My AMD 7990, Possible GPU Problem(s)

[digeythedog]

Please note: I am using the last post from a different forum and starting my own thread now

So I just booted up from sleep mode earlier (was in sleep mode for around 5-7hrs) and when I did I seen like square boxed pixels ( I believe they were a green and purple colored pixel boxes), but they were probably about .5cm in size and only covered portions of the lock screen of my Windows 8.1 Pro computer. After I typed in my password and everything the home screen looked fine. Is this something that was an issue with the OS, Sleep mode, GPU, or some other thing?

Also when playing BF4 online, at max settings with res scaling at 100%, I would stay at a solid 60fps, then about 10min into the match I start seeing slight drop in fps, to 55 and bouncing up and down between that at 58 or so fps. While gaming my GPU does get up to 198 deg F at the max...

Specs:
MB: GIGABYTE 970A-DS3P
CPU: AMD 8350
Ram: 8gb Kingston HyperX (1600mhz)
GPU: AMD 7990
HD: WD Blue 1tb 7200rpm

The GPU is XFX Pine Group. I have contacted CS for the product and they acted like it would be okay until it hits like 210 deg F...

[/quotemsg]

Yeah, Its XFX, Anywho, It sure sounds to me as your FPS drops could be due to the GPU saving itself from overheating, AMD cards are Notorious for becoming microwaves. Download the Program MSI afterburner, and play some BF4 while that is running, Then, take a screenshot of the GPU clock and Heat for me, If the Core clock starts to slow, along with the GPU getting cooler, then we know its the heat.


Still dont know about the Weird Monitor issue though, Did you try a different monitor/cable as i asked? Maybe even a different port on the GPU.

EDIT: yeah, You NEVER want a GPU hitting 99degrees. EVER. Unless well, You are trying to cook breakfast

EDIT 2: please post a new forum please, So we don't keep giving the poor OP notification spam, just PM me the link of the new forum.[/quotemsg]

Answer to Q1: I ran Afterburner while playing BF4 and I never got over 176 deg F with it, but it also made my game run at HALF the fps it normally does! I was looking therw settings of AB, and it said their is issues with Punk Buster and BF games (Punk Buster is a software that BF uses with their games)

I tried another game Euro Truck Simulator 2 and I hit 181 deg F for max, never did my GPU try and clock down on it's speed.

Answer to Q2: I haven't had the issue again yet *Knocks on wood*, but id I do I will try a different cable/monitor.

Edit: Lol, no don't plan on cooking a meal with it. I could picture that "You guys want some steaks!? Let me go fire up some BF4 real quick and I'll start cooking them!"

 

[Xyloriuphon]

Hmm, Seems weird that Afterburner would be causing conflicts, You could potentially try using a certain different program, Though none comes to my mind, BF4, which i have noticed, Once it decides to load the whole map, it slowly starts to slow down, From my observations. Does the FPS drops happen in all games or just BF4?

Also would like those Screenshots if possible, You could potentially try using Speccy my Piriform, Selecting the Display/GPU/Whatever it is, And writing the current Temperature and clock speed when loading the game in the first minute, (So we get the max GPU clock it is running at) and then after, around 10-20 minutes or however long, copy down the numbers again, and see if it changed.

Do you possibly have a different GPU lying around? We could possibly use that to test some things around on, Specifically the Monitor issue. (I realized the Desktops don't exactly like sleep mode, my old system would blue screen each time it went out of sleep.) Just re-read post there, As-long as that problem doesn't occur again, You should be good. Though, That could be another symptom of a GPU problem. Still would be nice if you had another GPU sitting around for you to try, If not, Thats fine!

Hopefully we can get this fixed.

EDIT: Here are some Informational things for the 7990 GPU, It turns out that the GPU does run hot, And it gives an example of what the GPU clocking would look like if it was throttling. (In case you didn't know already ) FPS drops could be due to a memory leak or some other Game problem. Possibly.

 

[digeythedog]

It was most noticeable on BF4 where as other games I seen maybe a 1-2 drop in FPS. sometimes making the game run a little jittery. the original temp of 198 came from Speccy. But i have stopped using Speccy as it REALLY bad! It makes almost all my game jittery and not smooth at all. Also draws 10-15% CPU usage. But the temps form AfterBurner are probably right now, cause when I was running that hot I was really pushing the GPU/system by having 150% resolution scaling on...

2 more issues with AfterBurner, I use Mantle almost always with BF4 (As I find the game runs much better than in DX11 mode) and their is no overlay of any sort. No FRAPS no AfterBurner. Same thing happens with Thief, but I use the Console in BF4 and use the built in fps counter to monitor fps, while playing. second, BF4 and Sleeping Dogs won't even load right unless I load them first then AB. I don't use FRAPS or anything else with AB.

Another issue is quite a few games only use one GPU from my 7990 (which is a 2 GPU card). The load of the card was around 45-55% for both gPU's in BF4. i heard this might be a CPU bottleneck? What about my MB, would that be a bottleneck? Ram usage would hit right around 6gb GPU ram was maxed out (atleast for GPU 1 as it wouldn't show GPU 2).

 

[Xyloriuphon]

It was most noticeable on BF4 where as other games I seen maybe a 1-2 drop in FPS. sometimes making the game run a little jittery. the original temp of 198 came from Speccy. But i have stopped using Speccy as it REALLY bad! It makes almost all my game jittery and not smooth at all. Also draws 10-15% CPU usage. But the temps form AfterBurner are probably right now, cause when I was running that hot I was really pushing the GPU/system by having 150% resolution scaling on...

2 more issues with AfterBurner, I use Mantle almost always with BF4 (As I find the game runs much better than in DX11 mode) and their is no overlay of any sort. No FRAPS no AfterBurner. Same thing happens with Thief, but I use the Console in BF4 and use the built in fps counter to monitor fps, while playing. second, BF4 and Sleeping Dogs won't even load right unless I load them first then AB. I don't use FRAPS or anything else with AB.

Another issue is quite a few games only use one GPU from my 7990 (which is a 2 GPU card). The load of the card was around 45-55% for both gPU's in BF4. i heard this might be a CPU bottleneck? What about my MB, would that be a bottleneck? Ram usage would hit right around 6gb GPU ram was maxed out (atleast for GPU 1 as it wouldn't show GPU 2).

For #3, It wouldn't exactly be a Bottleneck, One way to tell is if your CPU is maxing out around 90-100% Then it would be a CPU bottleneck, But, I haven't seen my GPU go over 60% as i can tell.

For #2, Speccy shouldn't destroy the playability of your system, Atleast as far as i can notice, a long with afterburner, Something is definantly not right, (Could i get a "super expert" or whatever here about this kinda stuff?) I dont and DO wanna say its your GPU, but, With all the other problems your getting, It sounds like a bunch of things, You're sure you dont have any Virus's? (forgot to ask that question awhile ago)

Yeah, I also forgot to mention the perfOverlay.drawfps Setting, I honestly dont have an exact clue what's going on. I would ask for you to re-install windows or check and see if the GPU is faulty, But, Most people dont have time to do that. I don't know what EXACTLY is causing your problem.

About the Dual GPU thing, It could be possible that some games aren't made to use that second GPU possibly? I don't know much about AMD's Magical designs they having popping up. But, it shouldn't be related to a Bottleneck, But, Who knows? Computers have some WEIRD symptoms when things start to do not-so-fun stuff.

EDIT: Did your system use to do this when you first got it? Or just kinda started happening?

 

[digeythedog]

Well I re installed AfterBurner and have a lot less issues with it and as for Speccy, i have uninstalled, re installed, updated and everything but it tends to really drag down my games down in fps, this has been this way since day 1, I was wondering what was causing poor lag in my system and that was it. I have scanned my computer with Avast! Free and Malewarebytes in the past week, nothing. knock on wood I have never had a virus period on my computer... After reinstalling AB it now detects my second GPU much better as well. It didn't show it running in most games, now every game I have tested today, has used both GPU's in my 7990. As for the no overlay in Mantle a lot of other people have said the same thing that their is none, unless the game has it's own built in fps monitor, like BF4. While playing Euro Truck Simulator 2 with max settings and 200% res scaling, I never went above 184 deg F, 3100RPM, for the fan (for GPU 1), GPU 2 never went over 165 deg F, 2600RPM range for fan. and I was playing for a little over 2hrs. with 99% load on GPU 2 and 80's-90's% on GPU 1. CPU has never had a temp problem at all as it is liquid cooled. I don't think it has ever went over 130 deg F. Most games only use 4 of my 8 cores.

I also forgot to mention my OS is Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit.

 

[Xyloriuphon]

Well I re installed AfterBurner and have a lot less issues with it and as for Speccy, i have uninstalled, re installed, updated and everything but it tends to really drag down my games down in fps, this has been this way since day 1, I was wondering what was causing poor lag in my system and that was it. I have scanned my computer with Avast! Free and Malewarebytes in the past week, nothing. knock on wood I have never had a virus period on my computer... After reinstalling AB it now detects my second GPU much better as well. It didn't show it running in most games, now every game I have tested today, has used both GPU's in my 7990. As for the no overlay in Mantle a lot of other people have said the same thing that their is none, unless the game has it's own built in fps monitor, like BF4. While playing Euro Truck Simulator 2 with max settings and 200% res scaling, I never went above 184 deg F, 3100RPM, for the fan (for GPU 1), GPU 2 never went over 165 deg F, 2600RPM range for fan. and I was playing for a little over 2hrs. with 99% load on GPU 2 and 80's-90's% on GPU 1. CPU has never had a temp problem at all as it is liquid cooled. I don't think it has ever went over 130 deg F. Most games only use 4 of my 8 cores.

I also forgot to mention my OS is Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit.

Okay, Thanks for the info. You definantly dont have a bottleneck. If you did, You would have low GPU usage and high CPU usage, But, That doesn't seem to be the problem. If you haven't had the Monitor issue, Then that should've just been a weird one time glitch. Mind me, Have you tried newer/older drivers? Just incase you haven't.

For the lower FPS using speccy/AB, That seems like a weird problem, Maybe your CPU doesn't like to run things in the background like that? AS i said, I'm not that exactly Fancy with the AMD stuff, More around a Intel and Geforce guy. Just trying to help out as much as I can.

And good for you! Got a long winning streak for no viruses! Always good to have

The OS could be a problem possibly, I would ask for you to possibly reinstall the OS, But, That MAY/MAY not fix the problem, And, As a fellow problem who has had to do that, Its not the world's Fastest fix.

 

[digeythedog]

For the Speccy, it likes to draw about 10-15% of CPU power which is crazy! AB I haven't seen use anymore than 1% or so which is fantastic! As for the viruses I am very happy about it too! getting ready to hit the 1 year mark on my computer, for having it and no viruses! As for drivers I updated to the newest version of AMD drivers (14.9), I'm not using Beta drivers.

Some interesting facts about me and my past computer:
This is my first gaming rig, I came from a 3ghz single core Windows 7 32-bit desktop, to what I have now. I was used to virus scans consuming all or most of my CPU now they consume like 5%, web browsing consuming like 50% CPU, now like 3% unless playing a web based game then a little higher. Also was stuck with 2gb of ram and only had 1gb free to use for whatever. I did mange to get my computer to run SimCity (2013) with everything turned down to min and I would get 30fps sometimes. Now everything at max with never going below 30fps in SimCity.

I planned on getting a AMD 4-core and a mid range GPU, but instead I got what I have today because the 8-core 4ghz CPU and the AMD 7990 were on sale and were to good of a deal to pass up! I believe the GPU was half off! Also boguht a ASUS 24in 1080p monitor to go with it. I'm very happy with my purchase!


Finally, thanks for helping trying to help me with my problems! Goes to show a person with an Intel/Nvidia machine and a person with a AMD machine can get along!

 

[Xyloriuphon]

For the Speccy, it likes to draw about 10-15% of CPU power which is crazy! AB I haven't seen use anymore than 1% or so which is fantastic! As for the viruses I am very happy about it too! getting ready to hit the 1 year mark on my computer, for having it and no viruses! As for drivers I updated to the newest version of AMD drivers (14.9), I'm not using Beta drivers.

Some interesting facts about me and my past computer:
This is my first gaming rig, I came from a 3ghz single core Windows 7 32-bit desktop, to what I have now. I was used to virus scans consuming all or most of my CPU now they consume like 5%, web browsing consuming like 50% CPU, now like 3% unless playing a web based game then a little higher. Also was stuck with 2gb of ram and only had 1gb free to use for whatever. I did mange to get my computer to run SimCity (2013) with everything turned down to min and I would get 30fps sometimes. Now everything at max with never going below 30fps in SimCity.

I planned on getting a AMD 4-core and a mid range GPU, but instead I got what I have today because the 8-core 4ghz CPU and the AMD 7990 were on sale and were to good of a deal to pass up! I believe the GPU was half off! Also boguht a ASUS 24in 1080p monitor to go with it. I'm very happy with my purchase!


Finally, thanks for helping trying to help me with my problems! Goes to show a person with an Intel/Nvidia machine and a person with a AMD machine can get along!

Exactly! Ahah, Hopefully you can get some more "expert" advice, Still learning here, But! Glad I was some help, I will keep looking up on your problem, Hopefully getting an idea what is exactly going on. Its a great little system you got running BTW, Just kinda is a bummer that it doesn't 100% like you.