Issues with Gaming

[avi1231]

System specs:
Motherboard: GB Z68MA D2H B3
CPU: i5 2400 (standard clock I believe)
Graphics card: GB Radeon HD 6870 (GV-R687OC-1GD)
RAM: 4GB G-Skill 2x2gb dual channel
PSU: Seasonic 660w modular power supply
Chassis: Silverstone Fortress 02
HDD: Hitachi 2TB SATA 3.0 7200RPM

So, my issue is that just about any game I've been trying to play recently (BF3, Mirror's Edge and Alan Wake that just came out) just freezes on a frame but performs pretty awesome otherwise. Sometimes the screen goes black and my monitor stops getting a signal. I'm kinda pointing a finger at my GPU but with this chassis' cooling and the card being pretty new it seems odd.

Anyone have any experience with this?

Thanks

 

[silverliquicity]

Have you overclocked your GPU at all?

 

[avi1231]

I left it at standard clock. I started to get suspicious that it was overclocked out of the box so I think I dropped the clock down a bit.

Just checked in the Catalyst Control Center and here's what I see:

Something seems wrong there but I'd like some advice before I go poking at things I don't fully understand.

 

[AntiZig]

driver version?

 

[avi1231]

I have the latest Catalyst Control Center package from January 25th. Says 12.1

 

[AntiZig]

if you're saying it's lagging with and without overclock then it's obviously not a clocking issue.

I don't see anything that could be wrong otherwise. You might have a borked GPU. I'd contact GB and see what they can tell you.

 

[avi1231]

I don't know if I actually did anything with the clocking. All I did was change some crap around in the "AMD Overdrive" section in the Catalyst Control Center. I just set it back to default values.

Also, it's not about lag to be honest. It's that occasionally after a bit of use it hangs. My impression is that it's cutting out to prevent overheating or something but hard to be sure.

 

[AntiZig]

if it hangs either you got a PSU problem or it's overheating.

check your temperatures, first.

Then I'd get a multimeter and check out that psu is putting out what's advertised on all the rails.

when both tests show nothing we can conclude that it's the card itself and have you call GB support.

if you still have your old card, take out the new one and try the old one. if it still hangs in same places, then it's something else, if not, it's the new GPU.

 

[avi1231]

Thanks for the advice, AntiZig.

Any specific recommendations on some software to monitor GPU temp?

 

[13thmonkey]

msi afterburner, or evga precision

 

[AntiZig]

hwinfo is what I use, simpler versions are hwmonitor and speedfan, more advanced ones MSI afterburner and EVGA tool.. (forget the exact name) I think asus also makes something but I cannot remember the name for that either.

 

[Dotur]

I had the same problem with an AMD HD 6970.

This solution worked for me:
- Start AMD VISION Engine Control Center
- Click on Performance
- Click on Graphics Overdrive
- Enable Graphics OverDrive
- Enable manual fan control
- I set it to 40% (usually the speed is 24% - 28%

I played a bit over an hour without problems, after that I took a break...

 

[avi1231]

Okay, so I've taken logs over games in League of Legends that took as low as 30 minutes to one game that was one hour (3 games). The GPU is at around 33~34 degrees before the game and then in game it bounces between around 47 and 50 with peaks at 51 and one time it hit 52 degrees. No crashes no lag nothing, it was great. Any thoughts on those temps? Are those fine?

NOTE: I used this as a benchmark since I have yet to have the hanging in LoL that I had in Alan Wake, Mirror's Edge or BF3.

EDIT: My zero load temp has gone down to around 30~31 degrees.

 

[13thmonkey]

those temps are great, or they are so low as to be wrong, 33-34 at idle seems far too low.

Most nvidia card top out at 90-95C, mine runs at 80C for hours on end, my worst session was a 12hr session over xmas, a few breaks but alsmot constant bf3.

 

[HEXiT]

turn on amd overdrive in the ccc 3d perfomance panel. and set the manual fan speed to 37-47 percent your max temp should be less than 72... if its not then up the fan speed till your around 70'c
also get the latest 12.2 beta performance drivers.

 

[avi1231]

That's in MSI Afterburner. Subsequently it went down to 30~31 degrees after I turned the intake fans on my Silverstone FT02 onto the high setting and then cleaned the dust filters on them. I don't know. I always go all out on my case so it has a lot of cooling. Case I had several years ago was the Silverstone TJ07 and that was great. The FT02 is even better since it's designed for better heat management.

NOTE: I waited 10 minutes everytime I changed something to make sure it was a stable temp and not a fluke.

 

[13thmonkey]

so now, try and make it crash.

 

[avi1231]

Damn, 90+ degrees is harsh. I run LoL on all high settings and peak at 52 degrees. I'm gonna try BF3 later or Alan Wake and see how those do. If the GPU seems all clear after that I'm gonna start poking at my CPU

 

[13thmonkey]

thats for nvidia, not sure about ati, it'll be on one of their websites. but they are built to work that hot, and then its a balance of noise and temps.

 

[avi1231]

Okay. Tried killing it and it looks like things are working great. I even monitored the temperature on my CPU's cores and nothing seems crazy. Peaked at ~55 degrees on one core.

On the GPU side of things, it was hotter but nothing crazy there either. 65 degrees was the peak. So, looks like someone's advice helped! Thanks to everyone who helped.