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HD 5850 screen flicker problem

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imadedend

New Member
Joined
Sep 2, 2010
Hey this has been bugging me for a long while and I really don't know how to fix it. This has been happening in all games when there are any flickering lights, and there seems to be lines or bars that ripple across the screen whenever there is a flicker. Here is a video of it happening in Killing Floor:




It's recorded on my iPhone so it's not the best quality, but you should see it happen especially if you stick it in 480p and maximise the video. I have everything set on max and the frames are fine but this damn flickering ruins the game for me. You can also see as the light flashes onto the knife the knife flickers as well. This happens in Counter Strike, as well as the original Splinter Cell, so it isn't a game issue and it happens with everything

I have an XFX HD5850 XXX Edition, I'm getting a sapphire 5850 toxic soon for Xfire and I'll hook the monitor to that one to see if it fixes itself that way, but I want to know how to fix it just in case. I have reinstalled windows several times as I recently bought an SSD, so reinstalling isnt the solution.

I have also tried viewing it on other monitors as well as my HD TV and the same issues crop up so it is not the screen/refresh rate.



Catalyst drivers 10.8, but it occurred with 10.5, 10.6, etc. as well



Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Yep, I have. Haven't found another case like it on the net... Any idea if the new gpu would fix it?
 
Possibly just a botched card. I'd use MSI Afterburner and under clock it a bit to see if that fixes it. I had this issue with the 5770 card I bought and had to under clock it to fix it. ( Needless to say thew performance was terrible so that rig is only for movies now)
 
Possibly just a botched card. I'd use MSI Afterburner and under clock it a bit to see if that fixes it. I had this issue with the 5770 card I bought and had to under clock it to fix it. ( Needless to say thew performance was terrible so that rig is only for movies now)

Alright I'll give that a go, thanks. Now seeing as it is still under warranty would it make sense to RMA the thing? It has been acting dodgy before, especially overclocking it a single MHz would cause a driver crash when watching YouTube.
 
Now seeing as it is still under warranty would it make sense to RMA the thing?

I'd RMA it. If you crash from OC even a little then there is a problem. The cards are designed to have a margin of safety so to speak. Meaning it should be able to run at 900 perfectly and they put it to 850 to make sure there are no problems. Like how elevators say 2500Lb max but they can hold like 4000. (just examples)
 
Now seeing as it is still under warranty would it make sense to RMA the thing?

I'd RMA it. If you crash from OC even a little then there is a problem. The cards are designed to have a margin of safety so to speak. Meaning it should be able to run at 900 perfectly and they put it to 850 to make sure there are no problems. Like how elevators say 2500Lb max but they can hold like 4000. (just examples)

Yeah, I'll do that then. Although I went on XFX's site and their warranty crap is completely confusing, theres no actual section that tells you how to send the card back and where to send it, forms, etc.

I'm in Australia as well, does that pose any problems?

Thanks for the feedback

EDIT: Okay this is weird, no underclocking didnt fix the issue, but I decided to put the game in windowed mode to see if the clocks were actually going up to the set levels in afterburner and I noticed that the weird screen tearing had disappeared! I had the same res, etc. but just in windowed mode and in was fine... I have no idea why.. Can anyone comment on this?
 
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Yeah, I'll do that then. Although I went on XFX's site and their warranty crap is completely confusing, theres no actual section that tells you how to send the card back and where to send it, forms, etc.

I'm in Australia as well, does that pose any problems?

Thanks for the feedback

I found RMAing my XFX 5850 to be quite the pain... in the end they sent me a "new" card, which works perfectly so far.

1)To RMA go to XFX's support page and login or register if you have yet to do that.
http://xfxforce.com/en-us/Help/Support.aspx
2)Click on support ticket and create a ticket for your product. (you need to register the product first)
3)Optional, but I highly recommend calling the RMA line (800-880-3225) the second you are done with creating your support ticket to call em. Be prepared to get the 3rd degree and be accused of being a newb because they will do everything in their power to make sure you don't do an RMA. (I ran tests and put the GPU in another rig to test it and they still didn't say "Oh yes, we would love to help you")
4) They will give you instructions to follow to RMA. With your distance from Cali, the RMA might cost you more than the $10 it did me. They should pay for return shipping, but they will never ever cross-ship (not cool imo)

Word of advice. Don't take too much heat from them.. I was getting pissed from getting tossed around. They don't follow up well so get on their arse about their "testing" and if they try not to help ask for their managers (which I don't think exist) and they will be much more helpful.

My bud bought an XFX 5970 Black Edt, and he couldn't get the Eyefinity working correctly and his performance was sub par for such a powerful card. They didn't want to cover his shipping or give him a non-refurb for his brand new 5970! He ended up working it out with newegg and got a replacement, however the new 5970 had a dead DVI port. Needless to say he went back to his gtx280 at the expense of RMA shipping charges and gave up on ATI and XFX. So lesson learned is XFX isn't the greatest to work with, but in the end it worked out for me and hey, Double Lifetime warranty.
 
Thanks for the replies guys. I got my sapphire 5850 card today for my birthday and slapped it in and crossfire it with my other "broken" card. Plugged the monitor into the sapphire and it still flickers weirdly.

Then I removed the xfx card and just used my new one and it still happened!! But after tweaking a bunch of settings in the ati ccc it took it away a little bit but the frames were unhealthily low and I put them back to default. Any settings I should put ccc to??? What are recommended settings?

I also got a UD7 motherboard today so I'll switch it with my asrock one later today and see if it's actually the mobo.... Any reason why it could be the motherboard and not anything else like the gpu?
 
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