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XFX 5870 Weird Sparklies In Windows

djay

djay

djay

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Joined
29 Oct 2002
Posts
1,752
So i have been noticing this for a while now. But when my PC is in windows and i'm browsing or doing office work etc. I notice lots of Sparkly green pixels.

It's more noticeable on black backgrounds but generally happens all the time. It seems to be worse when the PC has first been turned on, I never notice these when the card is under load. So when i play Battlefield 3 they disappear.

Could it be my Video Card clocks are too low when idling or something?

Seems fine at the moment, but i will take a screenshot when it next occurs.

 
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It could be faulty video ram, PSU issue or the card isn't seated in the PCI-e slot 100% correctly. It's a big card so it could have shifted a bit over time. Sometimes you have to be quite brutal to have a card fully inserted. :)
 
I have seen something similar to this when running multiple monitors, the VRAM does not clock high enough to cope can causes strange flickering and artifacts (this happend to me when I first got my 5850 in the month of release on a dodgy set of drivers).

Fire up a program like afterburner and see what your memory speeds are when in 2D mode.

The other possibility is that your VRAM is actually borked :(
 
Hi all thanks for the replies. I do have a xfire setup so could try the other video card on its own maybe? Weird though that it only affects 2D?

Screenshot uploaded now.
 
DazQ87 said:
I have seen something similar to this when running multiple monitors, the VRAM does not clock high enough to cope can causes strange flickering and artifacts (this happend to me when I first got my 5850 in the month of release on a dodgy set of drivers).

Fire up a program like afterburner and see what your memory speeds are when in 2D mode.

The other possibility is that your VRAM is actually borked :(
Click to expand...

That is interesting. When i open the catalyst control panel and check the sppeds the GPU is at 157 and Memory at 300. Now when i hit test custom clocks the test pattern comes up. Then i hit escape and it shows the box asking if you would like to keep the settings or revert.

Before i click accept i can see the GPU settings are then GPU: 850 Mem: 1200 and there are no sparklies. As soon as i hit accept the the clocks slow back down and all the sparklies reappear!!!
 
Are you running 1 or more screens?

Get yourself gpu-z and check your idle clocks.

A faulty dvi/hdmi cable can also cause sparklies, it happened to me last month and a change of cable sorted it out.
 
what drivers are you running i had the same problem with my 5850 on cat 11.11 so downgraded back to 11.10 and its fine now
 
Pohly said:
what drivers are you running i had the same problem with my 5850 on cat 11.11 so downgraded back to 11.10 and its fine now
Click to expand...

I'm running the 11.9 because they give me the best performance in Battlefield 3. I'm sure i have tried other drivers and they were the same but i could try again i guess.
 
tommybhoy said:
Are you running 1 or more screens?

Get yourself gpu-z and check your idle clocks.

A faulty dvi/hdmi cable can also cause sparklies, it happened to me last month and a change of cable sorted it out.
Click to expand...
Checked with GPU-Z and the memory speed is 300MHZ
Just running one screen, I will try a HDMI cable and see what happens.
 
djay said:
Need a utility where i can clock the 2d memory up.
Click to expand...

You can do it with the Catalyst Control Centre. I have one profile setup for the Dell 2405FPW. I have it set to 157/450.

You need to enable Overdrive for it to work.


However... yours seems to be different to what I have in their video.


Strangely enough I don't have this problem when I set the clocks to default once I hook it up to the Samsung HDTV. It's only the Dell display it seems to suffer with which is older than the Samsung.
 
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Just remember that clocking up at idle will cost you a little bit more in electricity.

I used ATI Tray Tools on my 4890 to set auto 2D and 3D clocks, which worked 99% of the time and saved me 40W of energy and 15 degrees temperature at idle. It had sliders and stuff that you set and then told it to remember that setting and apply it at change of modes. It also worked off shortcuts, like CCC does but there's nothing like automatic stuff. I haven't checked CCC if it now auto clocks though but it didn't when I first looked at it. You can also modify the cards' BIOS to change the idle clocks as default but beware of this as you could duff your card.

I found Afterburner too restrictive with downclocking and could only get a 20% reduction in clocks, where I was actually looked for more like 80%.
 
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V F said:
You can do it with the Catalyst Control Centre. I have one profile setup for the Dell 2405FPW. I have it set to 157/450.

You need to enable Overdrive for it to work.


However... yours seems to be different to what I have in their video.


Strangely enough I don't have this problem when I set the clocks to default once I hook it up to the Samsung HDTV. It's only the Dell display it seems to suffer with which is older than the Samsung.
Click to expand...

Did pretty much this, have just set it to 300 Core 500 Memory for 2d. Issue sorted. Many thanks all.

Though i had dodgy cards, they just don't like being underclocked that much !!! Thanks again
 
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