7850 issues with No Signal and performance...another RMA?

[jbolo2007]

For reference my system is:

Asus M4A785TD-V EVO(AMD 785G Chipset)
AMD Phenom II X4 945 Deneb Socket AM3 95W 3ghz
G.SKILL Ripjaw 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1333(PC3 10666)
MSI R7850 Twin Frozr 2GD5/OC Radeon HD 7850
WD Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA Int 3.5"
Antec TruePower 650W

I am having a few issues with my system running games. I mainly play Diablo III and World of Warcraft, but I also play a lot of other games, Skyrim, Portal 2, etc, Tribes Ascend, etc.

My first issue is losing signal to the monitor, usually while a game is running. My monitor will display NO DVI-D Signal and my monitor will enter standby mode. The only way I can get out of this state is by holding down the power button...a regular reset will not work. This happens roughly 4 times a week, usually only once a day on a day when it does happen. I was overclocking my card to 1050/1450 with power control set to 20%, but even when I tuned this down it continued to happen. FYI: This problem was happening under 12.3 drivers AND 12.4 drivers. I also keep my case relatively dust free and I have a well-ventilated high-quality case.

I've checked temperatures at load and at idle and both are in normal ranges. I haven't had any artifacting or distorted images of any kind.
Also, World of Warcraft does lock up and turn to a black screen, requiring me to end process. In addition to that, in WoW when I am running DX11 I get a weird jittery/vibrating look, as if the fps was taking a hit, but the fps does in fact remain at 60.

Another issue is my performance. I read in a similar thread that Diablo III wouldnt require users to overclock their 7850's because the game wasn't powerful enough to max out the 7850. However, I am experiencing a hit to framerates in Diablo 3 when there are a lot of monsters and activity on screen, dropping down to 25-35 fps at the lowest. My graphics settings in game are mostly on high, shadows on low, clutter on medium.

I'm not sure if these issues point to my video card and I should RMA or if there is another issue I'm not aware of. I did have the strange issue of AMD telling me to upgrade my drivers from 12.3 to 12.4 even though I had already done so. It pops up every so often but I have made sure that the drivers are correct and are the 12.4 drivers. I've run spy and adware programs and I dont seem to have any issues regarding that. I'm at a loss and this is my first ATI card, maybe I should've stuck with Nvidia which I've always used in the past. Any help, comments or ideas would be greatly appreciated and thank you in advance.

 

[fantastik250]

Not properly overclocking your video card will have instability issues. I'd suggest trying the card in default clocks and make sure it is still working properly. Also check if your the plugs are properly in place, also try another PCI-E slot also as another check. Otherwise, RMA it.

 

[blazorthon]

Test each video output port in addition to fantastik250s suggestions if his suggestions don't work. Sometimes, a video card can have a bad port and using a different port can solve that.

Your performance problem looks like a CPU bottle-neck, although I'd expect the Phenom II x4s to be fine with Diablo 3. Try overclocking it to 3.5GHz or 4GHz if your cooler can handle it.

 

[geekapproved]

Your system is major overkill for Diablo III, a dual core cpu and a 6670 would run 30+fps at 1080p.

Whoever told you that you need to overclock a HD7850 to play, obviously doesn't know what they are talking about.

Did you read the Tom's Hardware Diablo III review?
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/diablo-iii-performance-benchmark,3195-7.html

What video card did you have before? Did you properly clean out your old drivers before installing AMD drivers?

Your problems seem to point to a driver conflict or a power supply issue, or possibly, a bad video card, but I doubt it.

 

[jbolo2007]

fantastik250 - I've tried the card with default clocks and I still get the same issues. I've reseated the card and checked all my connections, even cleaned out my case and double-checked everything. I haven't tried another PCI-E slot, I will do so. Thank you.

blazorthon - I haven't tried the other video outputs, though my monitor has only a DVI connection. I suppose I can try an HDMI connection with an adapter. And tbh, I don't mind the performance if I know for a fact it's a CPU bottleneck...it's possible my expectations were too high. I did go from a native resolution of 1360x768 to 1920x1080 as I got a new monitor at the same time I got the video card. This obviously would be a performance hit as well, being at such a higher resolution. Therefore my framerate wouldn't be that much higher relatively speaking (I upgraded from a gtx 275). I guess I'm just figuring this out now.

It's moreso the No Signal and WoW crashing that I take issue with. I even came across one BSOD since I got the new card, with a BAD_LOOP_ERROR. This is something I've never had before. That may have been a freak error but it's possible it relates to the video card I suppose.

 

[jbolo2007]

geekapproved - Just so you know - for the most part I AM running Diablo III at 60fps, its just that when the action gets hectic onscreen, there are noticeable fps drops, down to 30ish, sometimes even high 20's. I did a driver sweep and reinstalled 12.4 and the performance is the same from what I've seen so far.

 

[blazorthon]

Make sure that V-Sync is disabled. That seems to be some bad V-Sync stutter that you're experiencing. Also, check to see if your CPU cores are being loaded during those hectic scenes. Like I said before, that could be the cause. Don't look at overall CPU usage, look at the usage of each individual core.

 

[jbolo2007]

blazorthon - I'll try turning vsync off and report back...I'll also take a look into cpu usage per core...thanks again.

I tried turning vsync off and I'm getting terrible vertical tearing now...seems like Diablo 3 doesn't like vsync being turned off...unless its just my card that doesn't like it. I also went to an extremely busy scene and sure enough my fps drops to the 30's.

Also, I posted a similar message over on guru3d and someone with a similar issue to mine regarding the black screens pointed me to this thread: forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=363559
It states that the black screens and system becoming unresponsive could have to do with ULPS, the power saving feature of ATI. As per the thread, I turned off the ULPS feature via the registry. I will report back with results. However, my performance continues to be the same as I stated in my original post.

 

[lgen4]

It states that the black screens and system becoming unresponsive could have to do with ULPS, the power saving feature of ATI. As per the thread, I turned off the ULPS feature via the registry. I will report back with results. However, my performance continues to be the same as I stated in my original post.

Hi, Any update on this?