Wonky Idle Speeds on a 5850 When Overcloked

[Jorlain]

Having trouble with a brand new Sapphire 5850.

If I leave it at stock settings, everything is a-okay. However, if I increase the clock speeds at all, even 1 Mhz, I start getting an odd screen flicker on my second monitor. It's usually a horizontal line, and it seems to happen most often, or at least most noticeably, when I open a new window or close an existing window.

I'm currently running Windows 7 x64 Pro, and then substitute the 9600 GT with this new 5850, and the rest is in my sig.

One thing I did notice, is that the idle states change dramatically.

Normally it sits at 400 GPU Clock and 1000 Memory Clock. However, if I overclock, or underclock, it sets itself down to 157 GPU Clock and 300 Memory Clock. I think this is where the problem is originating.

Edit: Also, I've tried MSI Afterburner also to see if the problem exists out of CCC, and it did the same thing. Also did it without CCC installed, and just the driver installed.

Anyone have any idea why this might be doing this to itself?

Thanks!

[4GHZ_or_bust]

Idle my card also goes to 157 gpu and 300 memory. It's mostly for 2D use, to reduce power use. Overclocking shouldn't affect the idle speed.

Did you thoroughly clean old NVidia drivers when you installed 5850? ATi + NVidia driver don't play nice with each other.

[Jorlain]

I sure did. Safe mode, driver sweeper, the works. Here's a couple of screen shots showing what happens.

Before

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y220/Jorlain/400Mhz.png

After

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y220/Jorlain/157Mhz.png

[Jorlain]

Meh. Maybe I should have put this in the General GPU section to make it a little easier to see. D'oh!

:beer:

[Jorlain]

Basically what I see happening here is that when I overclock, it's dropping the 2D settings down even farther, from 400/1000 to 157/300. After this happens, I start getting the weird flicker/tearing/screen jumping on one of two monitors - but I haven't seen it happen to both at the same time. Usually one or the other, but never consistent.

However, 3D performance is just fine. I stressed it pretty hard with Furmark and saw no evidence of the problem I'm getting in 2D mode after maxing out the Ati Overdrive settings (not a significant overclock, I know, but it only takes a bump of 1Mhz+ to start the problem with 2D).

:shrug:

Here's hoping someone else has seen or heard of this!

[don'tknow]

My idle is 157/300 at all times, including stock speeds. Using 9.12 hotfix drivers and the stock XFX bios the card came with. If you're using different drivers that could be a factor, or it could be the bios.

What is your ambient temp, btw? Those idle temps seem a little high, mine are at 33-35C. Could be that it's somewhat cold here and I don't run the heat much because I like the cold, and so does my PC. O.o But over a 10C difference...

[Xymurgy]

I'm getting screen flickering with my 5870. It occurs if either GPU or mem clocks are non-stock (even happens while underclocked). Apparently it's related to 2 active screens and non-stock clocks. Hopefully it'll be fixed in the next driver release.

[Jorlain]

You know, it had occurred to me as well that it might be a problem with dual display devices, or related. For instance, one of my screens is a CRT while the other is an LCD. As such, one is connected with a VGA to DVI adapter, while one is straight DVI.

:shrug:

I sure hope it gets fixed, though. If I have to live with this I won't be happy.