anyone got a gHz edition HD 7970 ?

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Alez
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#1 anyone got a gHz edition HD 7970 ?

Post by Alez »

Can't get my 7970 to run. Goes for about 10 mins then downclocks to idle and sits there. suspending tasks etc. does nothing. Shut boinc down and restart boinc and it crunches away for a while again before the same.
It's a gygabyte 7970 GHz edition and it seems to be that powerplay doesn't recognise that boinc is running on the card and idles it. I did force powerplay off with afterburner but the card went nuts, screen tearing, pixelation and multiple driver crashes.

Does anyone else have one and if so which drivers are you using and have you seem the same issues ?
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#2 Re: anyone got a gHz edition HD 7970 ?

Post by scole of TSBT »

All mine are Sapphire Duel-X, but one appears to have been flashed with a Ghz BIOS (see other post). What does GPU-Z say about it? Is it a recent purchase? Maybe a previous owner flashed it with a wonky BIOS?
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#3 Re: anyone got a gHz edition HD 7970 ?

Post by Alez »

from the post in the comp the second one is closest. My other 2 are the standard 950 clock. This one is 1100 MHz clock and 1500MHz memory. It should be a four legged turbo charged chicken. I see you are running cat 13.12, will try that first. My other 2 are running 14.2.
I downclocked it to standard and then used after burner to turn off the power save and it just went nuts.
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#4 Re: anyone got a gHz edition HD 7970 ?

Post by scole of TSBT »

On Windows systems, do you use the amdcleanuputility.exe to remove all AMD apps/drivers/etc. I never seem to get a good clean install unless I use it first.
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#5 Re: anyone got a gHz edition HD 7970 ?

Post by Alez »

yes I did and that is a pain as it's an MSI board with an AMD FX6300 chip so every time I clean the AMD drivers it does everything, not just the GPU.
Tried with the latest drivers and no difference. Runs fine as a display adapter in 300/150 Mhz mode but as soon as I try crunching with it I get all forms of screen tearing etc, before it eventually locks and crashes.
Looks like I am going to have to try and flash the Bios in the card or the card is bad. Worst I can do is brick it but then again at the moment it is useless anyway.
Just powered it down to do the flash but apparentlt i have 192 updates to install from windows. What a PITA.
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#6 Re: anyone got a gHz edition HD 7970 ?

Post by scole of TSBT »

Is that 1100 Ghz core or boost speed? I've never seen core speed of 1100 Ghz, which is what GPU-Z reports, I think.
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#7 Re: anyone got a gHz edition HD 7970 ?

Post by Alez »

That's the boost speed. Card downclocks to idle at 300MHz and stays there.
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#8 Re: anyone got a gHz edition HD 7970 ?

Post by scole of TSBT »

Tried increasing the power?
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#9 Re: anyone got a gHz edition HD 7970 ?

Post by Alez »

Have down the full 20 % increase. Still crashes. Flashed with original bios successfully... crashes. Built a custom bios reducing clocks to 925MHz / 1275 MHz core / mem whilst boosting TDP and core voltages.... still crashes. Works fine as a display adapter but as soon as you try crunching it starts screen tearing then crashes.
Will try rolling drivers back but doubt it will make the slightest difference. Going to rip off the heatsink and re-paste but suspect the card is on it's way to valhalla.
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#10 Re: anyone got a gHz edition HD 7970 ?

Post by scole of TSBT »

If something happened to the contact between the heat sink and chip it could easily over heat and automatically downclock. Worth a try.
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#11 Re: anyone got a gHz edition HD 7970 ?

Post by Alez »

One of tomorrows tasks will be to remove the heatsink and check the contact area. when you changed the fans on your 7970 is there any tricks or is it just the 4 screws through the board removes the whole heatsink, fans and plastic shroud ?
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#12 Re: anyone got a gHz edition HD 7970 ?

Post by scole of TSBT »

On mine, Sapphire Dual-X, I had to remove the entire heatsink to get to the screws that held the fan shroud on. I don't precisely recall what all would need to be done to perform a heatsink re-fit, but the best I recall if you're going straight for the die and vrus heatsink contacts, you don't have to remove the shroud, I don't think. Just remove all the screws on the back plate. Some hold the main heatsink on the gpu die. Others hold smaller heatsink parts on vrus, which use heat conducting tape. If you don't have any, don't damage the existing ones. Start with the 4 main ones around the gpu die, then see if you all which remaining ones hold it on. Over heating vrus can cause down clocking too.
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#13 Re: anyone got a gHz edition HD 7970 ?

Post by Alez »

Finally got round to ripping the card apart. Thermal grease on the chip was more concrete than grease, the heat sink was screwed down so hard there was no room for any thermal expansion and the heatsink on the memory was bolted down hard at one end and floating at the other. Fixed all these issues and so far card is running on the bios I built. Hopefully this may be a story with a happy ending :D. Will leave crunching tonight and hopefully it hangs in there. So far crunching Einstein at my custom clocks at only 50 degrees C. Fingers crossed.
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#14 Re: anyone got a gHz edition HD 7970 ?

Post by Silver »

Sounds promising so far, fingers crossed :)
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#15 Re: anyone got a gHz edition HD 7970 ?

Post by Alez »

Got it running Milkyway now. Will leave it overnight. If that doesn't kill it then I would have to say the card is successfully resurrected :shock:
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#16 Re: anyone got a gHz edition HD 7970 ?

Post by scole of TSBT »

Happiness is a warm gpu, yes it is... Image
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#17 Re: anyone got a gHz edition HD 7970 ?

Post by Alez »

scole250 wrote:Happiness is a warm gpu, yes it is... Image
Only 50 deg C and still crunching. Happiness is a job done that you didn't think would go well :D Still crunching, no screen tearing or pixilation . So far so good 8)
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