New Desktop Screen Flashing / Flickering

[selizaga]

Finished build of my core i5 computer but I am having problems with the display flickering and flashing every time the screen refreshes. The problem is not resolved with latest drivers 12.8 or the drivers included in the card 12.4. The problem seems to go away if I am using the standard VGA drivers.

I am using my existing Dell 24in LCD monitor which works fine with my old computer.

I have not done any stress testing on the system and the temperatures of the system are below 45 C

OS: Windows 7 64
Core i5-3570k
XFX Radeon HD 7870

[flash=420,315]http://www.youtube.com/v/G-pzmubFYB4?version=3&hl=en_US[/flash]


Would appreciate all help

 

[jemm]

How the monitor is connected to the graphic card? HDMI, DVI?

I´d check your connections and cables.

 

[selizaga]

How the monitor is connected to the graphic card? HDMI, DVI?

I´d check your connections and cables.

It is connected through a DVI cable

 

[jemm]

Your HD 7870 has Dual-link DVI, so could you please change the DVI cable to the other DVI connection, just for a test? Then post the results here.

 

[selizaga]

Your HD 7870 has Dual-link DVI, so could you please change the DVI cable to the other DVI connection, just for a test? Then post the results here.

I switched the cable to the other DVI port on the card but there is no change in condition.

 

[selizaga]

Tried reducing the resolution of the display all the way down to 1320x1024 and changing the refresh frequency between 60hz and 75 hz but the issue persists.

What puzzles me is that the problem goes away with windows default vga drivers.

 

[jemm]

How about the monitor driver?

 

[selizaga]

Good suggestion, I downloaded the monitor drivers. Unfortunately the problem is still there.

I am going to test connecting the computer to my HDTV via HDMI to see if I have have the same problem. To me it seems to be a frequency sync issue. When I pause the video you can see the the flashes are just jitter of the image.

Thanks for providing suggestions

 

[selizaga]

Update:
I connected the computer to my HDTV via HDMI. There is less flashing, it is more like a stutter or image jump but the problem is still there.

I am thinking I will have to open a ticket with XFX and wait for their support on the issue.

Any further suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

 

[selizaga]

I have been in contact with XFX customer support. They take between more than a day in average to reply to every message. So far I have been asked to wipe the drivers and reinstall them and other silly questions.

An additional observation I made is that the flickering only happens in windows and not while playing any 3D games. The flickerins is particularly bad when I hover the mouse over a menu or when watching a Flash video. Flash has even caused the whole computer to crash. I tried wiping flash from the system but it made no difference.

Do you think I have a bad card? or is this some form of conflict with windows?

 

[jemm]

silly, but how about your mouse? Try it in a different usb connection -- or try another mouse.

By watching your movie, I know that I had a similar problem some ago -- I wasn´t sure if it was the monitor, or the card, or even the mobo. Suddenly the issue was solved, but i don´t know what/how it was fixed.

The intriguing thing was that in my case the issue was only with the monitor I use DVI, the other one with HDMI was working properly.

 

[selizaga]

I have been in contact with XFX customer service and they are so slow at responding that I wonder if they are just trying to burn time on purpose.

The issue seems to be mostly resolved. It seems the flashing happens when the graphics card memory frequency ramps up or down based on load. There are some hidden settings on a file that allows you to set the speed at idle and load. I simply increased the setting for idle to match full load and the flashing is 99.9% resolved. I also had to enable overdrive to have these settings to take effect.

The only problem I am experiencing now is that the computer gets hang up in limbo everytime it tries to go to sleep and I am forced to do a hard reboot.

I will report in a couple of days to see if the solution is final.

 

[selizaga]

Unfortunately the flickering is not completely gone (although it is 99.9% better). The only issue I have now is that 50% of the time the desktop crashes when video card drivers are loading in windows. I assume this is when the memory speed settings are enabled and the sometimes the card becomes unstable. If I am able to boot I always see a big flash at this time.

I think I have tried enough. I will be returning the card to Amazon before the 30 day return window closes. I will need to buy a new card but not sure whether to stick with AMD or switch to NVidia. Anyone else had similar experiences??

 

[suat]

What about your PSU ? Is it a reliable make ? Have you connected external power to the gfx card ? the six-pin PCIe connector ? Does your card have only one or two PCIe power receptacles ?

 

[selizaga]

What about your PSU ? Is it a reliable make ? Have you connected external power to the gfx card ? the six-pin PCIe connector ? Does your card have only one or two PCIe power receptacles ?

I have a brand new Corsair 650W modular power supply. The card uses two six-pin PCIe connectors. I initialy considered the problem could have been a bad connector but I checked and they fit tightly.

The problem seems to exist only when the card is ramping up or down the memory clock (when refreshing a page). I do not have any problems when playing any resource intensive 3d Games, I assume because the card is running at high MHz.

 

[suat]

Please run OCCT that you can obtain from here http://www.ocbase.com/ and check voltages and temperatures. You should run the CPU, GPU and PSU tests while observing the voltage and temp parameters. The voltages should not go below or above more than 5%, namely, 12 volt should be between 11.4 and 12.6.

 

[selizaga]

Thanks to all for the advice. Despite all the troubleshooting the problem was never fully resolved.

XFX customer service provided good guidance but it took them 3+ days to respond to every message.

I decided to return the card to Amazon.com before the 1 month return window expired. I got a full refund and decided purchase a different card to see if the problem goes away.

I received a new ASUS GTX 660 Ti card yesterday and installed on the system. The card is working flawlessly, no problems in windows or playing BF3. The flickering and crashes are all gone.

My guess is that my XFX 7870 card had problems with the on board clocks or memory. I was able to compensate the issues only partially by messing around with the driver parameters per the following post: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/276479-33-5770-force-clocks


Again, thanks for all the help

 

[selizaga]

Best answer selected by selizaga.

 

[Oivindwold]

Thanks to all for the advice. Despite all the troubleshooting the problem was never fully resolved.

XFX customer service provided good guidance but it took them 3+ days to respond to every message.

I decided to return the card to Amazon.com before the 1 month return window expired. I got a full refund and decided purchase a different card to see if the problem goes away.

I received a new ASUS GTX 660 Ti card yesterday and installed on the system. The card is working flawlessly, no problems in windows or playing BF3. The flickering and crashes are all gone.

My guess is that my XFX 7870 card had problems with the on board clocks or memory. I was able to compensate the issues only partially by messing around with the driver parameters per the following post: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/276479-33-5770-force-clocks


Again, thanks for all the help

Hi! I see you have bought a new card but I just wanted to say that I have the same problem. And I think there was something "wrong" with your card but the problem has something to do when the the amd cards downclock(ex windows desktop) My flickering goes away when I pull the dvi cable out and put it back in when in windows.

 

[selizaga]

Hi! I see you have bought a new card but I just wanted to say that I have the same problem. And I think there was something "wrong" with your card but the problem has something to do when the the amd cards downclock(ex windows desktop) My flickering goes away when I pull the dvi cable out and put it back in when in windows.

I agree with the problem being related with downclocking of the card. I was forced to play with some hidden settings on the drivers to force it to increase the minimum clock speed but the issue never went completely away. I think I should have not wasted so much time troubleshooting the issue and I should have returned the card at once.

Hopefuly you can fix your card or return it.

 

[Ethan15]

I just built my new computer with the same graphics card you had and its been doing the same sort of stuff. The screen has a little flicker when on the desktop and it wont turn off after shutting down. The fans still run and the power light still stays on. I have been looking at stuff for over two weeks now and haven't been able to find anything that will fix it. Im just wondering if anyone has had the same problem but been able to fix it without having to get a new graphic card.