So, this has started happening recntly. causes?

[Savage_Smithy]

hi,
I have a powercolor hd7870 xt myst graphics card and recently, not so often but sometimes the graphics card craps itself and i have to restart to get it back to normal.
edit: seems to not be load related as it has happened in games as well as idling

This has to be a gpu error because i have another monitor running off the igp and that still works fine when this happens so i know the pc hasnt crashed completely. currently on 13.8 drivers and will update to 13.9 and see if anything changes.

anybody had this before? if so what was the solution?

thanks,
smithy

 

[MrKambo]

i think, this is a gpu memory issue

one way to rule it out, is too force 3D clocks for the gpu and see if the problem goes away

 

[Savage_Smithy]

force 3d clocks?
sorry never really played with gpu settings before aside from the little afterburner sliders once (at default now)

 

[MrKambo]

in afterburner, open settings, and under general i think its the force constant voltage option, tick that and see how it goes, bare in mind your card will be warmer at idle because of this

 

[Savage_Smithy]

Thanks for the advice, just another thing, since the error happens randomly and not that often I'm not sure how to make it happen under "normal" circumstances so I'm not sure how to gauge if forcing the voltage has any effect.

Are there no utilities to check the health of the vram and gpu?

also if forcing the voltage seems to stop it would that mean it is the vram and since its under warranty would you think i'd be able to exchange it?

also it may be unrelated but the card has been displaying black squares/shapes on things like facebook chat since i got it. http://forum.overclock3d.net/showthread.php?t=52399

 

[MrKambo]

thing is could be a number of things causing it, when using multi monitor setups sometimes the memory could downclock and causes that issue, AMD power-play does this alot, ive read about many cases.

if forcing the voltage/constant 3D clocks doesnt work, then the GPU could be faulty, but because you cant force it to reproduce the problem its trail and error, there is nothing worse than sending hardware back for the RMA team to find nothing wrong with it, then you end up replacing PSU's and cables and all sorts trying to figure out what's wrong with your system.

if you could list your entire spec list, we can try getting to the bottom of it

 

[Savage_Smithy]

System specs:
Cpu: i5 3570k @ 4.2GHz
Motherboard: msi z77a-g45
RAM: 8gb avexir core blue 1600MHz
SSD: sandisk 128Gb
HDD: 1TB western digital caviar black
PSU: thermaltake evo blue 650W
GPU: powercolor 7870 tahiti le myst edition
Case: fractal design arc midi r2

 

[MrKambo]

im slightly concerned about that PSU for a start, thermaltake aren't exactly the most respectable of brands.

did you have any luck with forcing constant voltage?

 

[Savage_Smithy]

I cannot say for sure, but it hasn't happened today or yesterday since i forced the voltage. The powersupply is on my list of things to do when i have the money but for now it isnt an option to change it out.

 

[garih]

i sometimes get this on my sapphire 7870 oc. but only on a monitor that is connected over displayport... gone back to dvi and dont get it anymore

 

[demonking]

sounds like you are in need of an RMA