ATI 7000 series , Black screen freeze and Sound loop possible fix !

[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 pretty 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)

NOTE: ALWAYS UPDATE YOUR DRIVERS, I tried this with 12.7 b drivers.

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 )

PS: I already posted it on some topics but wanted to make a thread just in case some one is looking for the fix directly... good luck guys !

[k4sh]

I have this problem too as many others have. I'm not sure the problem is driver related. Actually, we don't have a begining of an answer to the cause of this behavior.
Moreover, the ULPS should have nothing to do with a single card BS crash experience as it's supposed to be used in crossfire.

Any way because i don't want to denigrate your fix, i will give a try. Who knows ...

[biohazardz181]

I read about the ULPS but I just included incase, like you said no one knows whats the cause behind this problem so far.

I stopped crashing in 2/3 applications that use to crash so I think i am close but then again its not a complete fix, Diablo 3 is the current application im having troubles with but certain nvidia users are facing the same problem... What applications are you using ?

[k4sh]

Left 4 dead, Dead space 2 and so on.
It seems to come quicker when i'm playing L4D, very rarely @stock, more often when overclocked (1050 1100 1150 ...)
I will give a try because i don't want to die ignorant (as we say in my language).

[biohazardz181]

I hope it works or atleast reduces it a little bit

[k4sh]

I wished so much that it'd have worked. But it's another fail. Hope it can be solved with a driver yet to be released. But i'm not confident.
you Sapphire you with your crap design you make me

[rievhardt]

^ it goes with other 7870 brands too... I have read issues with 7870 MSI, XFX and Gigabyte.

[Genesis]

Thank you for this, it appears to be working for me! I used to crash in Crysis 2 after only 2-5 minutes with my Sapphire HD7870 and now I'm playing for like 30 minutes.

I will get back to you later and inform if there was any further crash.

[biohazardz181]

I started crashing agian ... thought it almost worked, Called XFX and applied for an RMA , sending it in today hope the new card works better. Got a replacement GTX 560 Ti from Bestbuy yesterday and everything is running smooth, no crashes, also the power consumption of a 7870 and gtx 560 Ti are pretty similar , well according to reviews gtx 560Ti consumes more power so I can succesfully rule out the PSU. According to XFX support, 12.4 removed most of the issues with 7000 series also 12.7 is coming out in the next 3 weeks so that could solve problems maybe it won't, only time will tell.

[Genesis]

Oh, too bad. I don't think a different card will be any better though, since it appears to be a problem with the 7870s itself. For me the stability of the card appears to be greatly increased, played for about 3 hours without any crashes.

[biohazardz181]

Good to know genesis, I hope its not a problem with all the cards, in that case we should all be entitled to free upgrades it has to do with the software which clocks down in a graphic intensive game or the hardware power module which cannot supply the power consistently. I hope we get more input from other users to find the cause of this issue. Should have got the GTX 670 for 50 $ more.... too late now

[handakes]

dammit, i just applied your fix and i was so hyped to try it...but when i scrolled through the topic i found out that it's still a failure

now i am not even keen on trying it myself

always..always get the wrong hardware..i was out for a 6950 toxic, didn't find it..got that one..now am f**ed

[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?