xfx black edition 7970 xfire bsods

[nvidiajunkie]

i keep bsod'ing w/ 12.1-12.4 drivers, and the same # for the CAPs. below is what i have:

2x XFX 7970 Black Edition 3GB
Asus P8Z68-PRO/GEN3
i7 2600k (default clocks atm)
2x WD Caviar Black in Raid 0
16gb corsair xms ddr3 1600 11-11-11-10 (2x8gig)
win 7 ultimate x64
Corsair HX1050

i get random bsods and one one of my monitors (thats 1080p capable, both are) when it full screens from one to the other, or just on one in general, a purple outline (outside the desktop's default set area by xfire), and then the craziness thats my 3dmark 11 extreme score: x4773. much lower than i think it should be in a xfire with those cards.


any ideas lemme know.

 

[Glaze132]

Have you tried each card separately? Do they both work when only one is installed? I noticed you didn't list your psu. What do you have powering your system?

 

[nvidiajunkie]

edited OP to reflect psu. I'll have time tonight to check...but the bsods are completely random. they dont always do it, and its a diff't error each time for the most part. also, if anyone knows a way short of a camera to take a screen of the bsod, lemme kno...might help my cause. thanks.

 

[EarthDog]

There is an option in the bios on what to do with a BSOD. Have it stay on screen.

 

[Frakk]

Try each card separately.

 

[mrGrey]

you don't need a camera. In the "search programs and files" type sysdm.cpl.
Select Advanced tab. Select settings in the "Startup and recovery" section.
Delesect "automatically restart". "small dump directory" should be "%SystemRoot%\Minidump". This will stop windows from restarting when you get a BSOD. It will also dump the crash dump into "C:\Windows\minidump" directory.
you can get the windbg from microsoft to read the file. I'm getting the same issue. i have a;
Corsair tx850v2
Asus P8Z77-M Pro
Corsair Vengence 8GB
xfx ati radeon 7950HD
intel core i7-3770S
240gb Force 3 SSD drive.
every now and then i get a BSOD. The last time, all i had running was chrome,notepad++ and calc. Its a brand new build and i used the latest drivers. i contact XFX and they told me to unistall the driver and use the driver sweeper program. i didn't see how that would help as this is a brand new build. i did it anyway and it didn't help.

 

[mrGrey]

update

Just an update. After trying the card in another box for 3 days i found no problems. The conclusion is that it must be the driver which is what i thought it would be. I already tried the driver found on the cd, which i found to be the same version on the xfx website however the driver on the cd crashed and did not install properly, but the driver on the website did install correctly. i had tried this before trying the card in another machine. I re-installed the xfx card in my new machine and searched for an older "stable" driver . I was able to download an older driver from

"http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/RC11Driver.aspx"

i ran the machine for 24 hours yesterday and 8 hours today NO BLUE SCREEN. Hopefully the problem is resolved. if things change i will re-post.

If i was offered an older driver by xfx at the beginning i would have been productive 8 days ago. Rather than the "have you tried turning it on and off again support approach". The support was pretty useless it was by chance that i found a link to an older driver that i managed to resolve my driver problems.

Then today i found that nvidia released its 670 for the same price i paid for the 7950 with better performance than the 7970 so i'm not very happy.

 

[Ivy]

The cheapest GTX 670 in my country is 550$, the cheapest 7950 is 500$, so its 10% difference. About performance the difference seems to be ~10% so the price/performance ratio seems to be fine. Prehaps you had a special offer but dont point at AMD in that case because considering the average market price in my country, the stuff seems fine. It can always be cheaper, but the question is: How trusted are such offers?

Well, at Overclockers the 670 GTX indeed is a bit stronger at performance/dollar ratio, however, just a small margin. http://www.overclockers.com/evga-gtx-670-sc-review What have to be said: The tested 670 GTX is a superclocked version, which may have a better than usual value, however, the 7950 can be OC in order to match the value.

Anyway, whats surely the most important thing is to get the stuff to work, although i cant help at that point.


One of the factors i look down with critical eyes: Force 3 drive, its one of those SF drives which are known to be a lover of BSODs. So try to check out every single piece and its possible stability issues, not only the GPU. the GPU can be clocked down in order to increase stability. In term there is still crashes or BSODs, the failure could be at some other spot. GPU stability issues is rarely random. Usualy a GPU can be tested pretty good by putting a lot of load on it. However, one of those stuff which can not be load-tested is a SSD.

Its no easy work and certainly the most annoying thing any PC tech have to deal with. All what helps is countless testing and experience regarding the possible stability weakness of certain spots.

 

[mrGrey]

Depends on the review i've looked at anandtech, tomshardware et all. The review was done on a stock card not an overclocked card. They all show better performance than the 7970 which is £420 + card here the 670 is 300-340. so even if its only 2% performance increase i would still go for the 670. and don't forget amd will probably adjust their price once again.

My system is stable for three days so i know it wasn't the ssd drive. I had tried my machine for three days without the 7950 and it was stable. There is something wrong with the 12.4 version of the driver on windows 7 64bit. i tried the 7950 in a vista 32bit machine(v12.4 7950 driver for vista 32bit) and it was stable for 3 days.

 

[Frakk]

Depends on the review i've looked at anandtech, tomshardware et all. The review was done on a stock card not an overclocked card. They all show better performance than the 7970 which is £420 + card here the 670 is 300-340. so even if its only 2% performance increase i would still go for the 670. and don't forget amd will probably adjust their price once again.

My system is stable for three days so i know it wasn't the ssd drive. I had tried my machine for three days without the 7950 and it was stable. There is something wrong with the 12.4 version of the driver on windows 7 64bit. i tried the 7950 in a vista 32bit machine(v12.4 7950 driver for vista 32bit) and it was stable for 3 days.

Where did you get £420 + from? its £360 to £400
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=56&subid=938

The GTX 670 is £330 to £420
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=1914&subid=2294

The GTX 680 is £420 to £550
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=1914&subid=2255

 

[mrGrey]

http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials...R5+PCI-Express+Graphics+Card+?productId=49839

your right about the 7970 for 360 to 400 they have come down a bit since the last time i looked.

 

[Bosco]

Sounds like there may be remnants of Nvidia drivers in your registry.....Did you reinstall Windows if you came over from Nvidia? I know its not necessary but its usually a painless process if you do that initially.