How I fixed my 7900GT artifacting

i just got around to overclocking my 2 month old replacement and it does 620/929 without a v-mod. it works like a charm. i will be v-modding it to 1.45v as soon as i get ramsinks for the memory and a new psu.

 

A success ?

I've had major issues with a 7900 GT OC (bfg) including artifacts, BSOD, not being able to play Doom 3 for more than a minute without problems (plus a whole host of other games including FarCry and 3dmark 2006, Prey demo etc that exhibited same problems). After reading most of the posts on this thread (busy day in work again!) I deceided maybe the only option I had left (apart from returning the card) was to try and lower the memory clock speed and see if that solved the issues (a pain obviously as the card is supposed to run above stock speed and ain't cheap) and then I noticed the post from boggy with a link to a site that suggested setting the PCI-E frequency to 121Mhz in the BIOS.
I checked my BIOS settings (Abit N-8 mobo) and it was set at 100Mhz. I upped it to 121.9Mhz and rebooted.....

I've now been playing Quake 4 for more than an hour with no problems plus other games and 3mark 2006 now seem to work fine.

Early days yet to say this is a permanent fix for the problem but it certainly worked for me and I suggest that anyone left with a 'duff' 7900 card try the same....

 

If I put my PCI-E frequency above 110 mhz, it freakin' like... doesn't even post when I reboot. I have to take out the battery and reset the bios. It's a pain. I have the latest drivers for my Asus a8n-sli deluxe. Anyone with the same motherboard having the same problems? I want a fix

 

well it seems I celebrated way too early... i was able to play q4 for best part of 3 hours with no issues. I then went to try the Prey demo (which always caused aritifacts etc) and what do you know...it still fails.

Did a re-boot and now Q4 has started screwing up again (and again)..checked the BIOS and it says it's still at 121Mhz so seems I'm back to square one...:frown:

 

i had the same problem, just go up in 5mhz a time. and when ur bios dont post just unplug the power cable, and leave it for 1 min. and try again. thats what i did

 

I've tried going up by 5 at a time only and it still messes up, did this a few days ago, guess I'll give it another try, thanks

So it work's for you fine and everything? no more artifacting? And is it 120 mhz or 121?

 

artifact did go away. but still flashy lines in games such as f.e.a.r, prey quake 4 etc. and its 121mhz

 

I may have news on the eVGA superclock series. I received an email response earlier today from eVGA support which said:

"We have fixes for the N567 cards, it should be shipping shortly."

I then recieved an email and tracking number. The card will arrive on Monday and has the following part number:

256-P2-N567-B1

I have no idea what a B1 card is unless thats a typo or a new designation. I'll post on Monday and describe the card and what memory it has onboard. Hopefully it will be the new memory. More hopefully it will actually be fixed. Maybe this is the end of the RMA trail for superclock owners.

 

At Xtremesystems they are now also talking about the possibility that the problems are directly GPU-ralated. Suggestions there are cooling the super-hot mosfet and remove coolbits (overclocking suggested to be done directly from the BIOS as there is an investigation wheather the problem is how coolbits switches from 2D to 3D frequency)

 

im a bit confused, so does the EVGA new reloaded card stop artifacting or not??

 

So far there haven't been any reports of reloaded cards having problems. That certainly supports the premise that it was the memory that caused the problems.

 

Gore Ranger,
I'm very glad to hear that they may have a fix for your superclock card although I wish I knew more about the new part number "b1", very interesting! I'm gonna research the eVGA forum for a bit to see if I can't find something about it? Are you getting a Cross-Shipment RMA or have you already shipped your card into them eariler? Since your getting it Monday I imagine your getting it cross-shipped. Anyway please keep us posted about it as I'm sure many are curious!

 

It's beause its fun to try and push your card to the limit. :spam2:

 

Well I got the replacement card today as promised. Unfortunately it was a tweaked KO Superclock card with Samsung memory. It lasted about 1 hour. I wasn't happy. However, I got a call from eVGA support about 30 minutes after my email (yes they actually call their customers directly) and they are sending me a new card with the Inferon memory. There is no doubt in my mind that this will resolve the problem. And Roger, its the 512. A little slower but if what I have heard is correct is should overclock to superclock speeds anyway. And plenty of RAM headroom to boot. Finally getting a good solution feels good. A little long to get there but the end result is great. Oh and getting a voucher for Halflife Episode One was cool too.

 

Hey Gore,
That is great news, with that said I'm wondering why they even shipped out your repacement (which you got today) if it wasn't the newer version, especially if their just sending out another one as we speak? I imagine they did it by mistake and you called them today when it came in and you realized it's still using the older Samsung VRAM?

Either way it's great news, and what is this talk of 512mb, does your 7900GT have 512mb of onboard VRAM? I didn't even know there was such a thing as that avaiable, at least not in the regular GT form, only in the GTX flavor! Anway let me know if your card really does have 512mb of VRAM.

I am also very happy with my Signiture Series card they gave me to replace my regular N563 which I had 3 of before they shipped out the SS! You were right, it's been a very long time coming but it's great to finally have a fully-working card that overclocks very well!

 

Roger, it is the 568 GT model. It does have the new memory and does have 512MB. It runs at a slower speed than the superclocks but from what I have read it should overclock. We'll see. In any event I'm pretty excited and can't wait to see how this new card performs. Its gotta be better than the cards I have been using.

 

Well my replacement is a 7900GTKO 512 and I am very pleased. I went through 6 Superclocks before getting this last card but its a keeper. Its running at 560/1510 but it pulled down a 3DMark06 score of 5375. And thats running 91.31 drivers and the dualcore 4400 at 2.5Ghz. It beat all 6 of the previous superclocks running at their stock speeds. And the Coolbits autodetect indicates the optimal setting is 581/1606(803)so it could run at superclock speeds if I desired. But at this point I see no need. Additionally it idles at 48-52 and runs 73-78 under load. It will be even cooler if I install the Zalman VF900. Although with these temps I don't know if I will even do that. Great card, great company, and outstanding service and support.

Now the question is do I get a second and go SLI? LOL its worth considering.

 

For some reason I wasn't able to find it but I just checked the egg and there it was right at the top, wow, what a cool card! Is this thing fairly new or has it been around for a bit! It sucks it took 6 cards to get it right but obviously it was worth waiting for!

I would love to upgrade my card but it took me 5 cards to get it right and now I'm very happy with it, especially since they replaced my N563 with the SS card so I can't complain (plus for the first time it works), lol! I wouldn't have the money for it anyway as I just finally upgraded my LCD.

For the last 4.5 years (no joke) I've been using this horrible Microtek 815C LCD that I bought at Wal-Mart for about $200. This is quite possibly the worst monitor ever made but it was very cheap and at the time was better than my 15" CRT! I had debated on whether or not to go with a widescreen but after trying one (Viewsonic 20.1" WS) I decided not to. Than just 2 days ago after trying out many different 19" and 20.1" screens I ended up getting the Samsung 204B which is just awesome, especialy since I got it for only $279 brand new in the box w/warrenty! If anyone is thinking about upgrading their LCD/CRT than this monitor is totally worth the money! My gaming experience is totally different, in fact this was probably the best upgrade I'd done in months!

 

Wow, just saw it! I want to see what one of those can do v-modded!
-Satan

 

Its a very cool card. I truly may consider going SLI. On the other hand, I have not ever had an LCD. Roger, you recommend the Samsung? How does it do with gaming?