Msi 6970 Lightning

[Sithian]

Hi all,

This is my first time on here and I've only really started to get into my pcs again and upgrading them. Anyhow I was wondering if you could advise me on where I'm going wrong! Much to my finances disgust I treated myself to a Msi 6970 lightning card, I guess I liked it due to its overclock capabilities it's displayed in reviews.

Running on stock is no problems and very impressive! However like I'm sure most do I wanted to see if the rumours are true that you can hit that 1000mhz barrier on the core! I started tweaking the settings in msi afterburner and it seemed that every overclock whether tweaking ever do slightly or to a point where I needed to change the voltages just didn't work!

I kept getting dumps to desktop saying your video cards display drivers have failed or something similar but before this it would hang on a blank screen! Revert the settings back to default and errors gone! I have a feeling I may be asking to much of my psu but any other advice would be lovely!!

My spec is -

Gigabyte 990 ud3 am3+ motherboard
Amd 1090t BE 3.2gig processor
Amd msi 6970 lightning
8gig Corsair vengeance ddr3 memory
650watt OCZ psu
250gig western digital hdd
Antec 300 case

 

[festerovic]

are you OCing the core and the memory at the same time? OC on the memory doesn't usually yield very much, so its not worth it IMO. Not sure of the voltages on that card, but on my 6850 you only need to up it by .1 volts for it to be awesome and OC to the moon.

 

[rolli59]

Your PSU should be able to handle it but apart from just reaching the GPU limit it looks to be the only other thing.

 

[Sithian]

I've tried the core on its own and only increased it from 940mhz to 975mhz and it seems to bug out even though other websites and have tested this card at a stable 1006mhz

 

[festerovic]

I would try replacing the thermal paste with some of your own.

 

[Sithian]

Sorry for taking a while to reply to this post guys, I read a really interesting and maybe totally crap idea.

Someone basically said to achieve stable overclocks using programs like msi you need to turn the afterburner control off in CCC as it can mess about with the OC settings and cause the drivers to crash like they have been.

At the moment she's running at 1006mhz core 1299voltage and 1445mhz memory clock and i've seen some lovely changes!

Also i'm looking at getting a corsair H60 watercooling unit for the cpu this week to take that upto 4gig! I'll keep people posted on if the core stays stable, eventually i'd like to get another msi 6970 and then i'll probably run them both at stock as I doubt they'll need to be pushed!

 

[funksoulninja]

Hey Sithian

I have had the EXACT same issue with my MSI 6970 Lightning.
Works at stock no problem! As soon as i try MSI Afterburner even a 10mhz raise on the core clock becomes unstable even with 1299voltage!
I am also running 2 MSI 6970 Lightning in Crossfire but have tried OCing each one individually and having the same problem with both cards.

"I kept getting dumps to desktop saying your video cards display drivers have failed or something similar but before this it would hang on a blank screen! Revert the settings back to default and errors gone! I have a feeling I may be asking to much of my psu but any other advice would be lovely!! "

You said here you were getting display driver fails, same here.

WHAT DID YOU DO TO FIX IT PREE!!!?

My specs are:

Asus Sabertooth P67 Mboard
Intel I7 2700k @4.5Ghz with H60 Watercooler (YES I ABSOLUTELY RECOMMEND IT!!! Full load never exceed 47degrees)
Amd msi 6970 lightning X 2 in Crossfire
8gig Corsair vengeance DDR3 Mem @1600
850Watt XFX XXX Edition PSU
60GB OCZ SSD
1TB Seagate HDD
NZXT Phantom Case
A butload of fans