The GPU clocks issue with some browsers

[thefreeman0001]

update to the new nvidia drivers has fixed this for me.

 

[twist3d0n3]

i always have smooth scrolling disabled

 

[spirits247]

Here is another interesting bug report twist3d0n3 - Firefox does not disable hardware acceleration in version 7 even though you disable it:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=682857

Continues to heat up the GPU for scrolling. Perhaps that's why we can't stop the problem with that option.

 

[Salsa]

I had a similar problem on release with my 6970. Turning off smooth scrolling solved the issue for me although flash acceleration really does heat things up.

 

[spirits247]

Hi Salsa, I think IE8 had a smooth scroll problem that ramped up the clocks, I remember people discussing it in the past, but IE9 seems fine now.

Firefox doesn't have smooth scrolling enabled by default, but even with it disabled it still causes high heat and temps problems on my PC.

 

[spirits247]

There is a posted bug report on Bugzilla:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=698301

 

[Quixote]

I had this on my 5850 until yesterday.
On IE 9 (great browser for what its worth) same on firefox (also a great browser) hardware acceleration on/ off made no differernce.
Used 'manual fan control' on CCC, would help but then would spike to high fan speed for (seemingly) no reason.
Tried custom fan profiles, multiple drivers, the lot, no joy.
Became very intolerable, wouldn't have mattered on a stock card perhaps but mine was a frozr II, 55% sounds like a jet engine ! 30% was whisper quiet but something was causing it to bump up speed and NOTHING I could do to prevent it.

Bought a 560Ti today, never happens. First time I have ever been forced to use hardware to solve a software problem. I know it was a software problem because the thing's temps never went above 60, clearly didn't need the extra cooling but some software issue was forcing it to spin up.
Not in any way implying ATI cards consistantly have the problem or NVidia are immune, just my particular experiance.

 

[spirits247]

Here is a temporary solution until this gets fixed:

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=2340977

Creating a profile and switching between to force the card to stay at low clocks whilst surfing with Firefox.

I find this so annoying - fan going up and down whilst surfing, how does stuff like this get past testing? And no official fix in site from Firefox developers or ATI.

 

[spirits247]

Someone else with the same issue, but not realizing exactly the cause. They should do a quick search on Google!

http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=279&threadid=155959&enterthread=y

I bet they are running Firefox. Might have to try 11.7 though, they seem to think it keeps temps lower.

 

[spirits247]

Seems this issue will never be fixed - however it also seems an issue with Chrome as well as Firefox according to this thread:

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=367905

IE9 (not tested 10 yet) does not have this problem. The easy work around is to have some 2D profiles set to limit clocks while browsing with Firefox, and normal profiles set when you need some GPU power. It works great, but really don't know why this is taking so long to resolve. It causes fans to jump - my APU on my netbook will come on and off with Firefox but not IE9, unless I limit clocks.

Also, we still have the situation where disabling hardware and flash acceleration in Firefox does not change the behaviour - scrolling and viewing flash free websites still causing max clock spikes and temp rises, therefore fan speed change (some cards fan profiles are much worse than others).

This has been reported to AMD and Mozilla multiple times over the last few years by several people (including myself), but no changes or solutions.

It seems a bug with Windows 7 Direct2D (perhaps Windows 8) and certain browsers, as no acceleration at all according to the browser settings still causes the spikes.