MAJOR Emerging Issue with Radeon Cards

[Olo401]

I've been following this for about a week now but apparently it's been an issue longer than that.. unfortunately the problem is now so widespread that it needs its own topic.

There is a serious recurring problem with the new Radeon 5xxx cards (and in some cases even the older 48xx cards) where the video will go completely grey-screen and crash your computer, or you'll see lines across the screen. This happens most often in 2d modes (i.e. simple graphics arenas like the Windows desktop) but has been reported in 3d games. The problem is not native to any single brand or model of card, nor any particular operating system (people have been having issues on 32 and 64-bit, all versions of Windows and even some Linux distros), but a recent update for Windows 7 did make the problem much more noticeable.

Some folks have been able to find a temporary fix by setting the GPU clock idle to a slightly higher setting (400MHz core, 900MHz memory), which seems to indicate the problem is driver-related, though it could be a setting in the video card's BIOS. Let's be clear - this problem will not be solved by returning your video card to where you bought it.

BTW AMD/ATI is working on a fix, although they are severely downplaying the scope of this problem at their press briefings which REALLY pisses me off.

[jmc]

For once, i'm happy to have a out of date ATi card...........


I fucking hate when companies downplay, or don't even accept their products are having widespread issues. Subaru (cars) were doing the same thing lately too

[Isiolia]

For once, i'm happy to have a out of date ATi card...........


I fucking hate when companies downplay, or don't even accept their products are having widespread issues. Subaru (cars) were doing the same thing lately too

Well, it does depend on how widespread the issue is and/or if it's something due to time.

I mean, the HD4850 is one of the cards named. There are a LOT of people with one, myself included. Personally, I've had zero problems with it thus far.

Possible that it's a "wear" issue maybe? Like Apple had with some of the nVidia chips in their laptops?

[Mabubeezareel]

XP 32-bit user here, and I recently upgrade from a 4850 to a 5850, and never saw any of these issues with the 4850. That card worked perfectly fine for over 18 months, though I hadn't updated drivers in a very long time. However, once I installed the 5850 and did some OCing with Overdrive in the CCC, I started to notice pixel jutter every 10-15 seconds. It was especially noticeable in Windows, but rarely in any 3D games. Still, drove me absolutely crazy. Once I figured out that Overdrive was what was causing the problem, I simply turned it off and haven't had a single issue with it since.

Sucks not being able to use Overdrive to OC the card, but I don't really have much use for it at the moment anyway. If I do want to OC it now, are there any 3rd party apps that I can use to do so?

[Olo401]

Well, it does depend on how widespread the issue is and/or if it's something due to time.

I mean, the HD4850 is one of the cards named. There are a LOT of people with one, myself included. Personally, I've had zero problems with it thus far.

Possible that it's a "wear" issue maybe? Like Apple had with some of the nVidia chips in their laptops?

Yeah kinda the same deal here.. I have a 4870 and other than some minor gridline/artifacting in FFXI I haven't had any problems at all, but it's on the list of problem cards. Then again I haven't upgraded my driver set since Catalyst 9.5 was released.

[Kryssan]

XP 32-bit user here, and I recently upgrade from a 4850 to a 5850, and never saw any of these issues with the 4850. That card worked perfectly fine for over 18 months, though I hadn't updated drivers in a very long time. However, once I installed the 5850 and did some OCing with Overdrive in the CCC, I started to notice pixel jutter every 10-15 seconds. It was especially noticeable in Windows, but rarely in any 3D games. Still, drove me absolutely crazy. Once I figured out that Overdrive was what was causing the problem, I simply turned it off and haven't had a single issue with it since.

Sucks not being able to use Overdrive to OC the card, but I don't really have much use for it at the moment anyway. If I do want to OC it now, are there any 3rd party apps that I can use to do so?

ATI Tray Tools. Stop using Catalyst period, its a clunker.

[fishstix]

it makes sense, in Aion, people -seemed- to be having more trouble with ATI cards and crashing than nvidia

but could just be coincidence since it was pretty buggy overall

[Killgannon]

can i get a link to this problem on AMD's site or something similar so i can prove to some morons how inferior ATI/AMD is please?

[ikariiiii]

actually funny thing is, someone here (fishstix?) recommended a radeon xfx 5770 card and it was bugged in the same way, kept crashing on gray lines. luckily by the time i figured out it was the card causing this i was on my 30th day for newegg's return policy

[Olo401]

I've been recommending the 5770 to everyone as well.. This kinda thing is really frustrating, especially the response from AMD/ATI. There are enthusiast fixes that have been out in circulation now for several months but they didn't even say there was a problem until the most recent drivers started really screwing things up. They could have easily taken an extra month or two to perfect the driver & BIOS settings and address any bugs - instead they rushed to market for the holidays causing all these problems AND the ongoing product shortages.

I'm still not going to say the product is inferior to NVidia though for two reasons - there's no comparable next-gen product on the market yet to the Radeon 5-series, and the problem is not hardware related but a matter of getting the drivers correct.

[Tymon]

4850s 4870s and 4890s are very very popular cards, this is quite an interesting issue indeed

Happened to my friend today. Glad I have an 8800GT, but this is lame because I was looking to buy a 4870 to replace this one.

[Chicomagiko]

ATI Status: TOLD

[Furtwangler]

can i get a link to this problem on AMD's site or something similar so i can prove to some morons how inferior ATI/AMD is please?

All of ati's cards are beating comparable nvidia cards (which are mainly just remanufactured 9 series for the most part) on benchmarks, and they are set with dx11 should you even have your card long enough to use it. I will agree that their PR at least is way in the shitter but idk about the whole company being inferior.

[Kryssan]

ATIs drivers have usually needed extra help. Sorry, but I disagree with you, there is absolutely nothing wrong with their cards (well, except the 5890s being downrated because of regulations on how much power draw they can have so they don't perform as well as they should, but I digress). As previously stated, this is a software issue. If you're having trouble with the vanilla drivers, use the 3rd party ones. Honestly, with ATI its almost always a better idea anyway. Catalyst is horribly clunky to boot.


I've never had an issue with my cards, and I stress test them to hell and back, with crazy registry settings just to see what little else I can get out of them performance wise. I understand the 'it should just work' mentality the average consumer has, and I agree with it; but by the same token you should understand the 'do your research' mentality before buying. ATI's drivers are typically lacking. Its an area they've been weak in, and AMD purchasing them hasn't really changed it.


TL;DR: Use the cards. Get better drivers.

[Auspice]

Thankfully I'm running 9.1 on my 4850 since nothing higher works with XI heh.

[Xanthe]

Thankfully I'm running 9.1 on my 4850 since nothing higher works with XI heh.

10.1 is actually working for me in Win7 Pro x64 (HD4890). I can't speak for AA/AF, but I have none of the low fps issues I had with the other 9.x drivers.

[fishstix]

It's a shame this is happening, the 5000 series looked very promising. Maybe if this hurts them bad enough, they'll drop the prices after fixing the issue

[Amastacia]

I had this issue before with my 5870.

Upgrading drivers and disabling the HDMI Audio I wasn't using seems to have cured it.

Interestingly, I run a dual-head setup, and only my second monitor would go gray, the primary would just blank out.

I remember reading that the root cause was a conflict with the HDMI Audio driver, whether that's true or not I can't say for sure. I do know that disabling the HDMI Audio driver virtually eliminated crash problems and completely got rid of grayscreen crashes.

[Auspice]

10.1 is actually working for me in Win7 Pro x64 (HD4890). I can't speak for AA/AF, but I have none of the low fps issues I had with the other 9.x drivers.

I'll have to look into that because running 9.1 makes my PC lag like a mother fucker when I load up Windows due to some glitch with dual monitors.

[Milks]

this is why i had to rma my first 5770. new one is fine though