5870 Screen Tears

[JesusRice]

Hello All,

I recently purchased a Sapphire branded ATI 5870, as I was replacing a GeForce card (and because it was about time anyway) I decided to format before installing the card. I installed Win 7 Ultimate x64, installed the drivers and began experiencing odd screen tearing. Figuring this was a Win 7 issue, I formatted again. This time installing Vista Ultimate x64, installed lastest drivers and the screen tearing happened AGAIN! This persisted during gaming, on the desktop and regular apps (Word, IE, etc). After disabling the A.I. feature the tearing stopped occuring during gaming. But tearing on Desktop, IE, etc still remains, I don't want to blame this on drivers as if I do waiting till they fix them will most likely take me past being able to RMA the card. Any suggestions?

Rig:
nVidia 680i SLI LT
Intel Q6600 Quad Core
Sapphire 5870
2x 2GB Corsiar
2x RAID 0 WD Velocilraptors
Rocketfish 700W PSU
(I know the PSU is not great, had one go bad needed a fast replacement. Although if you read this review http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/556 it is more then capable of pusing 700+W so I figure that may not be causing this)

Any help is greatly appreciated

Thanks!

 

[Mousemonkey]

Turn Vsync on. The option should be somewhere in the Catalyst Control Centre.

 

[JesusRice]

I may not be explaining my problem this is not the traditional screen tear as in overlapping frames causing distortion, there are horizontal black/white stationary "tears" across the desktop and other windows (No longer occuring in games now only desktop/IE/Word etc).

 

[hellraiser06]

I think this is an artifact issue. Try downclocking your card... If the issue still persists, then I believe its the PSU, otherwise the card..

Also, theres a little chance that its the mobo, as its based on the buggy 680i chipset....but i would keep it for the last

 

[JesusRice]

I think this is an artifact issue. Try downclocking your card...

I will give this a shot, granted it will be dissapointing as I purchased it for its performance and downclocking defeats the purpose.

If the issue still persists, then I believe its the PSU

I have had suspicions about the PSU as it runs 500ish W over 4 virtual rails at only 18A per "rail". Since it is really only a single rail split in the specs for tech reasons it comes out to be 500W/12V = 41A over the rail wich seems low compared to other 700ishW PSUs. Altho most articles I have read indicate GPU soft boots and, system reboots to point to an underpowered GPU, so I wasn't sure this was to blame. Granted I have been meaning to turn this POS PSU into a back-up I might order a new PSU and see if that helps. If not I will probably end up RMAing the card to get a replacement and see if that fixes it.

Also, theres a little chance that its the mobo, as its based on the buggy 680i chipset....but i would keep it for the last

Up until now I have not had any issues regarding this chipset (lucky I guess) but the thought did creep into my mind, nVidia chipset ATI GPU... didn't know if maybe they were not working together as well as my old GeForce I just replaced.

Thanks for the input

 

[endorphines]

it's not your psu, if your card was getting starved for power, it'd most likely just crash, AND it would be during gaming only as it pulls so much more juice under load.
and i'd really doubt that it's your motherboard. buggy chipset or not, if it was your motherboard i'd expect stability issues, not artifacting like you're describing.
baring driver issues i'd say that it's your card.

 

[rangers]

sounds like a bad card 2 me, can you try it on another computer

 

[macelo]

I think I know what your problem is. Are you running a 2 monitor setup?

The Idle mode, 157mhz core, 300mhz memory, causes screen tearing on the 2nd screen AND main screen. I think it's possible for the "tearing" to occur even on 1 monitor when it goes to idle mode.

Try googling "5870 flickering"

I had the same problem with my 5850 whenever I change the default clock speed.

2 monitor Idle mode is SUPPOSE to be 400mhz core/1000mhz memory. However, when you manually change the core or memory speed in CCC, the idle mode changes to 157mhz,300mhz causing flickering and tearing on the 2nd screen (mostly).


It's basically a problem with the low idle speeds.

 

[JesusRice]

Yeah, in searching for an answer I have read all about that. But in response, no single monitor setup and its less of a flicker or common frame overlap or "tear". It is horizontal artifacts that resemble tears in the screen.

Thank you anyhow.

 

[macelo]

Oh you may have a bad card then (IF it's not a driver issue). Have you Tried looking at your clock rates in CCC to see if they are stable? RMA yours if you must. I already RMA'd my 5850 cause it would randomly fluctuate between 400mhz and 550mhz idle after a few days of use. voltage would fluctated (in idle mode) between 1.0 and 1.058. Also it would jump to 1.657 volts or something and stay there.

here's a screenshot from someone else who had the same problem, except his was a 5870.
http://i408.photobucket.com/albums/pp167/jonnymanc/5870VoltageIssue2.jpg

 

[JesusRice]

Ill watch my voltages for an extended period of time tonight, last I checked it idled well at 0.95V but I did not have time to watch it for more then a short while. I dont want to call it drivers as waiting on them to get fixed if it is will more then likely take me past my 30 days to RMA with newegg, and I am really hoping not to have to RMA as that process takes a long time especially since I paid 3 bucks for rush processing and had it overnighted lol.... but its starting to look like I am going to have to.

 

[macelo]

I see man. I feel your pain... lol. I didn't wish to RMA mine, but decided to heck with it. I'm hoping yours is a driver issue. Have you update your chipset drivers when u installed windows 7? Wouldn't hurt to find the latest drivers for those.

 

[JesusRice]

I actually formatted back to Vista Ultimate x64 to rule out a Win 7 problem.... but yes I check the ATI site everyday for drivers and the latest ones I have on were released Oct 13th.

 

[macelo]

I meant your mobo drivers. Do they have new ones with windows 7 support?

 

[rangers]

i think there's new drivers out for the 5870/5850

 

[hellraiser06]

hmmmmmm.........
I guess you SHOULD RMA the card while you still can.

But I was thinking, how come you dont have any tearing now AFTER you disable AI on the drivers. I might have been wrong about the PSU before. But as someone has mentioned above, try updating your chipset drivers too.

Man you are lucky that you can RMA the card. I have bought a 4870 two days ago from someone on another forum (to xfire with my oder one). Son of a gun wont stop giving me problems and the seller has gone AWOL...lol....

 

[rangers]

http://developer.amd.com/GPU/ATISTREAMSDKBETAPROGRAM/Pages/default.aspx
beta drivers

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/15957/1/

 

[JesusRice]

Ok, thanks for all the info and help everyone, I believe I have fixed my issues. Here is what I did, hopefully it might help someone else.

1) I used ATIs Auto-Overclocking feature and it did away with the tearing for a while, it came back slightly a couple hours later.

2) I realized I had not changed my monitor to 75Hz, did that and have not seen it since.

3) You can disable the powersaving feature in the registry. Find EnableUlps>>>>>>set to 0, done. I am going to also do this as all my tearing accurred in 2D power saving mode and OCing and playing 3D games remedied the situation for at least a while with the tears re-appearing ONLY after it clocked back into power saving mode.

Thanks again everyone.

 

[kingdale]

I had the same issue... it is indeed the overclocking control center settings...
To fix all you have to do is restore factory defaults

Tearing goes away instantly...


dual monitor
Safire 5870
Catalyst drivers 10.11

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey