Screen corruption using ATI 5870 & 3DMark06 under Windows 7

[Inaharry]

Hi,

Does anyone have problems with screen corruption between tests on 3DMark06?

I've just got a Radeon 5870, using Windows 7 64 Bit and installed Catalyst 9.10. I don't have any corruption within Windows at all and I've been playing TF2 on and off for about an hour at a time and don't have any problem with that either.

However if I run 3DMark06, the first (Proxycon) test will run absolutely fine and more often than not, so will the next (firefly) test. Then, when those tests finish and the screen goes blank, (before the loading screen for the next test - Red Valley), the screen will fill with coloured horizontal lines. If I leave it, I can see by changes in the lines when the test has finished and the next one starts. If I leave it for a few minutes, 3DMark will finish normally and go back to Windows giving me a score of 18366, so it looks like it's completing normally in the background.

I've got the Advanced version and if I try and run the Red Valley or HDR tests on their own, it'll do the same thing - part 1 will run normally of that test and then the screen will corrupt for the second test.

As I'm not currently having any other problems with the card, running games TF2 or with 2D & 3D video memory tests using PassMark's BurnInTest, it makes me wonder if it's a driver problem or something to do with the combination of Windows 7 64 Bit, 3DMark06 and Catalyst 9.10.

I'd be grateful if anyone might have any suggestions or things I could try or if you've experienced it yourself. I just hope it's not the card!

Thanks.

 

[KnightsWhoSayNi]

It's probably driver related. I don't have the card but other people are using the 9.11 drivers. Might be worth giving them a try. If you are still concerned about the card try some more demanding games and see what happens and or download Furmark and see if corruption occurs there too

 

[Inaharry]

Thanks for the info. I'll see if I can track down somewhere to download the beta 9.11 driver.

I tried FurMark and ran it on 1920 x 1200 and 8xAA for about 10 minutes without any problems. The GPU temperature went from 27 degrees C to about 80. It was getting late last night, so I'll put it on a longer test tonight.

I also tried Unigine to test DX11 and that ran ok too. The only problem I had was when I tried changing some of the settings and it crashed back out to the desktop with the Windows 'Display driver stopped responding and recovered etc' message. Otherwise, it didn't have any problems either.

I'm really hoping it's not a memory issue on the card, but I can't find anything that specifically tests all of the graphics memory, only a variation of MemTest which needs a CUDA enabled card like the Nvidias to run.

Has anyone else with a 5870 running under Windows 7 64 Bit tried 3DMark06?

 

[khulershaker]

Hi mate did you get any solutions to this - I started to get screen filling with vertical lines aswell - and looking at your sig I got ud5 also

 

[maddness]

i had a flickering problem in one of the tests, it was when i removed the physx card and just used the 4890 on its own

I had to uninstall vantage and also uninstall the ageia physx drivers that installs with vantage, then reinstall vantage and it worked fine!

 

[Inaharry]

Sorry to bring this back up again, but I've noticed other problems occurring and I'm starting to think that it might be a card problem after all....

When I first posted, it was just after I bought the card (along with all of the other upgrades). At the time, the only game I was really playing was TF2 and didn't see any problems, it was just in 3DMark 06 that I could see the corruption.

I emailed Overclockers support and their answer was that the card isn't faulty, it's because I was using an old version of 3DMark and I should only be using Vantage as it's current. However, I see that there are lots of benchmarks around for the 5870 under 3DMark 06.

The reason I'm semi convinced it's a card problem is that I also see corruption in Bioshock 2, (when using the Gene Bank for example - there's flashing white triangles and lines over part of the screen). I've also seen corruption occasionally on my taskbar and gadgets under Windows 7. I've tried various driver revisions, but the problem is still there.

The problem must only be slight as in general use, everything is ok and the Windows corruption has only happened twice since I had the card, but 3DMark 06 and Bioshock 2 show the problem consistently.

I'm not sure where to go from here because OcUK have said that the card isn't faulty and now it's a few months down the line, I'm guessing that the card would need to be returned to Sapphire and they may not see the problem if they don't run the right tests.

Nothing in the system is overclocked (and never has been - I'm not brave enough yet )

I'd be grateful for any ideas or suggestions, Thanks.

 

[cainer]

have you got the latest drivers? 10.4a at least

 

[Inaharry]

I tried 10.5 last night, but still get the same results.

In fact, here's what I see when the firefly test starts on 3DMark 06 and it'll be like this until all tests have finished at which point, Windows returns to normal:

I had to take a picture because if I try a screen capture, the saved image will be normal!

 

[Mr Paul]

How are you connecting to your monitor? Have you tried a different port on the monitor and from the Radeon? Different cable type i.e. DVI, VGA, Displayport....??

 

[Inaharry]

It's connected by DVI. I haven't tried any other form of connection, (the monitor has VGA and HDMI) because apart from the corruption in the image above within certain tests on 3DMark 06 and the odd flashing white triangles that appear on certain screens in Bioshock 2, everything is generally fine and the system is 100% stable.

I'm just concerned that's there's an underlying problem with my 5870 that will get progressively worse over time, (probably after the warranty has run out)...

 

[MrMoses]

have you carried out all the basic checks
i.e check all cables are connected to the Card and Psu


also check in C:\Windows\System32\Futuremark\MSC

and ensure only this file remains there "atimgpud"

 

[Mr Paul]

It's connected by DVI. I haven't tried any other form of connection, (the monitor has VGA and HDMI) because apart from the corruption in the image above within certain tests on 3DMark 06 and the odd flashing white triangles that appear on certain screens in Bioshock 2, everything is generally fine and the system is 100% stable.

I'm just concerned that's there's an underlying problem with my 5870 that will get progressively worse over time, (probably after the warranty has run out)...

Can you try with VGA please.

 

[Inaharry]

Hi, thanks very much for the responses.

You were right Mr Paul, if I use a VGA cable, 3DMark 06 works fine! So, does this mean there's some kind of DVI sync issue with that particular configuration of card, monitor and 3DMark 06?

Unfortunately, it doesn't make a difference when playing games like Bioshock 2. It's obviously not a driver problem because it does the same thing with 5 different revisions that I've tried, (unless anybody else has seen this and it's a Bioshock 2 problem...)

I managed to take a picture while the some of the artifacts are on screen:

The artifacts change so many times a second so when watching it normally, I can see various lines and shapes while the screen is flashing with them.

Any ideas what might be causing this because it does seem like a portion of faulty memory on the graphics card, but as I mentioned, it only happens in certain things and very occasionally, to the Windows start menu and gadget area where it can have a 'combing' effect, (but I've only seen this happen twice)?

Thanks!

 

[Mr Paul]

Well I would say the card is at fault. The DVI connection seems to be having issues as 3D Mark06 is fine here.

Also your memory appears to be faulty on the card.

Is there any way you can test the card in another PC? Maybe a friends? Work?

 

[Inaharry]

Thanks for your help Mr Paul, sorry it's taken a few days to post, but I had to try and get a couple of machines with decent enough PSUs to run the card...

I'm now more confused than ever because it's all a bit inconsistent, but here goes...

In a system with an Intel Extreme motherboard - the D925XCV, the system wouldn't POST at all with the card in, all fans ran at full speed and needed the 4 second power button press to switch off. This was consistent and yet that system works fine with the 8800GTX card that's in it.

The only other system I had available was one with an Asus Striker Extreme, again with an 8800GTX. This would boot with the card, but for some reason, it takes about 15-20 seconds before seeing the POST screen, (normally it only takes about 4-5 with the 8800GTX and my system is around the same with the Radeon). Also, out of the two times I power cycled this PC with the Radeon in it, one time, the CMOS settings were lost. I'm not sure whether this is relevant or not, but it seems strange that two completely different systems show such strange things during POST whereas my normal system doesn't with the same card .

Anyway, to make sure that there were no conflicts with the 'test' system's drivers and software, I attached a new, clean HDD and installed Windows 7 Home Premium x64 to match what I use and found that the corruption within Bioshock 2 had disappeared! But unfortunately, the HDMI sync problem during 3DMark still exists.

One last thing...I noticed that when using the test HDD back on my own PC and running through a number of checks, although the Bioshock 2 corruption came back, if I had my Windows resolution set to 800 x 600, whatever resolution I set Bioshock 2 to, the corruption had gone. As soon as I set my Windows resolution back to anywhere from 1024 x 768 right up to my monitor's native 1920 x 1200, the corruption came back.

So to summarise, out of two different systems, one wouldn't boot, the other one would and the one that did had no corruption in Bioshock 2, but did have the lines across the screen, (DVI syncing problem?) on 3DMark 06. On my usual system, I found that running Windows at very low resolution got rid of the corruption in the game, but anything higher, and it came back.

Do you still think it could be a faulty card because of the DVI problem or is it a timing issue between my motherboard and the card, (in which case, I'm not sure why the DVI problem exists on a different system, but likewise, why does the Bioshock 2 corruption go away completely at any resolution on the other system)?

Thanks for your help so far, I really appreciate it

 

[Inaharry]

Update:

I've just tried 3DMark 06 with another DVI monitor and cable and it works fine. I also noticed that when I had the problem on mine, if I disconnect and re-connect the monitor during the tests, the display appears normally until the next part of the test runs, so I agree with you Mr Paul, it does look like a DVI sync issue that occurs between tests on 3DMark 06, but only between the 5870 and my Dell U2410... I'm not quite sure why?

The Bioshock 2 corruption still occurs, but as it's the only game to currently show a problem which, as described in my post above, I can stop happening by reducing the Windows resolution right down, makes me think that there's a problem with the combination of my motherboard and the graphics card.

I was tempted to try updating the BIOS on the UD5, but as there's no mention of any kind of PCI-E fix in the change logs and the system works ok otherwise, I haven't risked it....I don't really want to introduce any new problems.

Does anyone else use a Dell U2410 with their 5870 and if so, does 3DMark 06 run without problems over DVI for you?

 

[choikwa]

Do you still have this problem with the latest driver? I can have QA team look at it.