[timaishu]

I need some help with my asus 5850. This is the first time I've tried overclocking it since buying it in 2010.

Im using furmark for testing and afterburner for voltage and clock adjustments.

The best I could do with the memory(with stock core) at +6mV above stock voltage was 1250mhz(which is decent I guess). With the core though, I could only do like 750-775 before I had to raise the voltage. I raised it 0.05v everytime furmark crashed.

I ended up maxing out afterburner at 1.28v and STILL could not hit 900core, even with the memory decreased to 1200.

At 1.28v, I imagine I should easily hit 900+ on the core. I mean, I cant get any higher than +75mhz on the core at stock voltage without it crashing. This is pathetic.

I am so frustrated right now. Can anyone think of what I am doing wrong, if anything? Did I just get a crappy card? Just about every thread Ive found on overclocking this thing, everyones was running faster AND a lower voltage.

 

[eXXon]

Welcome to OCN

What is the maximum speed you reached stable @ 1.28v for the core?
What is the PSU you're using?(the quality of the PSU, not just wattage, plays a big part in oc'ing).
You didn't mention anything about temps, could be an overheating VRM issue. Have you adjusted the fan profile?

Here's how to put your rig in your sig:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1258253/how-to-put-your-rig-in-your-sig

 

[timaishu]

Well, my approach was I went to see what the memory did first. I kept it at +6mV and I got it up to 1250mhz. I could have probably got it a bit higher but I didnt want to go 5mhz at a time but I was close to maxing out afterburner anyways in memory.

I then started raising my core 50mhz then 25mhz at a time. I never put my memory back to stock to find the core. It was then I was getting immediate failures and had to crank to voltage.

Anyways, for the sake of your question, while typing this, I put the memory back to stock and put the core at 900mhz and voltage to 1.28(AB maximum), and it only lasted two minutes before it crashed... Earlier I was able to achieve a stable overclock earlier at 1.25v with a core of 850mhz and memory at 1200mhz(not a long term burn, just about 5).

My PSU is a Thermaltake W0106RU(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153039). Pretty nice PSU I think for its age. The only con is that mine(an earlier version) lacks a 8-pin PCI-E plug. The 5850 requires both a 6 and an 8. To get around this, I bought one of these (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812198016). Though I cant imagine this being an issue. Who knows though..

At 1.28V at around 850-890core(I forget which I was testing at the time with) and 1200mhz memory, furmark reach 91c before I killed the test. I then lowered the core a bit and got it to where I could test for about 5 minutes at 1.25V and it was a bit cooler, peaked around 81c if I remember correctly. When I was really pushing it earlier, as in, giving it a reasonable amount of voltage compared to what I read from other threads, it was failing before it even reached full temps(failed at around 70c), so I raised the voltage and it lasted longer and therefore got hotter before failing.

No, I did not adjust the fan profile.

I hope this helps. And my rig is in the sig.

EDIT: After some reading, I wam wondering if my little 6 pin to 8-pin connector is to blame. I saw a posting claiming that an 8 pin puts out a lot more wattage than I was expected compared to a 6. Thoughts?

 

[timaishu]

Just thought I'd update this with new info. I had forgotten that my brother still had his old PSU(identical to mine, other than it being newer and having an 8-pin pci-e plug build in). So I swapped them out so I had a real 8 pin instead of my 6 to 8 adapter. Went to test and my overclocking abilities havn't increased at all. I have maybe gain 20mhz headroom.

Im close to giving up on this thing. It should be able to do so much more but it cant.

 

[timaishu]

Bump..

 

[Drewmeister]

Obviously too much voltage for those clocks. 900mhz should only need stock 1.088 to 1.2v depending on card. Your temps seem a bit high.. even at those volts. I'm assuming you've taken care of the basics, fan is operating properly and is at 100%, hs is clean, good case airflow, normal room temp. What was your room temp? You might want to try remounting the hs with some good TIM like MX-4.. if necessary new thermal pads on the vrm's.

The 5850 consumes quite a bit of power when raising volts. It requires a 35-40A rail.. your psu has 4 x 18A rails. Just make sure the 6 and 8 pin connectors are from separate rails. Instead of using the 8 pin pcie conn.. maybe try a dual molex to 8 pin.

Try setting card to stock 725/1000 1.088v and run a 1080 preset bench, lmk max temps from the results.

 

[timaishu]

Yeah, I realize the voltage Im giving it is way to high. Just another note, yesterday I flashed my bios to the asus TOP edition, just to see what happens, and guess what, it couldn't handle it. Furmark was artifacing quite bad. I hadn't raised any clocks either on that test. My card was straight up not capable of running the TOP bios. I forget what the voltage increase is for a stock TOP edition card, but whatever it is, it was NOT enough. I re-flashws back to my original bios.

Also, my original two posts were done pre-cleaning my graphics card. After the PSU swap, I blasted out al the dust/crap in the heatsink.

I cannot run the 1080 bench because my screen is ony 1680x1050. What test should I run instead?

I will repond back once I get back from school this afternoon.

 

[timaishu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drewmeister

Obviously too much voltage for those clocks. 900mhz should only need stock 1.088 to 1.2v depending on card. Your temps seem a bit high.. even at those volts. I'm assuming you've taken care of the basics, fan is operating properly and is at 100%, hs is clean, good case airflow, normal room temp. What was your room temp? You might want to try remounting the hs with some good TIM like MX-4.. if necessary new thermal pads on the vrm's.

The 5850 consumes quite a bit of power when raising volts. It requires a 35-40A rail.. your psu has 4 x 18A rails. Just make sure the 6 and 8 pin connectors are from separate rails. Instead of using the 8 pin pcie conn.. maybe try a dual molex to 8 pin.

Try setting card to stock 725/1000 1.088v and run a 1080 preset bench, lmk max temps from the results.

Okay, so I ran the furmark burn in test at 1680x1050, 4xAA, with the options "burn in" and "xtreme burn in" checked. I ran it for 15 minutes and the max temp was 65C with the autofan setting. Everything Ive done so far is with autofan btw. When it was crashing before when I was experimenting, it never acheived max temps before crashing. Case has good airflow and all the vents are clean(including the 5850 fan/heatsink). Room temp is 68F.

Also, there is a new development, I mentioned in my previous post about it not being able to handle the TOP bios. I am getting the same artifacing now, even with the stock bios. Its not the typical small squares. It is a bunch of random sharp angled streaks that fliker in and out randomly. I will upload a video if I can find a way to shrink the file size.. The strange thing is, it doesnt do it in game. Even kombuster does it now for some reason. This never happened until I swithed out the bios'.

 

[Drewmeister]

I believe the spike like artifacts are vram related. The vram on these cards don't make contact with any heat sinks. They're just cooled by the small amount of air that passes through tiny holes in the base of the heat pipe. It's very possible that heat has taken it's toll on them overtime. The auto fan just makes matters worse as it only caters to the temp of the core. The flashed bios with higher volts probably just pushed it over the edge.

You can try a few more bioses.. or even modding your own with RBE. You can try the bios for my Sapphire HD 5850 extreme if you like... it's very close in design to your card.
I saw a pic of your card.. it appears to have a separate hs for the vrm's so would be very easy to remount the heat pipe.
Maybe try Trixx version 4.3-4.6.. remove any other gpu oc utilities first so they don't interfere. Try disabling ULPS
Some drivers to try... 12.1, 12.3, 13.1 and 13.2 beta.

Orig BIOS Sapphire 5850 Xtreme.zip 46k .zip file

 

[timaishu]

Is that a reference bio's? My card is non-reference.

I made a thread here and on toms. I dont know what happened. But I cannot get these artifacts to go away. I have a feeling I broke the card somehow.

EDIT: Did some searching and found it is non reference. Flashed it and now my computer doesnt boot. Even if I bricked the card just now, Im at the point of not even caring. This thing isnt living up to the reasons I bought it in the first place.

EDIT2: Okay, I was able to flash it back to stock and its working again. Had to use an old nividia card to boot. So Im back to square 1.

This is what it is doing. Stock settings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3CpJ5LMckA

 

[Drewmeister]

I'd definitely try baking it.. that's worked wonders for many cards. Basically pull all the plastic stuff off and bake at 392F for 10min. If you want to save the stickers you can heat them with a hair dryer and peel off. http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1421792&highlight=oven

A couple last things to try before baking:
If you haven't done this already.. maybe try underclocking the memory.. the gpu core is where almost all the gains are from anyways.

My Sapphire is non-ref with digital vrm's like on most reference. I also have a XFX non-ref with analog vrm's... Trixx v0.4.21 is the only utility that allows voltage adjustment. I included the XFX bios if you wanted to try it.

Good Luck.. let us know how it goes.

Orig BIOS non-ref XFX 5850.zip 46k .zip file

 

[timaishu]

Cant believe I am about to stick my card in the oven.. But I am going to do it.

Also, I did in fact try underclocking the memory. It did nothing, even at 500mhz. I got the same amount of errors in OCCT no matter how low the memory was. I got better results from lowering the core. Even still, with everything obcenely lowered, it still errored out in OCCT. I am afraid to try another bio's, but I will do it if baking doesn't fix it. Cant hurt at this point considering I cant play games as is.

 

[timaishu]

UPDATE: Baked it for 10 minutes at 395F and it didn't fix anything.

I dont think there is anything more that I can do other than another than trying a different bios. I just dont see that working though at this point..

 

[Drewmeister]

That's too bad man.. I feel for you. These are still very capable cards with a good oc. Running out of options here... I'll list a few more.

1) Make sure to disbable ULPS manually... start with a fresh full uninstall + driver sweep/reboot / install drivers 13.1/reboot/ disable ULPS with utility below/ reboot/ install trixx 4.3-4.6/tick disable ULPS in settings/reboot and give it a try.

2) Cool air can do wonders for stabilty. See about getting some cooler air onto the vram chips. Maybe pull side panel off case temporarily and set up a couple fans blowing into the small opening between the plasitc fan shroud and pcb. If they respond to cooler temps then ram sink them.

3) See if there's a way you can reduce the vram timings and or vddr voltage through a custom bios or RBE. On the flip side you could try and see if increasing just vddr helps.

4) Replacement card or upgrade. Plenty of great deals here in the FS section or ebay. I've actually spotted a few, if you want pm me.

Edit: Link... http://www.overclock.net/t/1088266/ulps-gui-config-utility-enable-disable