- Dec 4, 2012
- 3
- 0
- 10,510
XFX 7950 3GB DD Black Edition (help regarding voltage increase)
Hello all,
There have seen a lot of threads regarding the 7950 in this forum, but none of them seem to directly relate to my problem.
Briefly:
I switched from a XFX 5870 to a XFX 7950 3GB DD Black Edition just before Christmas. I had absolutely zero problems with my 5870, but since installing the 7950 I’ve had quite a few issues, particularly the ‘Display driver stopped but was recovered…’ issue. I still never found out what that was but some of the solutions that I came across reduced its frequency (I would still like to eliminate the problem entirely however).
The reason for my post is with regards to fixing a problem that I’m frequently experiencing when playing Skyrim with this particular card and I’ve been told it may have something to do with the card’s voltage settings, or, quite possibly, the current ATI drivers. So I need a bit of advice.
In Skyrim I’m getting a lot of artifacting as well as some other strange graphical glitches, which can only be described as ‘red blobs’ that appear when it snows in the game. This glitches flicker in and out of existence it seems and there is no pattern to their occurrence. At times, parts of the level won’t render properly either, but the latter is a rare occurrence. This happens regardless of whether mods are installed or not. I returned to my 5870 just to see if it was the game and the problems were gone – the game runs fine with 5870 as it always did – but obviously not at the level of performance I’m looking for, so I can only deduce that it has something to do with the card. I’m convinced it’s not a faulty per se, as the card runs flawlessly on games like Battlefield 3, Hitman, and other graphically intensive games.
I’m not over clocking the card as such, but the XFX 7950 BE does come factory over clocked - Core clock 900 MHz & memory clock 1375, if my memory serves me well… with a stock core voltage of 1031 (when viewed in MSI afterburner).
To cut a long story short, after testing numerous times (prime95, Memtest) just to see if another piece of hardware was at fault, I read that it may have something to do with the core voltage on the card. Sometimes the stock voltage doesn’t compensate for the factory over clocking… at least, this is the information I gleaned. I cannot be sure if this matters at all as I’m a bit of a neophyte in this regard.
It was suggested that I increase the voltage in increments of 0.006 until I find the sweet spot, but that, for my GPU’s core settings I shouldn’t need to raise it anymore than one increment of 0.006. So that’s what I did… I used MSI afterburner to up the Core voltage (mV) from 1031 >1037. This was actually what reduced my display driver’s errors (as well as turning off hardware acceleration in flash programs). And whilst Skyrim is a little more stable and not hard crashing my PC, I’m still getting these glitches from time to time.
I would like to know if increasing the voltage anymore is going to solve this issue I’m having or whether it’s something else? My temps are fine. I have a pretty good cooling system so upping it shouldn’t be too much of a problem… thanks in advance!
Hello all,
There have seen a lot of threads regarding the 7950 in this forum, but none of them seem to directly relate to my problem.
Briefly:
I switched from a XFX 5870 to a XFX 7950 3GB DD Black Edition just before Christmas. I had absolutely zero problems with my 5870, but since installing the 7950 I’ve had quite a few issues, particularly the ‘Display driver stopped but was recovered…’ issue. I still never found out what that was but some of the solutions that I came across reduced its frequency (I would still like to eliminate the problem entirely however).
The reason for my post is with regards to fixing a problem that I’m frequently experiencing when playing Skyrim with this particular card and I’ve been told it may have something to do with the card’s voltage settings, or, quite possibly, the current ATI drivers. So I need a bit of advice.
In Skyrim I’m getting a lot of artifacting as well as some other strange graphical glitches, which can only be described as ‘red blobs’ that appear when it snows in the game. This glitches flicker in and out of existence it seems and there is no pattern to their occurrence. At times, parts of the level won’t render properly either, but the latter is a rare occurrence. This happens regardless of whether mods are installed or not. I returned to my 5870 just to see if it was the game and the problems were gone – the game runs fine with 5870 as it always did – but obviously not at the level of performance I’m looking for, so I can only deduce that it has something to do with the card. I’m convinced it’s not a faulty per se, as the card runs flawlessly on games like Battlefield 3, Hitman, and other graphically intensive games.
I’m not over clocking the card as such, but the XFX 7950 BE does come factory over clocked - Core clock 900 MHz & memory clock 1375, if my memory serves me well… with a stock core voltage of 1031 (when viewed in MSI afterburner).
To cut a long story short, after testing numerous times (prime95, Memtest) just to see if another piece of hardware was at fault, I read that it may have something to do with the core voltage on the card. Sometimes the stock voltage doesn’t compensate for the factory over clocking… at least, this is the information I gleaned. I cannot be sure if this matters at all as I’m a bit of a neophyte in this regard.
It was suggested that I increase the voltage in increments of 0.006 until I find the sweet spot, but that, for my GPU’s core settings I shouldn’t need to raise it anymore than one increment of 0.006. So that’s what I did… I used MSI afterburner to up the Core voltage (mV) from 1031 >1037. This was actually what reduced my display driver’s errors (as well as turning off hardware acceleration in flash programs). And whilst Skyrim is a little more stable and not hard crashing my PC, I’m still getting these glitches from time to time.
I would like to know if increasing the voltage anymore is going to solve this issue I’m having or whether it’s something else? My temps are fine. I have a pretty good cooling system so upping it shouldn’t be too much of a problem… thanks in advance!
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