M17X - 5870 CF Crashing the Matroska Codec

This isn't about CF performance, so I am starting a new thread.

Anyone else try using high res video encoded with .mkv on their new CF 5870's? It's the only thing so far that just plain won't work.

Older videos work fine.

I've tried both ffdshow and the combined community codec.

What happens is that when the video launches, the whole screen freezes, flickers, then goes black. When it comes back up, there's the little message in the corner about how the video driver crashed and recovered.

This is similar behavior to when you overdo an OC.

Anyone else having this issue? I'm going to continue troubleshooting this and checking around online. So far, I can't find any references to this problem as it appears to be specific to this system.

 

What drivers are you using? My system stopped recognizing 10.5 and on restart, would only load a black screen. Somewhat similar sounding to yours. 10.4 plain wouldn't install so im doing a clean install if windows 7 and all drivers to see if it makes a difference.

I dont think I own anything with .mkv, but all other sound and video files seemed to have worked.

 

Say what? I disabled crossfire to try out Wow and forgot to enable it and closed the lid, came back later and got a blank screen then rebooted and windows came up with a blank screen. I ejected the dvd in the drive and then everything came back. I doubt the dvd fixed it but something weird is going on.

 

I'm using the downloaded base driver from Dell, with the 10.5 mobility update ( just in case ).

Games and benches run great. No problems with black screens, blue screens, or anything else.

This is the ONLY problem I'm having, and that's what makes it so vexing.

I'm going to clean it all out and try it with JUST the Haali splitter. I'll report back in a bit.

 

How did you update to 10.5? Did you do it manually?

 

No actually, I just swapped in the hard drivers from my other system, booted up, used a driver cleaner to erase all traces of ATI drivers, reinstalled the dell driver, and it works great, ( other than the slightly slow 820 I ended up with this time. ).

This is what happens when I launch a video.

 

Slightly slow 820! Compared to what?

 

Compared to the one in my other system. It's consistently clocking about 5-8% slower. I'm tempted to swap the CPU before I send the other one back, but reading through the service manual, it looks like it might ruin some pads that are connected to the cooler, and I'd rather not mess with that right now.

Back to it, I'm researching this crash as related to other aspects of the system. It happens regardless of the app used to launch the video. I've tried wmp and PowerDVD 10. It crashed harder on that one, it just BSOD's.

Here's a kicker. It's even happening to youtube videos higher than 480p.

My other system with the 4870's works flawlessly.

 

Driver and codec problem. Try Shark007 windows 7 Codec. I watch a lot of MKV files with no issues when I had my 5870,

 

No go. I've tried that codec now with every combination of driver release that works.

I gotta tell ya, this is weird.

 

Odd, shark's codec pack has always worked for me. I did have one paricularly nasty MKV that crashed wmp everytime on my m11x when it was hooked up to a TV but fine when it was unplugged. Dont suppose your hooked up through a TV at the time are you?

 

I'm hooked up to the monitor via HDMI. Guess it's worth a shot . . .

*unplugs* . . .

 

No go on that one too. Good thinking though. I might just do a fresh install of Windows later tonight, and see if that helps. Shouldn't be an issue though, everything else works fine.

 

Update:

More testing will be needed to PINpoint the culprit, but using the Shark codec settings app, and clicking "SUGGESTED" settings, it is working.

So far so good. Later I'll play with the settings one at a time to see where it goes wrong, but right now it's working ok.

Thanks simon.

 

Keep in mind, Mastroka isn't a codec, but rather a container format. Specifically, the Matroska stuff on your system is a media splitter, designed to unpack the container and send the audio, video and subtitle streams to the correct decoders.

If you're having an issue with high definition video (even if it's an MKV), you're probably having a problem with general H.264 decoding. Some of the HD YouTube Flash videos are just containers for H.264 video, again. It wouldn't be surprising if the problem lied with the way the ATi UVD engine is being called in the GPU. Other threads seem to suggest that Dell heavily modified the M5870 BIOS, so they might have stirred up some problems with it.

 

Right, good point. I know it's not a codec, but it's usually just easier to refer to it that way.

The tip off is the youtube videos. I got local videos working, but youtube still crashes.

 

YouTube videos are probably going to continue to crash until either your installed version of Flash changes.. or you install different video card drivers. Adobe's more recent versions of Flash have started to include GPU-assisted decoding support (which is what the GPU's UVD engine is for), but the API to do it is provided by DirectX's DXVA and subject to interpretation by the video card drivers. Since the actual codecs for Flash video are contained entirely within the computer's Flash installation, it would explain why changing system codecs would have no effect.

I see that some people are having issues installing anything besides the Dell drivers, so changing them may not really be an option.. but if you'd like to try narrowing it down further, see if you can determine if UVD is being used when you're successfully playing the other HD videos. The tipoff is going to be much lower than expected CPU usage because decoding will be offloaded to the GPU. Support for DXVA is largely software dependent, so you might even be able to experiment with video players (and possibly codecs) that do and do not support it. Unfortunately, I don't think you'll be able to disable GPU acceleration in Flash if it does end up being the culprit.