The Asus HD7970-DC2-3GD5 and MSI R7970 Lightning; the solution for tearing in the 79XX family

overstitch · Post by **overstitch** » 20 Apr 2012, 15:00

*Doublepost* Sorry!

overstitch · Post by **overstitch** » 20 Apr 2012, 15:07

Here is the conclusion to this harrowing experience....

If using Intel RAID (latest version, which I am) on Windows 7 64-bit SP1 (all updates applied) and the Catalyst 12.3 drivers, using my middle monitor (the 1080p Samsung, doesn't matter what DisplayPort port it is connected to OR if it is connected via DVI) as either the primary or when moving Battlefield 3 to it, the game WILL hard lock and crash the system. If moving the game from a primary monitor on either side of the middle one, in order to not crash after a minute, you must not use onboard Realtek audio drivers. In the end though, if you try to launch the game, it WILL crash.

So, it runs on my left 1680x1050 screen without issue and I've bunged my XFi back in to see how that fares. Things seem okay though. I'll be testing with Starcraft 2 again and Team Fortress 2 to see how that goes. Mass Effect 3 works just fine.

BirdOtt · Post by **BirdOtt** » 21 Apr 2012, 18:39

Hi Moose.

Congratulations on pursuing your dreams as you enter the next "student" phase of your life. I wish you all the best!

I recall my "student" days fondly; they were many years ago when I took business studies at The University of Manitoba in Wiinnipeg. I am sure you will have a great time since you are keenly interested in your "field of dreams"!

I am in the process of completing my new PC build using the ASUS Radeon 7970 DC2T I received recently. I have been preoccupied with other parts of the build, accessories, Gamepod, shelving, etc. It should be completed this weekend, barring mis-steps! :) It is my first build so I have been doing a lot of reading, investigating, etc. before actually doing anything. Plus a further excuse: it is "hockey playoffs" time and my home team is battling the villans from the "Big Apple"!

Take care and I still look forward to reading your commnets and interacting in the WSGF.

Moose · Post by **Moose** » 21 Apr 2012, 20:49

Hi Moose.

Congratulations on pursuing your dreams as you enter the next "student" phase of your life. I wish you all the best!

Thanks for those kind words. (:

I am in the process of completing my new PC build using the ASUS Radeon 7970 DC2T I received recently. I have been preoccupied with other parts of the build, accessories, Gamepod, shelving, etc. It should be completed this weekend, barring mis-steps! :) It is my first build so I have been doing a lot of reading, investigating, etc. before actually doing anything.

Exquisite! I hope everything works out for you. Doing research and stuff is half the work, I am very pleased to see you did that. I like you.

Moose

Exmortis · Post by **Exmortis** » 29 Apr 2012, 18:51

Sorry for long hiatus, Life got in the way, the kind where we are all standing around playing pin the pick slip on the employee. Very stressful waiting for those times. they come out next week. Man the waiting.

Anyhoo my Lightning is working perfectly. It is a dream of a card, buit it is NOT so quiet as I rea din thereviews, fans can really spin up. I installed two side fans and the mesh instead of window on my Corsair 600T and that has helped.

Other then MSIs afterburner isn't too great right now, I have had very little driver issues, but I have not OC'd yet, I tend to wait a few weeks to make sure all is stable. I have had one blue screen, damn VirtuLogix driver, not AMD.

Also......wait for it.....NO TEARING!!!! I run all monitors with DP and not once have I seen it in Skyrim and it used ot be rather bad.

I have had no time to do benchmark, Just wanted to chime in, as I said I would. Damn RL.

BirdOtt · Post by **BirdOtt** » 30 Apr 2012, 22:02

I assembled my new PC this past week and did the first power up and boot on the weekend. :) Nothing came up on the monitor. :( MOBO LED read AE and then AA. Caused some concern initially. Then I learned that this was OK. But it meant I had a monitor issue. I changed from one monitor hooked by Displayport to DVI. It worked. Will be changing back to DP shortly to see if the problem is resolved. Hope so. Installed Windows 7 and MS Office. Planning to do more this week. Hope to get 3X1 landscape eyefinity running and check performance. Bye for now.

Exmortis · Post by **Exmortis** » 01 May 2012, 22:48

I have had that issue, for me it was a dead DP port.

metalnwood · Post by **metalnwood** » 04 May 2012, 01:20

I am thinking about this card to get rid of tearing as well as hopefully improved AA over the 6970 series (dont know if I will get that?)

Right now I use 2xdvi and one dp with an active adaptor.

How do I hook this up? I guess I need another 2 active adaptors of DP->DVI and 3 three adaptors to convert from DP to mini DP so I can plug in the active adaptors.

Thats it, good to go with no tearing? Seems like an obvious answer but I am just checking that active adaptors are still used and that tearing will go with three of them in the solution.

Thanks!

metalnwood · Post by **metalnwood** » 04 May 2012, 01:29

Hmm, I currently have 2 active mini display port to dvi adaptors.

It looks more likely that I need to buy three entirely new regular DP -> dvi adaptors at around $160nzd on top because I can't source any adaptors that will let me use them in this card..

That puts a damper on it as the price hikes up fast.

BirdOtt · Post by **BirdOtt** » 12 May 2012, 02:37

Things are NOT going smoothly in my new build. After multiple hours long sessions with Windows 7 updates, and hours long downloads of a few games from Gamersgate and STEAM, I am steamed! Then the BIG problems started! I am now getting lockups where sometimes the mouse won't move and others where it will move but clicking on any icon does nothing.

I am also encountering repeated messages where the screen goes blank and then a message pops up saying "Display driver has stopped responding and has recovered, Display driver AMD driver has stopped responding and has successfully recovered." (Yes, it says it twice with different wording). Sometimes it happens only once and then I can go on to use the PC for awhile. At other times, it keeps happening in quick succession with very little time between occurrences (e.g., less than 60 seconds). It does not seem to occur when the Windows start screen is on. It seems to happen when I try to use programs within Windows 7.

I am also having issues with Windows 7 Updates. I did a new install of Windows 7 and it said there were 91 updates available. I tried to install them all, but only 77 were successful. 12 of the 14 that failed were said to be "important". Over a few additional update attempts, 4 of the 12 were subsequently installed successfully. 8 have never been attempted since the first attempt and thus those 8 appear to be "not installed". Perhaps they have been addressed by subsequent updates that have different serial numbers. I don't know about that though. I have noticed that Windows Updates keep indicating that 2 updates are required, yet those two updates have already been installed three times successfully. I think the Windows update process is screwed up. I have now taken Windows recommendation to install updates automatically. Maybe that will help.

Another problem is with Winamp. It downloads, installs and gets the data off my NAS. However, it will not let me click on "audio" and create a "query" to create a "Smart View". It will also not let me select any of the individual sound files under audio and sometime will do strange things that I have not selected. HOWEVER, today I started Windows in SAFE MODE and then started Winamp. It allowed me to create a smart view. When I shut down and rebooted in normal mode, the new smart view (genre) was there, BUT it would not work and I could not play any of the files. So, it weorks in SAFE MODE but not regular mode. I don't know why.

So, those are the problems at this time. I am describing them all here so that you have a complete picture of the problems.

My current system is as follows:

Corsair Obsidian Series 800D, Intel Core i7 3930K, Corsair H100 CPU Cooler, ASUS Rampage IV Extreme MOBO, G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 8 stick set X 4gb = 32GB RAM, OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD, WD Caviar Black 2TB HDD, ASUS HD7970 DirectCu II TOP (DC2T), ASUS 12X Blu-ray drive, ASUS DVD-Writer 24X, CORSAIR AX1200 PSU, Corsair K90 Keyboard, Logitech G9x Mouse, 1Dell Ultrabright U2410 Monitor.

I have not installed all 3 monitors nor a PCIe sound card yet.

This new PC is a nightmare. I think it is the ASUS graphics card that is the culprit. Any thoughts?

BirdOtt · Post by **BirdOtt** » 12 May 2012, 02:40

I hope it is not a dead DP port, Exmortis. I will try the DP port again soon, once I get some stability in the PC. I hope that occurs soon. :)

BirdOtt · Post by **BirdOtt** » 12 May 2012, 03:52

I decided to read a few of the other threads to see if there was a solution I could use. Based on that, I decided to uninstall the AMD drivers. The current installed driver was 8.961.0.0. I uninstalled it and shut down. On reboot GPU Tweak did not start and said it "failed to load DLLs. Please install VGA." Upon clicking to close that window, the PC automatically went out and installed ASUS drivers version 8.921.5.0. I launched Firefox and no troubles occurred. I launched Winamp and it started up fine. I clicked on the genre smart view and it worked! No more messages about "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered." So, I think I found the solution. Time will tell. :)

Post by **Wijkert** » 12 May 2012, 07:49

There are some known issues with 79xx cards who go into save mode (zero core). For example when you let Windows turn your monitor after 10 min power saving features of your gpu will kick in and the system hang when you wake up your monitor. I have been having these problems as well. I am getting random blue screens(one a week) when watching gpu accelerated video content. Also when I start up my system, but leave the monitors off and after 15min turn the monitors on I get the 'Display driver stopped responding' message. Different drivers seem to let the above errors occur often or less often, so your solution might work for the most part.

Post by **Haldi** » 12 May 2012, 13:15

I decided to read a few of the other threads to see if there was a solution I could use. Based on that, I decided to uninstall the AMD drivers. The current installed driver was 8.961.0.0. I uninstalled it and shut down. On reboot GPU Tweak did not start and said it "failed to load DLLs. Please install VGA." Upon clicking to close that window, the PC automatically went out and installed ASUS drivers version 8.921.5.0. I launched Firefox and no troubles occurred. I launched Winamp and it started up fine. I clicked on the genre smart view and it worked! No more messages about "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered." So, I think I found the solution. Time will tell. :)

8.961 is 12.4 right ? i knew this drivers were bugged, but that much ?

Was running 12.1(or 2 pre?^^) 8.921.5 had some driver crashed, but only when OC'ing near at the limit!
Right now i'm on 12.5Pre 8.970 and that seems fine too! Crossfire works, ZeroCore also. and again only get driver crashes when i OC around 1250mhz. But i did NOT do a clean install! never in the last few months!

g0del · Post by **g0del** » 12 May 2012, 19:06

I upgraded to a 3 monitor setup this week, and bought the referenced Asus 7970 so I could avoid tearing. I've got all three monitors attached using displayport adapters, and I'm seeing constant tearing on my middle monitor in eyefinity. Always in the same place, about a quarter of the way up from the bottom. Does anyone have any clue what could be causing it?

Moose · Post by **Moose** » 13 May 2012, 21:20

I upgraded to a 3 monitor setup this week, and bought the referenced Asus 7970 so I could avoid tearing. I've got all three monitors attached using displayport adapters, and I'm seeing constant tearing on my middle monitor in eyefinity. Always in the same place, about a quarter of the way up from the bottom. Does anyone have any clue what could be causing it?

The 'reference' 7970 does not have three equal display ports. You need to buy the MSI R7970, the DCII 7970 or the DCII 7970 OC. So you've bought the wrong card.

I decided to read a few of the other threads to see if there was a solution I could use. Based on that, I decided to uninstall the AMD drivers. The current installed driver was 8.961.0.0. I uninstalled it and shut down. On reboot GPU Tweak did not start and said it "failed to load DLLs. Please install VGA." Upon clicking to close that window, the PC automatically went out and installed ASUS drivers version 8.921.5.0. I launched Firefox and no troubles occurred. I launched Winamp and it started up fine. I clicked on the genre smart view and it worked! No more messages about "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered." So, I think I found the solution. Time will tell. :)

I assume that you have installed the special 7970 drivers released by AMD? The 'normal' drivers don't work too well with the 7970 series. This driver will install an older, modified version of CCC.

Moose

PS: That's one fine rig you have there. But as always, the more expensive things are, the more problems you get with it.

g0del · Post by **g0del** » 14 May 2012, 03:33

Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear. I didn't say "reference", I said "referenced". Specifically, I have this HD7970-DC2-3GD5 card.

Moose · Post by **Moose** » 14 May 2012, 08:31

Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear. I didn't say "reference", I said "referenced". Specifically, I have this HD7970-DC2-3GD5 card.

Excuse me, I didn't catch that. Well, if you have tearing, then it must be either;
1. Plugged in the monitors wrong;
2. Somehow drivers are wrong;
3. A defect card (probably the clock generator).

If it's the first case it's easy; with this card you need to hook up all three monitors on the Displayports. You can't mix the DVI outputs with the Displayports (not even with adapters) because that causes tearing.

If it's the second case; you need to make sure you have the correct drivers. AMD has released special drivers for the 7900 series, you need to download those. If the problem still occurs, clear the harddrive and do a clean install to make sure any previous drivers aren't screwing up.

If it's the third case; good luck. I have no idea how to prove that your card's hardware is actually broken, so I suggest you send it back to the shop and let it get tested there.

Moose

PS: Could you tell me what monitors you use? There are users here that have native DVI monitors mixed up with native DP monitors, connected to their cards without adapters, and experience no tearing.

overstitch · Post by **overstitch** » 14 May 2012, 17:10

Are you using active displayport adapters for all three? What brand and type? Have you tried swapping them around to see if the tearing is perhaps adapter related?

P.S. Catalyst 12.4 final seems to be working for me now (knock on wood) and it is actually throttling RAM speeds down properly.

Post by **Haldi** » 14 May 2012, 21:16

PS: Could you tell me what monitors you use? There are users here that have native DVI monitors mixed up with native DP monitors, connected to their cards without adapters, and experience no tearing.

Using Dell U2311H with 1x DP nativ, 1x DVI Nativ and 1x HDMI-->DVI-Adapter Never experienced Tearing! And when i was using 3+1 setup with an addition miniDP-->DVi Adapter i didn't get tearing either. (Used Adapter that were in the Box of the Sapphire HD7970!)

@Overstich, thats unbeliveable! 12.4 are the worst drivers ever ^^ you're the first i hear complementing them, just heard bad things about them till now ^^

To be sure use 12.1Previev aka 8.921.5(or 8.921.2) they work flawless. Even though 12.5Pre 8.975 also works kinda fine for me.

Widescreen Gaming Forum

The Asus HD7970-DC2-3GD5 and MSI R7970 Lightning; the solution for tearing in the 79XX family

Found the issue. Once the

Here is the conclusion to

Congratulations & Good Luck in your new studies

BirdOtt wrote:Hi Moose.

Sorry for long hiatus, Life

New PC Build with ASUS Radeon 7970 DC2T

I have had that issue, for me

I am thinking about this card

Hmm, I currently have 2

More New PC Problems - Ugh!

Dead DP Port

Then I uninstalled the AMD Drivers :)

There are some known issues

BirdOtt wrote:I decided to

I upgraded to a 3 monitor

g0del wrote:I upgraded to a 3

I didn't say "reference", I

g0del wrote:Sorry, I guess I

Are you using active

Moose wrote:PS: Could you

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