Sapphire 7870 crash with black screen and sound loop

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RestlessAvenger

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Jun 12, 2012
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Hi folks, I have read through some other threads relating to similar issues like my own, but they were never clearly answered or just dead threads.

I recently bought a Sapphire 7870 OC GHz card, upgrading from my HD 5770. About a week after installing the card, I began to get rare crashes while gaming. These crashes consisted of my monitor going black and losing signal and an annoying sound loop. It has now come to a point where my PC can really crash at any time while running games. I have crashed on higher end games such as Battlefield 3/Skyrim to lower end games such as League of Legends.

I noticed that I would sometimes be able to go over 24 hours without a crash with heavy gaming and sometimes it would just crash within 15 min of running a game.

I have tried reinstalling Catalyst 12.4 drivers, reverting to 12.3 drivers and even tried the 12.6 beta drivers. I have also tried changing to stock 7870 speeds (1000Mhz/1200Mhz) which gave me about a day without crashes until now. I think those crash-free grace periods were sheer luck and I want to be able to enjoy the card without the frustration poor stability.

Any help would be appreciated :(
 
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RestlessAvenger

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Jun 12, 2012
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I haven't tried putting my old card in, but the crashes have only begun post 7870 installation. I also thought maybe I had a bad card, but I've read on several forums people returning their 7870s for a new one only to get the same problem.

As for the installation, this would be my first time installing a card, or even opening up my computer and modifying a part in it. I still know basics I think. For my installation I connected my old PCI-E cable (previously connected to my 5770) to one of the 6-pin slots on the 7870 and I took another one from the package of the 7870 and connected it to a random unused cable bound with a bunch of other cables coming out of the PSU. One of my PCI-E cable reads "P5" and the other reads "P4" on them.

I have also run a Furmark test labelled "benchmark BURN-IN 1920 X 1080 15min". I guess I passed the test, because I did not crash even though my GPU (7870) reached 91 degrees Celsius.

I guess I can try throwing in my 5770 in there and see if it crashes off of that, but I highly doubt it. Thanks for the posts guys.
 
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RestlessAvenger

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Jun 12, 2012
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PSU: A 600W CoolerMaster. Don't got the exact model number, I could find out if need be.

Alright, I threw in my old 5770 and I will run some games and see how it does. Is there anything else I should do with this card in my PC?

Also, there is a red switch on my PSU with labels 115 and 230. What are these for and when should each on be used. I am currently set to 115 and was when I had my 7870 inside.
 
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rolli59

rolli59

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The switch is for from the wall voltage 115volt US, 230volt Europe! Set the wrong way especially in Europe an easy way to start a house fire!
By the sound of it you have one of the lesser CM PSU's (extreme or elite) they are known crap that does not deliver. 600watts should though be more than enough to power your card but if it was me I would replace the PSU with a quality unit and hope that fixes it. If not RMA the card.
If you choose to RMA the card first and still have the issue replace the PSU next.
 
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RestlessAvenger

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Jun 12, 2012
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The old card ran perfectly with no issues at all. I even OC'd it to see if anything gives, but no, it ran perfectly throughout the day. Yes, I do own the exTreme PSU from CM. I thought that if I can push the card to 90 degrees Celsius and keep it stable that would mean the PSU is fine. I am thinking this is just the result of poor driver coding as the card crashes at <50 degrees Celsius temps.
 
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rumpltumpskin

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Jan 4, 2008
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i am in almost the exact situation and so are a lot of other people using the 7870. i don't have the sound loop but that may be just because i'm using a usb headset. it has to be a driver issue which means there are only 2 options: return the card and go with a different model or just deal with it until amd releases drivers that fix this. the problem with going the former route is that there aren't many options that match the price and performance of the 7870 (on paper) especially if you don't want to run 2 cards. good luck with that.

i bought a SAPPHIRE 7870 GHz edition to replace my SAPPHIRE 5770. i started getting the same crash you are almost immediately while gaming. it seems to happen more often while playing newer stuff like max payne, bf3, diablo, ect. i have had the same problem occasionally with older games too though. the problem disappears when i put the 5770 back in and that isn't the only reason i say it is a driver issue. i also bought a new PSU, Mobo, and Ram just to end up with the exact same problem.
 
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iceluigi

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Jul 23, 2012
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I have this same card as well. I upgraded to from running two 4870s in crossfire, only to run into the same problems. When playing any graphic intensive games, the screen will go all black and the sound will loop making this annoying buzzing sound. After which the only solution is to hard reset. My first 7870 did this and I RMA'd. My replacement card actually worked very nicely for just over month (long enough to where I have to deal with Sapphire now instead of amazon..) and is now doing the same thing as my first card. I seriously doubt it's an issue with my PSU (Corsair HX750). After sending my first card back I had to put my old ones back in, and the issue never came up. If anyone has any more insight on this issue, it would be greatly appreciated
 
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coldron1

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Jul 26, 2012
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Just to put this out there, me testing 12.7 beta did not fix it either do i return to amazon or wait for drivers, also go on AMD forums and complain tell them. They may not even be aware for all we know
 
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warwick108

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Jul 28, 2012
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I had the same problem.. if your running a z77 mother board just update your bios and it shell work fine =)
it fixed my problem, been gaming 2 days straight and nothing has happened yet *touch wood*
 
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RestlessAvenger

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Jun 12, 2012
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Yea, the 12.7 has done anything for me, Still crash. Crashed like 7 times today. Someone said to try Gamebooster 3, I tried that and that didn't work, also tried not using Firefox but not results from that either. I can't believe I spent $400 for this.
 
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callmenobody

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Aug 5, 2012
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I used to have a 4850 that did the exact same thing. Black screen, looping sound, hard reset etc... I googled and found several people with the same problem and everyone offering different advice. 'You don't have a powerful enough psu" (Although I had a very nice power supply that while 'only' rated at 750watts it was a top pick from forums like extremesystems and overclockers as being extremely efficient and underrated power-wise.) Ok, so sick of my pc locking up at odd times and on only certain games I decided to replace the psu with an even more powerful and expensive model. No change. My 4870 like the rest of my cpu was watercooled and the gpu never rose above 45c. It would idle in the high 20s and stress testing it wouldn't crash it at all.

Ok, then it was 'you have a bad video card' and so I replaced it with a then still effective 4870 and figured later I would just crossfire. No change other than better performance, same crashing. I had already tried updating drivers of course.

I suspected it might be just an ati issue but nvidia cards do it as well.

So on a mission, I replaced the motherboard after running memtest for several hours with no faults and with a newer and different manufacturer I got _the __same ___crash.

I ran test on my hard drives and eventually replaced my 2 primary drives.

I added an additional 120mm fan aimed directly at my 4870 in order to ensure sufficient memory cooling. (the 4870 I did not watercool btw) I used atitraytool to ramp up the fan earlier to keep the temps down but it doesn't matter. It crashes anyway.
My 4870 has never been overclocked and in fact I've tried underclocking just to see if it solved the problem. (THIS ACTUALLY GAVE THE BEST RESULT AND DID REDUCE CRASHING)

Next, I tried diagnosing the windows event log and with the errors I thought maybe my core2duo 6600 was going bad even though it ran great and although had been overclocked in the past, wasn't anymore since that could have caused issues. So I replaced it with a quad core and and after testing the performance without issue I soon found that certain games still crashed my computer.

I found an interesting thread on amd's 'powerplay' that could be causing this but that huge thread has been removed for some reason....

So here I am, still searching for an answer a year+ later, after 3 or 4 reformats and rolled back, updated etc. drivers with the same problem. And apparently there is still no answer. It almost seems to me that there is bad memory chips on different cards or maybe poor cooling for some of the vrr or _something_.

In other words, if your system is stable under ~90% of the things you use it for and it with certain games it will randomly lose video signal and the sound loops with your pc requiring a reset then consider you may be throwing money away by replacing various hardware.
 
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pentiumradeon

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May 3, 2012
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I have the exact same problem. Ive even reinstalled windows and erased everything from my hard drive. still it does the same thing. on some games it does it more. Dead Island was unplayable in the arena stages, and sniper elite 2 crashes every time. CSGO however gives absolutely no crashes though....
 
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ibradj

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Dec 5, 2012
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I had the same problem playing Skyrim when I upgraded my system with an HD 6870 card from a 4870. System would crash to black screen, sound would jitter and I would have to restart. I found the solution by using the MSI Afterburner

below is a summary from what I posted here: http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/456889-skyrim-complete-pc-crashes/page__st__1210

The 4870 has a 750Mhz Core Clock and a 900Mhz Memory Clock. I applied those settings ONLY to the 6870 using the MSI Afterburner. I played over 2 hours without any issues. I tried using AMD Vision Control, but the setting could not go as low as I needed for both the Core Clock and Memory Clock. I tried the lowest settings using the AMD tool and it crashed after 25 minutes or so...I knew I was headed in the right direction. Therefore, I used the MSI Afterburner to set the lower settings into a Profile that can be saved with the tool. Definitely the lower Mhz on the Core Clock and the Memory Clock worked. I bet it may work for anyone else as well.

------------
12/5/12 - Therefore I under-clocked my HIS 6870 to settings of my old Radeon 4870 and I had no problems playing Black Ops II and not getting a crash to black screen. I was still getting 60FPS on high settings using resolution 1920x1080 and was able to play past all the points where the game previously crashed miserably.
 
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sagara-kun

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May 29, 2012
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damn amd and his cards lol :fou: .. 1st time wanted to try and ATI AMD card...and the result is :pfff: .... why the hell i wasted my money on this -_-.... funny thing is some games a playing well that stresses the gpu like Batman AC, BF3 (not Farcry3 though :S ) whereas games like MW2 mp , LOL , Darksiders crashing almost immediately....tried 2 or 3 drivers.. well last thing is im gonna try a fresh Windows installed and see wat happen....very disappointed with ATI, and won't buy 1 again...going for nvidia for sure next time... FYI mine is a HIS brand
 
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Cyrgaan

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Mar 5, 2015
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I have a concrete solution for this, though RMA is nearly the best answer, but some of us lacks the opportunity by different reasons. I have a Gigabyte made version, with OC and Windforce cooler, and it kept crashing on games like Wildstar, and so on. You know the simptomes.
So, about the cause:
As it came out before, those capacitors are low quality. What was not in that article, is what's the exact problem with them. So, they proven too sensitive to heat, and when they are continuously exposed to 60+ celsius degree of it, they start failing. This failing seem to make a slightly erratic movement, but likely has no effect on FPS. Odd, but that's just the beginning. Soon comes the black screen, and all the tea party of horrors. In games. And thats the weirdest part of it. Furmark can burn my poor little 7870 for 30 minutes over 70C degrees, without fail, anytime. And a game could kill it with 65C, because of those low quality capacitors. They are seemingly not used during Furmark and other tests. I'm curious what they do exactly. I think there should be something with the heavy VRAM usage (this opinion based on the fact that benchmarks never needed so much of that). Don't know, it requires more knowledge about the design, maybe blueprints even to identify it exactly.
Anyhow, there is a solution:
Keep that fuckin videocard under 60C! That's the trick. I could manage that by manually setting the fan to 100% and opening the case for better airing (Raidmax Smilodon, with not all the fan slots occupied), and monitoring the heat of the card. Keep that in mind, that if you make an alt+tab to the desktop to view GPU heat, it will start cooling immediately (on 100% fan speed, thats a very fast cooling), so as the card (yet slower than the GPU), and you have to keep card temperature on low. Maybe an additional fan can do the trick, which is aimed to the back of the card, but thats problematic because of the presumably large CPU cooler.
Results:
From the moment I've started to keep the card under 60 or maybe 65 degrees, the black screen crashes were no more. 10 hours of nearly constant play, and no crashes (before this, in Wildstar, there were 3-5 occurences per hour). The cooler, the better. I think I will try an Arctic Cooling (no advertisement, simple choice I've made long before, based upon my own experiences) cooling solution, to push this harder. If someone can't go under 65C, try turning off OC, or simply underclock your GPU a bit.

Hope you can find salvation by this way.
May the Schwartz be with you! :D
 
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Fishwithadeagle

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Nov 30, 2012
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This thread is so old that you may never see this, but you finally solved my problem. I have been tearing my hair out and reinstalling Windows many times trying to find this problem, but it was the bloody capacitors. She'll, I don't know if I'm going to try to resolver the capacitors or just run the fans on max every time I came.
 
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