5870 Lockups to Beige

Tekin · 20th June 2010, 10:30 AM

G'day All,

Having some problems with my system, and I'm looking for some guidance as to what to look at first!

In summary, I've had this old Opteron system running for a few years now, with an 8800gts in it. I've been looking to upgrade everything slowly - and I when I found a 5870 going cheap on the forums, I bought that. The system was absolutely rock solid stable prior to putting the 5870 in it.

Rest of the setup is as follows:

DFI Lanparty SLI-DR
Opteron 165 - overclocked to 2.8ghz
OCZ 550w psu
2gb ram
Dell 2410 & 2x 2405s
Cat 10.4s, 10.5s & 10.6s (i've tried all three)

Installed it, upgraded to Windows 7 64 bit and all seemed well.

When i started gaming - I started to hit some problems.

GTA 4 worked fine - clocked up about 100hrs with I think one CTD (which threw out a GTA error message). Same as Portal and GTA San Andreas

However, when i'm trying to play Fallout 3, Just Cause 2, or Batman every now and again the displays seem to stutter, the sound keeps going, then all the displays crash to whatever the primary colour is (often a beige).

About 5 seconds later it returns to the desktop with an error message saying the display driver has crashed and been recovered. Occasionally i also get a message saying "Display Port has failed and recovered". Interestingly, sometimes I can get back to the game by alt tabbing to it, but most of the time the Windows 7 error handling seems to pick it up.

The crashes are seemingly random, sometimes it's not for a few hours, occasionally (like fallout last night) it's every 10 minutes.

I've got an SSD on the way, so I'm going to reinstall windows in a few days, but does anyone have anyhing else they could recommend?

There were a few forum posts I found about the 5870's having similar issues when they changed from 3d to 2d mode - with recommendations of boosting the 2d clock speed. But they were using much older Cat versions, so I would have thought they would have fixed it.

What is curious is that they all seem to have related to Windows 7 64bit - which is the only OTHER thing i've changed in the system.

Any thoughts?

2khamisj · 20th June 2010, 10:45 AM

Probably has to do with the fact that 5870's are PCIE 2.1 and your board is only 1.0 (i think??) Also your psu might not be coping. And in general, even though its overclocked, your cpu is gunna bottleneck that thing bigtime.

I suggest you either sell it or upgrade the rest of your rig

Tekin · 20th June 2010, 11:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 2khamisj

Probably has to do with the fact that 5870's are PCIE 2.1 and your board is only 1.0 (i think??) Also your psu might not be coping. And in general, even though its overclocked, your cpu is gunna bottleneck that thing bigtime.

I suggest you either sell it or upgrade the rest of your rig

Oh really?

I knew the CPU wasn't coping, but i didn't realise the PCIE bus was a problem.

That would....probably explain a lot of things.

2khamisj · 20th June 2010, 11:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tekin

Oh really?

I knew the CPU wasn't coping, but i didn't realise the PCIE bus was a problem.

That would....probably explain a lot of things.

Yepp is your pcie bus locked at 100mhz? Ive forgotten now what 939 overclocking was like, but i do know that with the intel platforms sometimes raising the pcie bus 1 or 2 mhz can help with southbridge stability. Altering these speeds can damage your board and card however.
Due to the massive bandwidth that card would be utilizing, perhaps your chipset is struggling?? As I said Im not completely brushed up on 939 architecture, but simply trying to revert your bios back to stock settings and seeing if the problem still occurs might be of some assistance to you?

Tekin · 20th June 2010, 11:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 2khamisj

Yepp is your pcie bus locked at 100mhz? Ive forgotten now what 939 overclocking was like, but i do know that with the intel platforms sometimes raising the pcie bus 1 or 2 mhz can help with southbridge stability. Altering these speeds can damage your board and card however.
Due to the massive bandwidth that card would be utilizing, perhaps your chipset is struggling?? As I said Im not completely brushed up on 939 architecture, but simply trying to revert your bios back to stock settings and seeing if the problem still occurs might be of some assistance to you?

The pcie bus is locked to 100mhz (you can selectively set it on these boards rather than using dividers.)

Certainly it was stable with the 8800gts, but obviously there is massive difference between that and the 5870!

I've had a bit of a play with some of the settings - but it seems to happen back at stock (with a massively drop in performance to boot).

It's alright, I was looking for an excuse to upgrade everything anyways. i7 here we come - thanks a heap for your help!

Tekin · 12th August 2010, 6:10 PM

A quick new post, just in case anyone else was having similar problems and comes across this thread.

The upgrade didn't work. The same issues were prevalent post upgrade as before. I updated everything (video card bioses, mobo bioses etc etc) without luck.

In the end, the way I have fixed it is underclocking the Ram from 1200-1100. The system went from instable as all hell to rock solid.

I should organise an RMA (it's a XFX, so i understand I should be able to do that) but i honestly can't be bothered. Seems quick enough even at that speed. Its also second hand from these forums, so it's probably more hassle than it's worth!

From reading around - the issue is curiously rather common. A few of the manufacturers were posting bios's that increased the ram voltage slightly and seemed to fix the problem, but mine unfortunatly doesn't have bios controllable voltage so i'm rather sweet outta luck.

20th June 2010, 10:30 AM	#1
Tekin Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Elsewhere. Posts: 3,636	5870 Lockups to Beige G'day All, Having some problems with my system, and I'm looking for some guidance as to what to look at first! In summary, I've had this old Opteron system running for a few years now, with an 8800gts in it. I've been looking to upgrade everything slowly - and I when I found a 5870 going cheap on the forums, I bought that. The system was absolutely rock solid stable prior to putting the 5870 in it. Rest of the setup is as follows: DFI Lanparty SLI-DR Opteron 165 - overclocked to 2.8ghz OCZ 550w psu 2gb ram Dell 2410 & 2x 2405s Cat 10.4s, 10.5s & 10.6s (i've tried all three) Installed it, upgraded to Windows 7 64 bit and all seemed well. When i started gaming - I started to hit some problems. GTA 4 worked fine - clocked up about 100hrs with I think one CTD (which threw out a GTA error message). Same as Portal and GTA San Andreas However, when i'm trying to play Fallout 3, Just Cause 2, or Batman every now and again the displays seem to stutter, the sound keeps going, then all the displays crash to whatever the primary colour is (often a beige). About 5 seconds later it returns to the desktop with an error message saying the display driver has crashed and been recovered. Occasionally i also get a message saying "Display Port has failed and recovered". Interestingly, sometimes I can get back to the game by alt tabbing to it, but most of the time the Windows 7 error handling seems to pick it up. The crashes are seemingly random, sometimes it's not for a few hours, occasionally (like fallout last night) it's every 10 minutes. I've got an SSD on the way, so I'm going to reinstall windows in a few days, but does anyone have anyhing else they could recommend? There were a few forum posts I found about the 5870's having similar issues when they changed from 3d to 2d mode - with recommendations of boosting the 2d clock speed. But they were using much older Cat versions, so I would have thought they would have fixed it. What is curious is that they all seem to have related to Windows 7 64bit - which is the only OTHER thing i've changed in the system. Any thoughts?

20th June 2010, 10:45 AM	#2
2khamisj Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 529	Probably has to do with the fact that 5870's are PCIE 2.1 and your board is only 1.0 (i think??) Also your psu might not be coping. And in general, even though its overclocked, your cpu is gunna bottleneck that thing bigtime. I suggest you either sell it or upgrade the rest of your rig

12th August 2010, 6:10 PM	#6
Tekin Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Elsewhere. Posts: 3,636	A quick new post, just in case anyone else was having similar problems and comes across this thread. The upgrade didn't work. The same issues were prevalent post upgrade as before. I updated everything (video card bioses, mobo bioses etc etc) without luck. In the end, the way I have fixed it is underclocking the Ram from 1200-1100. The system went from instable as all hell to rock solid. I should organise an RMA (it's a XFX, so i understand I should be able to do that) but i honestly can't be bothered. Seems quick enough even at that speed. Its also second hand from these forums, so it's probably more hassle than it's worth! From reading around - the issue is curiously rather common. A few of the manufacturers were posting bios's that increased the ram voltage slightly and seemed to fix the problem, but mine unfortunatly doesn't have bios controllable voltage so i'm rather sweet outta luck.