are, and its too slow to keep the timing on the second screen in sink for some reason.

leave it stock and keep the 400/900 settings, some drivers you can change the default 2d idle speeds just in the profiles you can make with ATi easily, some drivers thats not working and just use afterburner to bump the clocks up or gpu clock tool to disable powerplay.

These fixes have been on forums since about the 3rd day these cards were available.

People just refuse to listen to advice.

Before the cards were available gpu clock tool was available which can disable powerplay and fix 99.99999% of problems, and people just don't choose to do so.

Yes idle clock speeds and lower power consumption are great, and theres ways to set your own "high enough" settings.

Theres a dozen different ways to keep idle clock speeds high enough to not have flickering, I suggest people use one of them.


EDIT:- just to check, normally I just set MSI afterburner to above limited clocks for a 5850(780 core, 775 is limit in overdrive panel) which disables powerplay, that works fine stops 2d idling to low and thats the end of it, runs on start up, all good.

I just reset normal clocks, which re-engages powerplay in the drivers, I went into the drivers, profile manager, give a profile a name, save. Then go to users>your profile>app data>local>ati>ace>profiles and edit the file, change the lower idle speed to 400, and the mem clocks to 1000 in both idle situations and whatever you want for the overclock in the 3d situation.

After activating the profile my flickering dissappeared, it runs 400/1000 idle, it won't allow higher than the limited overclocks in those profiles, no matter what you set.

All you need to do is keep TWO profiles in MSI afterburner, one at stock clocks/voltage, and one with your overclocked settings. So i hit profile 2 in afterburner to increase voltage, and go to 950/1250 clocks, to get idle speeds and lower voltage in idle, I set profile 1 which is stock clocks. As long as its got stock 3d clocks, the powerplay stuff will kick in at idle.
 
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Nice informative post DM. I suffer from this problem myself and your post is rather helpful. However i am going to argue with you on the fact that these fixes are well known and documented. So far the only fix i have heard of up until now is the one where you have to flash your BIOS which is a bit of a no no to most. Although i don't have time to be trawling through many forums looking for answers so this could be why. We're not all gpu gurus like yourself.

I am going to attempt to follow what you have put in your edit however could you clarify a few things for me as i'm being a little slow today.

so basically i create a profile in CCC where i set minimum speeds etc and the overclock settings.

I then have to create two profiles in afterburner one stock and one at the overclock i wish to have.

right now questions:

1) do i have to keep switching between profile 1 and 2 in afterburner to keep powerplay going?

2) with the setting of the overclock settings in the profile. Are you saying this allows me to adjust the overclock (say in afterburner) up to the maximum which will be what i have set in the profiles? Or are you saying i can only set an OC in the profile as far as CCC will allow?

I appreciate any help you can provide on this as it's quite irritating to say the least.
 
drunkenmaster said:
Its not difficult, use any overclocking tool to keep clocks above the low clocks.

THe normal drivers actually do stick to 400/900 clocks IF you don't overclock, the fix is months and months old, as soon as you unlock the overdrive panel and start overclocking though it will revert back to the too slow errm, 150ish/300 clocks, whatever they are, and its too slow to keep the timing on the second screen in sink for some reason.

leave it stock and keep the 400/900 settings, some drivers you can change the default 2d idle speeds just in the profiles you can make with ATi easily, some drivers thats not working and just use afterburner to bump the clocks up or gpu clock tool to disable powerplay.

These fixes have been on forums since about the 3rd day these cards were available.

People just refuse to listen to advice.

Before the cards were available gpu clock tool was available which can disable powerplay and fix 99.99999% of problems, and people just don't choose to do so.

Yes idle clock speeds and lower power consumption are great, and theres ways to set your own "high enough" settings.

Theres a dozen different ways to keep idle clock speeds high enough to not have flickering, I suggest people use one of them.
Click to expand...

Great advice. Have you got a suggestion as to what I can use on my 480? The idle clocks with 2 screens go up to 400/800 (i think) which causes a big old rise in temps. RivaTuner, which I used before on my 280, doesn't support the 480 yet and the OCing tools about for the 480 don't reduce the clocks far enough.

Edit: Sorry, forgot to say sorry for hi-jacking the thread a little!
 
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You don't need to use use the profiles in CCC if you use MSI, just save MSI profile 1, with your cards Default clocks (for a stock 5850 725/1000?), then save profile 2 as your OC value... then in MSI settings/Profile, you can set the 2D profile to use Profile 1 and the 3D to use Profile 2, MSI will do the rest...
 
UKDTweak said:
You don't need to use use the profiles in CCC if you use MSI, just save MSI profile 1, with your cards Default clocks (for a stock 5850 725/1000?), then save profile 2 as your OC value... then in MSI settings/Profile, you can set the 2D profile to use Profile 1 and the 3D to use Profile 2, MSI will do the rest...
Click to expand...

Thanks for clearing that up mate, much appreciated. I shall give this a go Wednesday when i will actually have some time to play with my pc.
 
The main reason to use MSI to set a default profile, is once at default settings the AMD drivers take over and kick in idle speeds, and it can use lower Vcore than afterburner can set, if you're going for Idle, you may aswell use as little power as possible.

But as UKDtweak said, you can have MSI handle it but you won't get quite as low power usage, for me one thing I love, basically living inside a radiator of a room, is as low power output as possible in summer :p

South facing, flat roof, basically 2/3 walls in the sun most of the day, hot water tank in my room, very poor ventiation and computer, I'll take every watt saving I can ;)


AFterburner sets as low as 1v iirc, while AMD for low idle speeds can use 0.95v.


I agree its not a widely known, as in nice little page on AMD explaining how to do everything solution, but I've been telling everyone possible in every thread I see issues how to fix the vast majority of them.

Personally it seems to me most of the grey screen, flickering, and game crashing issues are all powerplay so more often than not I just disable it, and I tend to prefer to set a single speed as some games tend to flick in and out of 3d speeds, during cutscenes or loading and I've always felt its more stable sticking to a single clock, and I've felt that for several generations of Nvidia/ATi 2d/3d speed switching.

What really frustrates me is, there isn't a nice single page on Nvidia, AMD, your mobo's site, Intel, giving a list of common fixes, a list of updates you should really get for gaming and other stuff. It would take them a few hours a year to keep it up to date.

Playing City of Heroes there were several not standard multicore fixes for Vista that aren't in windows update that made a whole host of games run better, but most people didn't know about them.

AMD should have a page of latest drivers, recommendations for updates required for quad core systems, and something as simple as "if you're having crashes/grey screens, flickering, download "this" and disable power play" .
 
thanks for the reply DM i now understand. I'll probably go with the msi solution as it sounds easier and i don't care much for power usage.

I completely agree with you that ati/nvidia/intel, etc. should list up common problems and their fixes until they devise their own. I'm not too sure why they don't considering the amount of effort they put into drivers and marketing and such like. It would only take one person a few hours to type it up. I guess it may look bad on them from a reputation point of view having a list of common problems on their site but if you google ati/nvidia problems you get bombarded with lists of them anyway so i don't really see it as a valid reason. However i suppose that's what forums are for as proven in this thread.
 
When I had the original 5870 I created CCC profiles galore working from numerous threads all over the internet and it always reverted back to 150/300. Least there seems to be a work around now which is good to hear.

So if you need to keep the clocks higher to stop the flickering, what kind of temp increases are we talking about?

Would be nice to know what standard idle temps are and the dual monitor ones with the flicker fix applied.
 
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Using a Sapp 5870 > 875 / 1250MHz Vapor setting's.

Use the ATI 10.4 Drivers and your card will underclock again at idle, used the 10.5 driver's(underclock not working) about 10'c > 12'c increase depending on your case cooling at idle!!!!

No problem's at all with the ATI 10.4 driver's + has the fix for faster loading times for BC2.
 
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