Small issue that bugs me.

[alxcsb]

The rig that displayed the issue is in the sig. I was enjoying Dirt 3, latest patch, and after about 40 minutes the screen went black, audio sounded like it got stuck in the same loop, and the only way to fix it was to shut it down from the button and start it up again (reset button wasn't working). This is the only time it did this, and at the time I had an external USB hard drive plugged into one of the front ports (USB 2.0). I'm using the 12.11 beta drivers for the graphics card and I've tested the rig thoroughly running Prime95 blend and Furmark at the same time. GPU stabilized to around 63 degrees and CPU around 53-54 on the hottest core. No errors, no nothing. Runs any other game perfectly (just ended a 6-7 hour session of F1 2012). If it matters at all, Dirt 3 is purchased legally and had the latest, annoyingly slow, update from Windows Live. F1 2012, on the other hand, is a "borrowed" copy, till I get the package from Amazon. Pulls X1840 in 3DMark 2011, runs loops for as long as I can be bothered to watch it. I am just worried that it might be a sign of some upcoming major hardware meltdown, and I just want to be sure that it was just a one time event, that just happened and will not be encountered again. Thank you for your time guys. Cheers.

 

[seumasbeathan]

From what I have heard Furmark is not recommended. Also are you sure it was a pc crash? A similar thing has happened to me a few times in BF3 (black screen and audio loop) and all those times I have either just left it to sort itself out for a few minutes or ctrl+alt+delete and closed down bf3.exe

 

[alxcsb]

From what I have heard Furmark is not recommended. Also are you sure it was a pc crash? A similar thing has happened to me a few times in BF3 (black screen and audio loop) and all those times I have either just left it to sort itself out for a few minutes or ctrl+alt+delete and closed down bf3.exe

Tried Ctrl+Alt+Del and tabbing to desktop, didn't work. However, I do believe I didn't give it more than a minute to do it's thing, maybe it was still churning on the issue. Just want to mention that it has not done it again, regardless of application or game running. And why is Furmark not recommended? Any other GPU stress tests that are more reliable?

 

[seumasbeathan]

I don't really overclock my gpu at the moment as it is bottle necked by the cpu anyway but from what I have heard furmark can damage cards

 

[Josh Weston]

Cards used to be damaged by Furmark, and some even had clever code to throttle themselves down when Furmark was launched. Using something like Unigine is preferred.

There's no real way for us to say if this is going to happen again, to be honest. If it does happen, it may be a good idea to rollback the drivers to an official release, not beta version.

 

[alxcsb]

Cards used to be damaged by Furmark, and some even had clever code to throttle themselves down when Furmark was launched. Using something like Unigine is preferred.

There's no real way for us to say if this is going to happen again, to be honest. If it does happen, it may be a good idea to rollback the drivers to an official release, not beta version.

Forgot to mention Unigine Heaven, runs for hours without issues at all. Thank you for answering. If it does appear again I'll detail the issue. Cheers.

 

[Deejeta]

If its just dirt 3, its just that. See if there is cap profile for it. Or roll-back the drivers.
If it survived furmark and every other game I reckon the card is fine. Your temps are good enough.

 

[Master&Puppet]

Furmark runs all the cores flatout - GPU cores are designed to flash on and off to generate a scene - not work long and hard like a CPU core. Furmark degraded GPUs (including my old 5850s) because of that.

I use unigine heaven primarily and PC mark 11 for balanced stability.

 

[alxcsb]

Just happened again this evening, it was just hanging around in the main menu of Dirt3 while I was watching F1 quali (thumbs up McLaren boys). This makes me think my combination of hardware and software hates the Dirt 3 engine, so I'm giving up on trying to solve it. The bloody game isn't worth it anyway. I'm just wondering what the problem actually is, is it a bug in the game or is it the drivers, maybe hardware?

 

[Master&Puppet]

Have you got an overclock on the 6100 that might be causing it?

 

[SieB]

Are you using the 12.11 beta 8 drivers?

I had problems with the beta 8 version, high idle temps, crashing and unstable clocks that were stable with 12.11 beta 7.

 

[alxcsb]

No overclocking at all, apart from the Sapphire factory one on the 7850. And even if I did OC, I think there would have been problems with several games, not just one. It appears to be the 12.11 beta 8 drivers. Any chance I can find 7 somewhere?

 

[SieB]

Here's a download for 12.11 beta 7

http://drivers.softpedia.com/get/GRAPHICS-BOARD/AMD/AMD-Catalyst-Display-Driver-1211-Beta-7.shtml

 

[alxcsb]

Thank you. Installing now, hopefully the issue goes away.

 

[iBeInspire]

I would assume the problem is with the game itself, since Anything else (Hardware/drivers/OC) would have an effect on All games, not just the one...
Do you perhaps use a certain gamepad or wheel with Dirt 3? Maybe that's causing the problems...

 

[alxcsb]

I'm not using any sort of controller, and it just happened again with the 7 drivers. I'm just going to give up on this, not worth the trouble. Tried contacting Codemasters about the issue, it's going to be several months before they answer, I suppose, so till then, Dirt 3 is off limits.

 

[Master&Puppet]

And even if I did OC, I think there would have been problems with several games, not just one.

Not usually true - if an overclock is just ever-so slightly undervolted then you'll have issues in some programs and games but not others since they will all load the CPU differently. Since you aren't overclocking that shouldn't be a concern though.

 

[Bang]

Not usually true - if an overclock is just ever-so slightly undervolted then you'll have issues in some programs and games but not others since they will all load the CPU differently. Since you aren't overclocking that shouldn't be a concern though.

However, it might not hurt to try underclocking The GPU a hair, or bumping the voltage up .001 to try and stabilise it. If you decide to lower the core clock, try a 5mhz unbump to start. I've seen it help in situations like this.

Also, you might want to try a non-beta driver. Go to one that's fully official.

 

[alxcsb]

A new update on the issue, it just happened in BF3. The same thing again, black screen, sound is normal for a couple of seconds, than starts to jitter, eventually ending up as a broken loop lasting a fraction of a second, on repeat. I don't understand this, in most games it runs flawlessly, full details, full HD, not a hiccup. In Dirt3 and BF3 it does this. Although, I have to say that I have been through most of the BF3 campaign and it only happened once. Maybe I should avoid playing games with 3 in the title? Still no idea what is causing this, I will start playing around with some settings in the driver and BIOS, see if they solve it. Problem is I can't really force the rig to repeat the issue, it seems to be completely random, not linked to any constant, such as load or temperatures. It can run for days on end, regardless of what it runs, without issue, but in some cases it just crashes like this. Thank you for any ideas as to how I can solve this.

 

[alxcsb]

So, I managed to find a way to duplicate the event using Unigine Heaven, where it crashes as described after about an hour. I tried underclocking the 7850 to reference clocks and the same happens. What should be the course of action with this? I am thinking of a BIOS update, maybe there is some issue with compatibility between mobo and graphics card, cause it looks to me as if the driver crashes and everything else keeps working fine. If that doesn't work would it be viable to place the 7850 in the second PCIe slot, or would that not work at all? Thank you.