[Penryn]

I just installed my fresh Diamond 5850s in Crossfire with 10.2 Drivers. I have 2 monitors on the systems which both worked fine when I had 2 4870's in Crossfire. But now it seems I am having a slight problem, The second monitor flickers whenever I drag a window or move the mouse at times. Also, under CCC, the sensors do not show a fan speed, temp, or activity, just 0%... any ideas?

 

[Jeff78]

Did you use a driver cleaner after uninstalling the old drivers or did you just install 10.2 over your old ones after you installed the cards? If you did not, uninstall CCC, go into safe mode and run a driver cleaner. Then reinstall 10.2 and see if the problem clears up. It sounds like CCC is trying to detect your old graphics cards as your new ones or at the very least some other driver-related issue.

 

[Penryn]

Yea, I found the problem though. It seems that with 2 monitors if you OC the cards at all, the catalyst drivers have a bug which affects the clock speed in 2D mode, which causes the second display to flicker. I'll just run stock clocks until the issue is resolved.

 

[brettjv]

The flickering problem has been well-discussed, it sounds like you have a good handle on what's up there. If I were you I'd consider flashing to the Asus 5870 bios ... it's the most brilliant thing ever, imho, presuming that your card is a normal reference version. Mine are also Diamonds, so I'd guess there's an excellent chance you'll get the same great results as I have.

Now, I don't know for sure it'll fix the flickering, but it'll make it so that your cards will run 'stock' at 850/1200 with a small voltage boost to 1.162V (iow, just like a 5870) without your having to use overdrive at all, so ... if using CCC OD creates the flickering issue ... I imagine you can see my line of reasoning here ...

As to the latter question, it's normal if you're looking at clocks in the CCC OD screen to see 0's for everything on the second GPU. It's a power-saving feature, new to the 10.2's. Basically the second card shuts off in 2d mode. Until GPU-Z and AB are programmed to properly account for this, you can expect to see strange readings for that card if you look in those apps. On mine, my second card shows as being in 3d clocks at all times. But I know that is not correct, rather, the CCC reading is actually correct. The card is shut down.

Which I think is awesome, personally.

And it has nothing to do w/the flickering, cause that issue's been around since day 1 w/these cards.

 

[Penryn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by brettjv The flickering problem has been well-discussed, it sounds like you have a good handle on what's up there. If I were you I'd consider flashing to the Asus 5870 bios ... it's the most brilliant thing ever, imho, presuming that your card is a normal reference version. Mine are also Diamonds, so I'd guess there's an excellent chance you'll get the same great results as I have. Now, I don't know for sure it'll fix the flickering, but it'll make it so that your cards will run 'stock' at 850/1200 with a small voltage boost to 1.162V (iow, just like a 5870) without your having to use overdrive at all, so ... if using CCC OD creates the flickering issue ... I imagine you can see my line of reasoning here ... As to the latter question, it's normal if you're looking at clocks in the CCC OD screen to see 0's for everything on the second GPU. It's a power-saving feature, new to the 10.2's. Basically the second card shuts off in 2d mode. Until GPU-Z and AB are programmed to properly account for this, you can expect to see strange readings for that card if you look in those apps. On mine, my second card shows as being in 3d clocks at all times. But I know that is not correct, rather, the CCC reading is actually correct. The card is shut down. Which I think is awesome, personally. And it has nothing to do w/the flickering, cause that issue's been around since day 1 w/these cards.

Thanks for the tips. I do have atiflash from when I flashed my 2 4870s to match the bios. They were also both Diamond but one had stock 800/1000 clocks and the other 750/950. Any idea where I can get some 5870 reference bios? And to increase the voltage, is any hardware modification necessary?

 

[brettjv]

techpowerup.com is where I got mine. I wanna say they were dated like 9/25/09 or thereabouts (they have more than one Asus 5870 bios there at tpu.com in their bios library). The voltage bump from 1.088 to 1.162 will just happen from the flash, as will the change of stock 3d clocks from 725/1000 to 850/1200. It's pretty cool man.

However, I should point out that for some reason I'm presently not able to OV any higher than 1.162V using Afterburner. But I had never tried to push it higher before I flashed the bios, and I've never gone back, so I don't know for sure whether or not the bios flash was the cause. If you're gonna do the flash, it'd be cool if you tried overvolting beyond 1.162, both before and after, and seeing if anything changes.

Honestly though it's not a big deal to me. I can hit about 940 core on 1.162V if I want, that's good enough for me, esp. in crossfire. I have no space hardly between my cards, so they get pretty warm on a heavy load, and I'm a bit of a quietness freak so I hate having to crank my fans to compensate for extra heat. To me, 1.162V is perfect. Besides the quietness/coolness factor, I like knowing it's completely safe, since that's what 5870's are at stock, and it's the same chip, so ...

 

[Penryn]

Soooooooooooo I have flashed my cards to the 5870 reference and left it at stock 5870 clocks, but the flickering is back. It's there no matter what clock I use now. XD time to mess with it a bit.

Edit: Disabled OD and it stopped flickering lol. Win.

 

[brettjv]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Penryn Soooooooooooo I have flashed my cards to the 5870 reference and left it at stock 5870 clocks, but the flickering is back. It's there no matter what clock I use now. XD time to mess with it a bit. Edit: Disabled OD and it stopped flickering lol. Win.

Awesome. See, now you got a nice OC ... not a great OC, but a significant one nonetheless ... + no flicker ... + you don't have to mess with any outside program whatsoever to get it.

And believe me, that last one is a biggie, because trying to OC with Afterburner when you have crossfire is a major freaking headache. Either the 3d clocks you've set won't automatically apply to both cards when you go into 3d mode, or they get stuck in 3d and powerplay won't kick in ... those sorts of headaches are what led me to try the Asus 5870 bios in the first place.

CCC, on the other hand works perfectly ... well, at least it does with just one monitor, hopefully they get that problem sorted.

In my book, this move is been full of win.

edit: BTW, the 10.3 beta's do amazing things in Vantage, in the event your not using them, you might wanna give 'em a try. My bet is that you jump to around 27K on gpu if in fact you're on 10.2 or below now.