Radeon HD 5870 mobillity - BIG problems

Hello again, fellow forum!
Since the problem now has changed, i decided to do a new thread, leaving both the other ones dead, seeing as they are missleading and solving two different problems.

So, what is the problems?
It seems like my 5870's are fried. WHY?
Because i have some ridiculously bad performance in BF3.
Before, one of my cards could run 50 FPS on the same setup as i have now, but right now, i cant get over 20 FPS in whatever way that try.

I reinstalled Windows, and started reinstalling drivers, to see if it changed anything, and it didn't.
Ive charted the performance reviews in an excel-document, which can be shown here;
http://www.myhrensolutions.net/graphics.xlsx
(Excel-document)

As you may see from the chart, performance havent changed at all, and i can't get any utilization of my #0 card, not even when running with crossfire disabeled. When running disabeled crossfire, i don't even get any utilization on any of the GPUs.





Could someone please help me? WHAT is wrong?
Would reflashing my cards possibly better it? What vBIOS should they be running?


- Scott.

 

I don't own an R1 so I can't say, but do they have something like the R2's Stealth Mode as well ?
That might be the issue.

 

It has the stealth mode feature, yes. But how do i see if it is activated or deactivated? I have not touched the stealth-mode button on the heads-up panel (The media panel with the play,pause, rewind etc. buttons).


- Scott.

 

BF3 needs the cap profiles.

 

I do have the CAP-files

It didn't change anything at all!
- Scott.

 

Now as i'm seeing in Crossfire mode that its only my card in the second slot that is working (39% utilization) while the other one is running 0% utilization, could it be possible to swap the cards place and run the one with the 39% without crossfire?

- scott.

 

just started FurMark;
The cards doesent even show any utilization in Furmark!
- Scott

 

Have you tried reseating the cards?

 

Reseating? Just taking them out and putting them back in? Yes, i even repasted them!

 

Take out the Slave and try again , if its still happen , try flashing the Master with the DELL Official Vbios ( Can be downloaded from Dell Site ). If that still doesn't cut it . Try to put the Slave into the Master . By then you can determine if the card is fried or this is problem with the CF set up

-Best of luck-

 

Ok dannyboy, i will try this in a couple of hours, currently at work!

 

Ok, so now suddenly, the cards start to show utilization again. Everything works "fine"; but my FPS is still ridiculously LOW (50 fps on everything low as possible).

I've heard with other guys who have the HD5870ms and they say that their FPS is like 100..
What could THAT be?

- Scott.

 

I told you because I play at 1600x1050 and i7 720qm overclocked. you really really be around 80-100 FPS at that resolution. I would reduce resolution and go to single card if I were you.

 

Still dude, 45 peak FPS on Tehran Highway is pretty sucky, and you're running MSAA4x?

Im low'ed out on everything, and playing at 1650x1080..

Single card - that is, i get so sincerely low GPU utilization with Crossfire..
Whats your GPU utilization when running it crossfire? HWINFO will tell you the utilization if you don't mind..
and im still running oc
- Scott.

 

my cards both are utilized 99-100% in game. Try turning off both AA-related options, also set SSAO instead of SBAO, and try lower the shadows. Everything else you should be able to leave high or ultra with good playable frames per second

 

Even without those options, i get 30 FPS in crossfire..

- Scott.

 

then there is definitely something wrong.. What about Vantage, what is your GPU score?

 

Give me 15 mins, ill run an vantage test ASAP!
Is it fine that i run the free version of 3Dmark Vantage?


Edit:
Also, should PowerPlay in Catalyst center be activated or deactivated?

- Scott.

 

sure, the free version will show the score, just won't allow to change settings, but default settings it standard here

 

P12833 3DMarks

Thats the score that it told me.



Edit:

Ive added a screenshot of the page..
Edit2:

Why is it ing about old drivers? i AM running 11.10?


Edit:
Catalyst Control-Center is telling me this;
Driver Packaging Version - 8.763-100810a-104118C-Dell
Direct3D Version - 8.14.10.0775

Does this mean that i'm not running newest driver package?
The CCC-center got updated though..?




- Scott.

 

Ok it is overall score, and what it says for GPU score?

 

GPU score is as following;
GPU Score
P14793

Doctor; Please check what i wrote in the previous post, as its much more fullfilling!

 

yes, looks like you have old driver package and for that your GPU score looks completely OK, I had similair GPU score on stock drivers. So, your cards shoul be doin good.

The other thing is CPU. in other thread you mentioned shutdown while benchmarking, I suspect CPU could hold you back in games, because of throttling. Have you checked CPU temps?

 

- Old driverpackage? What the fuzzels? I did install the 11.10 yesterday? How can it be that it hasn't updated the driver-package?

yes, it had an unwaited shutdown, not because of overheating, i think its just instabillity because of the overclock that i applied. (400 mhz, think i need to raise the voltage a bit.) The CPU temps has NEVER gone above 60 C*

- Scott.

 

yes, somesimes the driver update installs not properly for some reason. when I went to 11.9 I got driver installed but CCC was absent. So I had to perform separate custom installation of driver and then CCC in order to get everything installed right. Such kind of behaviour varies from system to system as I see.

I'm not sure how safe for you to wipe the drivers completely and perform a clean install

 

i cannot whipe the drivers, as i need the base-dell driver.
Is it possible to download JUST the driver package, so i can get that updated? Seeing as Catalyst control center is allready updated..?
- Scott.

 

it is possible to perform custom installation and there to check driver package and uncheck CCC if it is already installed

 

ahh, i see.. And then just beat the crap out of that driver-package till it gives after?

I will try it in Safe-mode, that probably would make it easier to overwrite.. It probably doesent want to overwrite since the file is allready "in use" when its being installed. (Cannot overwrite files that are in use?).

- Scott.

 

yes you need the stock driver , but just install it and remove it normally , no need to hold back , just don't completely wipe it out with ccleaner or something

 

When i press custom and select "ATI Display Driver" it sais that its allready installed and up to date? Actually, all of the components is installed and up to date.

Edit;
attached Screenshot.
Can anyone confirm that these drivers are OLD?

- Scott.

 

Dell drivers are old, outdated. I have 11.9 and in CCC info it looks so:


Driver Packaging Version 8.892-110914m-125033C-ATI
Catalyst Version 11.9
Provider ATI Technologies Inc.
2D Driver Version 8.01.01.1186
2D Driver File Path /REGISTRY/MACHINE/SYSTEM/ControlSet001/Control/CLASS/{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}/0005
Direct3D Version 7.14.10.0860
OpenGL Version 6.14.10.11079
Catalyst Control Center Version 2011.0908.1355.23115
AMD Audio Driver Version 7.12.0.7702

 

THank you, Doctor.
Just updated the drivers, and now i got something similar to you, a bit "newer" it seems, seeing as i did the 11.10 again.

But it didn't ask for a reboot after the update, is that a good or bad sign?

- Scott.

 

I experienced several times that it didn't ask for reboot, but rebooted it myself, so did you I guess

Can't say which sign is that.. good sign would be that everything works as it should, no driver crashes BSODs or something, and bench and performance should show how is it going

 

i was thinking about the "not asking for reboot" thing. If that should be a good or bad sign . But yeah, i rebooted it..
Going to try some FurMark soon, and see how its going with the utilization.. Just installing the driver once more, just to be completely, perfectly shure that everything is up to date..

EDIT:
96,8% and 95,8% utilization in FurMark!

Testing in BF3 soon!

- Scott.

 

when I decided to move from Dell stock drivers, there were 11.5 latest at that moment, and everything (clean install) went smooth. But since then, every time I update driver (11.6, 11.8, 11.9, 11.10 and back to 11.9), it never goes without an error. In the end of installation every time I get notification with yellow triangle sign that "Warnings occured during installation". moreover with 11.9 and 11.10 I got Install manager failure in the beginning, and red triangle saying "failures occured during installation" in the end. Weird. But we still can get this installed and working..

I just got used to

 

Haha, yeah!

Now, i'm getting about 40 FPs in BF3 again, but the GPU utilization is still bad!

Here is how it is;
Card 0 (1) = 84,3% (max)
Card 1 (2) = 43,6% (max)

That is still pretty lame?

Edit:
Also, FPS is REALLY unconsisent!
- Scott.

 

You have CAP installed, right? I uninstall it before driver update and install it after the driver installed.
Also, when in game, try alt-tab out/in and see if utilization changed, weird trick but worked for some people

Sometimes these systems require dances with tambourines around them lol

 

Yes, Cap4 is installed. I also installed it again, after that the driver was updated. I have tried alt-tab too many times allready, never changed anything

And now again, its completely broke.. Only the secondary card is utilized.
What did i do?
Well, i saw in HWINFO that the secondary card was stuck on the core clocks 300/400, which is a state where the computer should be in power-saver mode, so i flashed ALL states of the card till 800/1100 (So it constantly runs on those clocks, even when booting etc.) and the PC became laggy, although the core DID stay at 800/1100

So, because of the lag, i flashed them back to their original 700/100 vBios.. And now, the utilization is only on card 1 (secondary card)



One heck of a dance that this system needs..

So, well, kinda, i put myself into the same bad spot as before, and now i don't have the abillity to "update" my drivers again, seeing as theire allready the newest ones..

So.. what to do, what to do?
- Scott.

 

If your still under warranty, you might want to opt for a replacement(M18x)

Not sure how it would work in Norway though.

 

Unfortunately, this Alien is soon three years old, and i was stupid enough to only buy one year of warranty..So i'm "all by myself" on this one. ALso, ths 5870's arent officially supported in the R1, so it would have voided my warranty.. Not to talk about those hundreds of times that i've taken it apart

Any ideas?
- Scott.

 

Are you having problems in all games??.. Try checking more games, to see if the problem is related to only this game in particular.

 

Thats why I prefer not touching the vbios to oc the card , too much risky , especially when the card is not officially supported. Now here is what I suggest you do, repeat the whole same procedure when you first install the cards, but now with a fresh installation of window. Particularly in this order :
- Install windows with only the Master card
- Install the Chipset driver
- Install the Dell Official Driver , then install the 2nd card , make sure CF is regconized , remove the Dell driver ( completely ) and install the latest CCC from AMD
- Install the remaining drivers ( CC lastly )
Then test them again to see if there's any problem . Best of luck

 

Sorry for not responding - Have been a bit busy.

Tyranus; I've allready tested both BF3 and Furmark. Showed no utilization in both!


I will try what you've said, DannyBoy..But i don't see what the vBios problem would be now that i've reversed them to the vBIOS that followed when i got the cards in my hand.. All the other preferences should have been whiped?


- Scott.

 

Ok Dannyboy;
This is what i did;

1. Fresh install of W7
2. Did the drivers you told me to install
3. installed the dell one
4. uninstalled it, then driver-sweeper in Safe-mode.
5. Installed the 11.10
6. installed the Cap4.

When i try to open catalyst control center now, it tells me the following;
Catalyst Control Center cannot be started. There are currently no settings that can be fongirued using catalyst control center.

What to do?

Edit:
DOwnloading another driver-package that includes everything now, i think.. I think i might just did download the catalyst center itself first.. wait for an update, 10 mins max

Edit:
Ok, so it installed, but still, i don't have the crossfire option! I need to leave the old driver there, and then put the new one on top to have crossfire..

Edit:
And now that i removet the 11.10 and try to install the DELL-driver again, it BSOD's..

Edit:
No BSODS, but now i get this message when trying to open CCC;
Could not load file or assembly "CLI.Implementation" or one of its dependencies. The system cannod find the file specified.


What the crap is this?
- Scott.

 

Man , I told you that you should be able to uninstall the DELL driver , but don't wipe it out completely ( means no need for driver sweeper , or CCleaner , etc ) just uninstall it normally and set up the ATI/AMD one . Beside , when you download the CCC, choose to download the whole mobility suite , which is a downloader that will download the driver and the CCC , and install them after removing the Dell driver through the Control panel

 

darn it.. sorry for the missunderstandance.

So this is how i do it;
Fresh Win7
DELL drivers,
uninstall DELL-drivers through Device Manager. Check the box to delete the software.
Install ATI/ AMD ones

Did i get it right, this time?

- Scott.

 

yes, that's basically it . hope it work out for you

 

Ok, so i'm now at the point where i get an BSOD when installing the 11.10 Driver, after that i uninstalled the DELL-one and rebooted.

Any opinion on that?
The BSOD just disappears after the memory dump, so i didn't have time to check what it was ing about..

EDIT: this is what windows told me once booted back up;

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1044

Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: 3b
BCP1: 00000000C0000005
BCP2: 0000000000000000
BCP3: FFFFF88002A892D0
BCP4: 0000000000000000
OS Version: 6_1_7601
Service Pack: 1_0
Product: 256_1

Files that help describe the problem:
C:\Windows\Minidump\101211-36863-01.dmp
C:\Windows\Temp\WER-43259-0.sysdata.xml

Read our privacy statement online:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=104288&clcid=0x0409

If the online privacy statement is not available, please read our privacy statement offline:
C:\Windows\system32\en-US\erofflps.txt


EDIT2:
Oh yeah, and also, the Crossfire-Support disappeared, so it seems like the driver is half-way installed, although its running in the old Catalyst GUI!

EDIT3:
Ok, so, obviously, the BSOD is because of the Video Driver, but i did uninstall the display driver before installing the new one?
Seems like i just will have to go with overinstalling the 11.10 on the DELL ones. Does that cause any major setbacks?

- Scott.

 

Allright guys - I'm finally back at 100% (master card) + 60% (secondary card) utilization on both cores in BF3, giving me a steady 50 FPS on everything minimum on the most requiring maps. Which is great! Better than before, but still not what i know it can be!

Any thoughts further about this?



- Scott.