7870 crashing

[Zahlokhnir]

Originally Posted by rievhardt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8erB...&feature=g-upl

has all of you experiencing the same thing with 7870?
anyone had the fix? is it a bad card? a bad driver? should we RMA our cards? I'm really confused now

I am thinking this is a driver issue now as I've overclocked mine to 90 degrees without a crash and the crashes occur at low temps and even low loads. Ive also used my old card with my current PSU and no issues there so it's not the PSU I think. I have a feeling this problem is easier to solve then it appears and that some have possibly solved it already.

[Cendrier]

Same problem here... Have tried everything short of returning the card or exchanging it for something else... Please post if you have had any success.

[Richkill]

In my setup i am only crashing when im browsing the internet on firefox or running some sort of flash stuff from firefox, eg ads and youtube. Never crashed in a game (i did in bf3 once but with youtube ideling in firefox). I can anything for hours without crashing, but seems related to internet browsing in my situation

My brother is crashing in games with his setup but he normally runs firefox in the background too.

I also ran GPU-z in the background and am getting the negative values too, but haven't ran it when it crashes though.

[Tussky]

Just a question: If you wait after the black screen crash what does the display do ? Didn't turn into standy mode ?

I'am suffering from a similar issue with a normal 7850,but I got this black screen after starting the machine,so I didn't see the POST screen nor the Win7 loading,but after 2-3 minutes win desktop just pops up and evertyhing works fine. However if I let the monitor to enter into standby mode,then I have to wait for 2-3 minutes again for turning on the display.

[biohazardz181]

Hi Guys,

I am a first time poster here in 3d Guru, long time stalker .... love the reviews and have read on so many issues which were solved on the forums... I thought it would be a good time to give back to the community which helped me for so many years...

I recently planned on building a new rig cause I moved into a new apartment and only had a laptop which could not fulfill my gaming needs. I am a student so my PC was not the best of the best but preety good for a student. So I faced some troubles in my build, the first being a defective mobo and then the infamous 7870 problem. I searched the internet for the last two days , trying to find a solution to the problem , at the same time I did not want to RMA (didnt have the original package). However I cam across a forum which tried to fix the problem but the explanation was not so good and did not relate to the 12.7 beta driver which I think every 7870 user has installed. So let me give you the steps for this fix and I hope it works, so far I havent had any crashes playing Diablo 3, BF3, Killing floor 2 , all on maximum settings.

Okay so two things are causing the crashes:
1. 2d clocks ( I guess this is the clocks of your gfx card wen ur in the desktop and not running any games)
2. ULPS ( don' know if helped me but just in case)

Steps to increase 2D clocks:

1. Go to CCC and enable over drive.
2. Put your fan speed up to 100% (just to be careful ) and the Power slider to +5% (just in case )
3. Now close CCC. Open up task manager.
4. Go to the Process Tab and delete CCC.exe and MOM.exe and any other process related to CCC or ATI
5. Make sure you can see hidden files and go to the following directory, C:\Users\(Username)\AppData\Local\ATI\ACE\profiles .xml and open it using notepad
6. Look for :
name="CoreClockTarget....."
<Property name="Want_0" value="x0000" /> (x0000 is your idle-state core clock. Change the value to the one's in "Want_1")

name="MemoryClockTarget....."
<Property name="Want_0" value="y0000" /> (y0000 is your idle-state memory clock. Change the value to the one's in "Want_1")

I don't exactly remember but there should be a property related to the voltage make sure that is also the same value as "Want_1" corresponding to the property.

7. Click save in note pad.

8. Open CCC.

9. Using GPU_Z or similar software see the current clocks of your memory and core, it should be at the maximum level.

Now try playing a game or running a program which causes the black screen it should not take place....
If it is try disabling ULPS by downloading this exe from this website...

http://ulps.achromaticcomputing.com/

Restart your computer and see if everything is working alright...

So from mhy understanding, your 7870 when playing games sometimes downclocks to the 2D clocks (which u just changed) this results in the game freezing due the sudden loss of processing power. I am not so tech related so I might be wrong but this fixed worked for me so far, I will post if anything comes up later on. And if it works please post a reply so we can give this fix to other users who face similar problems.

Experiment with the settings so you can reduce your idle clocks without crashing in the game and also reducing the fan speed.

Dont forget to change your power settings to High performance (again just in case )

[rievhardt]

Pls. also go in AMD forum, I created a thread there so AMD would know about our problem.
http://forums.amd.com/game/messagevi...&enterthread=y

[jimbobstan]

Hi biohazardz181 and rievhardt,

Thank you for posting some good instructions to try. Unfortunately, this did not stop the problem for me, although i definitely see the logic in what you have written. It happens to me in BF3 multi+single player too, and on some other games: Diablo 3, Xyson (MMORPG).... basically any GAME that pushes my graphics card.

I have the same problem as you (I think), but with a Gigabyte HD 7850 card. I've tried absolutely everything that I have been able to find by searching google for this black screen issue.

I bought a new PSU for 1100Sek (~$160) because many people wrote that the PSU might not be able to supply enough on the 12V rail for the card. I upgraded to a Corsair TX750W which is nice, but didn't stop the problem.

I've tried:

- Upgrading my ASUS mobo bios to the latest
- Upgrading the Gigabyte GPU bios to the latest
- Running everything on stock settings in the bios (the ram reverts to 1333Mhz which is not a problem if it was stable!)
- Slight overvoltage nudge to VDDNB (it's called that in my bios for CPU-NB) after a ASUS (mobo support online chat) tech said this could help
- Catalyst 12.4, 12.6, 12.7b
- Setting my ram to Corasir spec to run at 1600Mhz, 9-9-9-24, 1.5V with a HT Frequency upped to 2400MHz after reading this guide: http://www.gskill.us/forum/showthread.php?t=7688

and, well, NOTHING can stop this black screen problem that I am having. It's like you said, sometimes there is a loud buzzing sound from the speakers, and sometimes it's quiet.

Was there anything that you missed in your post that you did? It looked really promising and I had hope for light at the end of the tunnel, but I really don't know what to do now.

Sometimes I get an error logged when this happens:

A fatal hardware error has occurred.

Component: AMD Northbridge
Error Source: Machine Check Exception
Error Type: HyperTransport Watchdog Timeout Error
Processor ID: 0

The details view of this entry contains further information.


But searching for that error has also not been fruitful as I can only find out that "there was a problem on the northbridge controller, probably because something didn't reply in time", and it is therefore very hard to track down.

and since you made the post above, it also made sense that if the GPU was automatically downclocking for some reason, it would not communicate at the speed expected by the CPU and therefore cause this kind of error to be logged and black screen crash.

So, biohazardz181 and rievhardt do you have any ideas about this? or anybody else? I'd gladly work together with people to resolve this for myself, but also because it seems that so many people are having these problems and I just can't believe that we all need to RMA every single component of our new shiny computers to fix it. I just can't pour money into a bottomless and resultless pit!

Looking forward to your reply

Here is my system in case you can't see my sig:

AMD Phenom II X4 965 @ 3400Mhz
Corsair Vengeance 8Gb (2*4Gb) 1600Mhz 9-9-9-24 1.5V @ 1333Mhz (bios default)
Gigabyte HD 7850 2Gb OC
ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO
Corsair TX750W power supply

[Pill Monster]

with a HT Frequency upped to 2400MHz.

Why are you running HT @2400mhz?

[GhostXL]

Originally Posted by Pill Monster

That's a load of crap.


Seems like a hardware issue...maybe the bios update fixed it... Any release notes with the new bios?

PSU could be another reason...maybe..

It's actually not "officially" supported by them.

But it "should" work just fine.'

Unless ASUS was being honest, and there is something with that board running in 2.0 that just doesn't get along with particular 3.0 cards.

But I just can't see that.

[Pill Monster]

^What do you mean it's not "officially" supported? It doesn't need to be, PCI-E 3.0 is backward compatible....

[jimbobstan]

Originally Posted by Pill Monster

Why are you running HT @2400mhz?

it was in the guide that I posted a link to in my earlier post to get the corsair to run at 1600mhz.

I've read about 3 different guides that say the HT link should be 3x the speed of the RAM clock. So my ram clock is 800mhz (1600mhz as it runs at Doubld data rate), so 3x this is 2400mhz.

I'm not sure that I need this really and as I wrote, I don't mind running my ram at 1333mhz as long as my system is stable. I'm running it at that speed now though and have these black screen problems.

So my conclusion is that the default setting does not fix the situation and this is why I'm focussing on the GPU now.

any input is appreciated, really

[Pill Monster]

^The info in that thread is wrong. CPU/NB should be 3x ram speed, not the HT link.

2400mhz HT is prob causing your crash.

[jimbobstan]

Originally Posted by Pill Monster

^The info in that thread is wrong. CPU/NB should be 3x ram speed, not the HT link.

2400mhz HT is prob causing your crash.

Thanks for that Pill Monster, I'll give it a go and see how the stability is affected.

I've actually not been running the HT at that freq now though because it didn't help anyway, it's now at the stock settings and still crashes so I'm glad to try your suggestion.

thanks!

[Pill Monster]

Ah OK then....is it the same HyperTransport Timeout Error or a different crash?

[jimbobstan]

Its normally accompanied by two nondescript errors:

Error- the previous shutdown was unexpected

and

Critical (kernel power)- the system has rebooted without shutting down first.

the AMD northbridge error is only logged on about maximum 1/5 times.

I put the CPU/NB frequency on 2400 and left HT freq on Auto now and set my ram to the Corsair settings. That gives me:

CPU/NB = 2400mhz
HT freq = 2000mhz
Ram = 1600mhz, 9-9-9-24, 1.5V

I could play or about 10 minutes and then it did the black screen crash + sound loop. Right before the crash there is no sign of any problem... It's really smooth, then bang, it just goes.

[Pill Monster]

Originally Posted by jimbobstan

Its normally accompanied by two nondescript errors:

the AMD northbridge error is only logged on about maximum 1/5 times.

I put the CPU/NB frequency on 3400 and left HT freq on Auto now and set my ram to the Corsair settings. That gives me:

CPU/NB = 2400mhz
HT freq = 2000mhz
Ram = 1600mhz, 9-9-9-24, 1.5V

I could play or about 10 minutes and then it did the black screen crash + sound loop. Right before the crash there is no sign of any problem... It's really smooth, then bang, it just goes.

3400....I hope that's a typo lol

OK so u haven't had a BSOD just black screen? Has it crashed while running NB at 2000mhz?

[jimbobstan]

Sorry, I'm replying through my phone and it sometimes corrects things stupidly.

the NB is @ 2400, HT @ 2000.

i had put a little over voltage on the VDDNB to see if that helped but it didnt.

i never get a BSOD actually. Only ever the black screen and hard lockup with looping sound.

i also tried two spare sticks of kingston 2gb 1333mhz ram since the mobo seems to default at that on stock settings but it was the same problem.

it must be something to do with either the CPU or GPU but i really have no idea what. I'm leaning towards the gpu since it seems to be plaguing a lot of people, but to be honest, its only a hunch.

[jimbobstan]

Hi,

I have some more info about the problem.

I was playing BF3 single player for about 15 minuts (max) and I got a black screen and the really loud buzzing noise again.... basically max volume.

Instead of resetting it myself, i just left it and it reset itself.

When it booted, it didn't even POST. It beeped at me with the following sequence:

Beep-Beep-Beeeeeep-Beeeeeep-Beeeeeep-Beeeeeep-Beeeeeep-Beeeeeep-Beeeeeep-Beeeeeep

So that is:

2 short, then 8 longer beeps.

then it just waits with the screen black doing nothing, so i switched it off and came to write this.

Any ideas guys?

**EDIT** on the upside, i've managed to finish BF3 single player just while fault checking this problem

[abundantcores]

Originally Posted by rievhardt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8erB...&feature=g-upl

has all of you experiencing the same thing with 7870?
anyone had the fix? is it a bad card? a bad driver? should we RMA our cards? I'm really confused now

Yes i had that, its not a problem with the card, its something to do with volts and clocks switching between 2D and 3D, i find a little bump on the volts In Sapphire TRIXX or locking the volts in MSI AB fixes the problem.

I should say that use TRIXX because the voltedge adjustments in MSI AB don't hold as said here http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread....18#post4380618

[jimbobstan]

Hi guys,

An update from my side.

I spent quite a lot more time troubleshooting this again, but could not stop the black screen crash.

I read more deeply about the ram settings, and found that my ram was being set to a ram cycle time of 1T when i put my Corsair settings into the bios. It should be 2T for this ram. So I set that in Windows, (I cannot set it in my BIOS for some reason), using CPU Tweaker.

Unfortunately, this did not seem to be causing the problem that I was having either.

So finally, I contacted the shop that I bought my card from and they immediately issued me an RMA number and I sent it back. Apparently they will test it and send me a replacement if they find a fault.

So that is where I stand... waiting to hear from them.

I will update again when I have some more movement so you know what solves this for me.

Thanks for the support so far.

[jimbobstan]

The latest on my specific case.

The graphics card was received by the computer retailer, tested, and WAS found to have a fault.

They will now ship a replacement to me.

Maybe this is not the same for everyone with these symptoms, but do try to send it back if you feel that you have done a disproportionate amount of troubleshooting.

When i receive a new card I will post again to say if the issue is solved or not because you never know...

[rievhardt]

BTW has anyone tried using a separate audio card that isn't realtek or a headset w/ built in soundcard if this really fix the issue?

@jimbobstan
may I know what was the actual fault they found? because I RMA'ed mine and they just sent it back to me saying that they cant find anything wrong with it.

@abundantcore
mines a non-oc version, not really comfortable tweaking it but thanks.

[jimbobstan]

Hi Rievhardt,

I'll try to find out what the fault was. Currently all I know is what I read from the online RMA tracking on their website.

It says:

Tested - yes
Fault found? - yes

So I'll make a phone call to try to find out more.

[jimbobstan]

Hi anyone that is interested.

I received a new card now, but instead of the Gigabyte HD7850 OC, i got an XFX HD7850 2GB DD Black Edition and paid the difference.

I have not had any black screen crashes since receiving the new card, and have not changed anything else with my system.

I asked the retailer to specify what the fault was that their technician found, but they said that he found the same symptom that I described and they had no further details. I guess that they sent it back to Gigabyte for a more detailed analysis, but I am not sure, and could not get any more info.

Sorry I can't tell you more.

[rievhardt]

ok thanks for the headsup jim!