Widescreen Gaming Forum

12.5 Pre worked for me for a while, then one day they started causing Mass Effect 3 to crash (hard lock) without reason or justification, even after a clean restart. I'm betting that this is a case of the drivers work when they want to work :P I swear AMD has to have something they can't understand in hardware causing all of this grief with drivers. *sigh*

I was able to play Mass Effect 3 for a few hours on the 12.4s before the hard locked my system just as a I made it to the final decision point. Luckily the game auto-saved and prevented me from destroying my computer uncontrollably :P

_________________
Proteus:

Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 | Catalyst 12.3 w/o CAP | ASUS P8Z68-V Pro/GEN3 | Intel Core i7 2600K @ 3.4 GHz | 16GB PC3 12800 Corsair Vengeance LP | ASUS DirectCU II 7970 TOP | Creative X-Fi Titanium PCIe (PAX 1.40) | Intel 520 120GB (Intel Smart Response) | 2x WD Black 500GB RAID 0 (Intel Rapid Storage 10.​8.​0.​1003) | 2x WD Black 640GB | Corsair AX850 850W PSU | 2x Dell 2007WFP 20" @ 1680x1050 (via HIS DisplayPort Active SL Adapter) | Samsung SyncMaster F2380 23" @ 1920x1080 (via HIS DisplayPort Active SL Adapter) -- Storage: NexStar NST-400MX-SR w/ 2x WD Black 2TB (via eSATA)

[quote]Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear. I didn't say "reference", I said "referenced". Specifically, I have this HD7970-DC2-3GD5 card.

Excuse me, I didn't catch that. Well, if you have tearing, then it must be either;
1. Plugged in the monitors wrong;
2. Somehow drivers are wrong;
3. A defect card (probably the clock generator).

If it's the first case it's easy; with this card you need to hook up all three monitors on the Displayports. You can't mix the DVI outputs with the Displayports (not even with adapters) because that causes tearing.

If it's the second case; you need to make sure you have the correct drivers. AMD has released special drivers for the 7900 series, you need to download those. If the problem still occurs, clear the harddrive and do a clean install to make sure any previous drivers aren't screwing up.

If it's the third case; good luck. I have no idea how to prove that your card's hardware is actually broken, so I suggest you send it back to the shop and let it get tested there.

Moose

PS: Could you tell me what monitors you use? There are users here that have native DVI monitors mixed up with native DP monitors, connected to their cards without adapters, and experience no tearing.
I have a Dell U2410 as my center monitor (the one experiencing tearing), and two Dell U2412M monitors on the sides. All three monitors are connected by displayport, no adapters or converters. Just ordinary displayport cables right from the card to the monitors.

I don't have the driver you listed installed, when I installed the card I simply got the latest driver from AMD (cat 12.4) and installed that. When I get home I'll try those drivers, and maybe try switching the monitors around to see if its' a particular port on the card that's giving me issues.

g0bel: You may also want to pull the edid data from all three monitors and check that they all are running at the same refresh rate. Sometimes you get the edid saying to run at 59.99Hz and 60Hz etc. Making an edid mask might fix your issue.

_________________
System Core: | Intel Core i5-2500K + ASUS P8Z68-V + 16GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1333 MHz | Win7 x64 | MSI R7970 Lightning 3GB [1105/1400] |
Display: | 3 x Dell Ultrasharp 3007WFP-HC @ 7680x1600 | Dell u3011 |

A quick update on my trials and tribulations:

Things have settled down a bit. I put Windows on auto-update. The lockups have been reduced significantly. When I start Windows, I must be patient and wait for GPU weak to boot up and run for maybe 30 seconds before minimizing it, and also wait for the HDD Activity light to stop blinking. If I do that, the Display driver does not fail and recover. I do not know why waiting works; perhaps it is related to STEAM or Windows booting up and doing whatever they do! As indicated previously, this display driver failure NEVER occurs when the Windows start screen is on. It only happens occasionally now when I try to use programs within Windows 7.

The problem with Winamp has been solved! One person on the Winamp forum advised me that if I use 150% text size with the BIG Bento skin, it will not work. He said it is a known BUG! He was right! So I changed the text to 125% and it now works flawlessly. :)

I now have a new problem to address. :( I am running Railworks 3 Train Simulator 2012. Initially it would NOT load and I had an error message saying AGP driver was missing. It definitely was missing. :) I had installed the drivers from the disk that came with the graphics card and for some reason the CCC was mucked up. The download of the AMD driver 12.4 solved that and the Catalyst Control Center now works. Railworks 3 works too. I can now drive sim trains! De-rail them too! :) I am now trying (several days so far) to install the RailDriver software and hardware. So far no success there. I am conversing with the PI Engineering folks who designed the RailDriver hardware and software.. I hope to solve that sometime this year! :)

I have not tried the Displayport connections yet, nor 3 monitors. I might do that this coming weekend. I try to do things one at a time, or else I get them all mucked up and I get confused. I've been confused a lot lately.

I have not installed my ASUS Xonar STX PCIe sound card yet either.

I am running AMD Display Driver 8.961.0.0 at this time. I will check out the special AMD driver Moose identified. I am not sure which version that is yet.

The AMD driver that I downloaded did NOT include AVIVO and Hydravision as they are apparently considered optional by AMD and I was not given a choice if I recall correctly. Are those needed for eyefinity or any other applications with the ASUS HD 7970 DC2T?

_________________
NEW SYSTEM: ASUS Rampage IV Extreme, Intel i7-3930K, ASUS Rampage IV Extreme, ASUS Xonar Essence STX, Corsair AX1200 PSU, Western Digital 2TB HDD, OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD, 3X Dell U2410, Corsair Obsidian 800D, Corsair H100 CPU cooler, Windows 7 Pro, Corsair Vengeance K90 keyboard, Logitech G9X mouse, 32 GB (8X4GB) G.Skill Ripjaws, ASUS DVD R/W & Blu-ray R/W, Thrustmaster T500RS Wheel & Pedals, Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog, Saitek Pro Flight Yoke & Instrument Panels, RailDriver

I disabled power saving features and operate at "performance" with NEVER as the setting for sleep options. That seems to cut down on the PC sleeping and hanging lockups. I have just set up a screensaver today in case I forget to return to the PC before going to bed! :)

_________________
NEW SYSTEM: ASUS Rampage IV Extreme, Intel i7-3930K, ASUS Rampage IV Extreme, ASUS Xonar Essence STX, Corsair AX1200 PSU, Western Digital 2TB HDD, OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD, 3X Dell U2410, Corsair Obsidian 800D, Corsair H100 CPU cooler, Windows 7 Pro, Corsair Vengeance K90 keyboard, Logitech G9X mouse, 32 GB (8X4GB) G.Skill Ripjaws, ASUS DVD R/W & Blu-ray R/W, Thrustmaster T500RS Wheel & Pedals, Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog, Saitek Pro Flight Yoke & Instrument Panels, RailDriver

Yes, 8.961 is AMD download 12.4. I don't know why they do the identification this way! Seems confusing to me :)

_________________
NEW SYSTEM: ASUS Rampage IV Extreme, Intel i7-3930K, ASUS Rampage IV Extreme, ASUS Xonar Essence STX, Corsair AX1200 PSU, Western Digital 2TB HDD, OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD, 3X Dell U2410, Corsair Obsidian 800D, Corsair H100 CPU cooler, Windows 7 Pro, Corsair Vengeance K90 keyboard, Logitech G9X mouse, 32 GB (8X4GB) G.Skill Ripjaws, ASUS DVD R/W & Blu-ray R/W, Thrustmaster T500RS Wheel & Pedals, Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog, Saitek Pro Flight Yoke & Instrument Panels, RailDriver

Hi Moose. I went to the site you identified for the special 7970 drivers. The site does not indicate which AMD version it is, but does indicate that it is 130.82 MB and dated 1/18/2012.

When I looked at AMD's site at: http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/previous/Pages/radeonaiw_vista64.aspx , they identify drivers as follows:

SIZE Revision Number Release Date
153.5 12.4 4/25/2012
161 12.3 3/28/2012
162 12.2 3/7/2012
109 11.12 12/13/2012
100.9 11.11 11/15/2011
95.7 11.10 10/31/2011
92.3 11.9 9/28/2011

I did not see an AMD version with the same size and date as the site you provided.

Can you provide any insight regarding this particular driver? Which AMD site did it come from? Is it an AMD driver or a modified version, or a partial version?

_________________
NEW SYSTEM: ASUS Rampage IV Extreme, Intel i7-3930K, ASUS Rampage IV Extreme, ASUS Xonar Essence STX, Corsair AX1200 PSU, Western Digital 2TB HDD, OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD, 3X Dell U2410, Corsair Obsidian 800D, Corsair H100 CPU cooler, Windows 7 Pro, Corsair Vengeance K90 keyboard, Logitech G9X mouse, 32 GB (8X4GB) G.Skill Ripjaws, ASUS DVD R/W & Blu-ray R/W, Thrustmaster T500RS Wheel & Pedals, Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog, Saitek Pro Flight Yoke & Instrument Panels, RailDriver

The AMD driver that I downloaded did NOT include AVIVO and Hydravision as they are apparently considered optional by AMD and I was not given a choice if I recall correctly. Are those needed for eyefinity or any other applications with the ASUS HD 7970 DC2T?

Both programs aren't essential for your setup. You can use Hydravision to be able to maximize windows to a single screen instead of all three.

I disabled power saving features and operate at "performance" with NEVER as the setting for sleep options. That seems to cut down on the PC sleeping and hanging lockups. I have just set up a screensaver today in case I forget to return to the PC before going to bed! :)

It has been my observation that some power savings settings are indeed causing crashes. Never turning the monitor helps, because the card won't go into a power saving mode when at least one monitor is active. I have not have a display not responding, since I stopped turning my monitor of a week ago. You don't need to use a screensaver though, unless you are using an old crt monitor. All current monitors won't 'burn in' when you leave them on for longer periods of time.

_________________
Philips BDM4065UC(3840x2160) Acer Z35(2560x1080@200hz); 980 Ti Hybrid @stock ; 6700K 4.6ghz (1.35v)/D15; 16GB 3200mhz; Asus Maximus Ranger VIII; AX860; 1TB 960 EVO; 750GB 840 EVO; Teufel Concept D 500; Sennheiser HD6XX; Windows 10 (latest build)

I did turn the Screen Saver on, but it appears not to work anyway! I went away and came back after the time delay and the monitor was still on without screen saver on. Oh well. Not a big deal as you indicated.

Yes, the power save options seem to be more trouble than they are worth.

I find that if I minimize GPU tweak (which starts all the time on boot-up by default), and click on almost anything before the Notify and Info popup windows shut off, I will get the error message that the Display Driver has stopped working and recovered successfully. However, if I wait until they disappear and the HDD indicator stops flashing, I will not get that message. I wonder what is causing it to occur.

Are you running the same g-card driver that Moose recommended? Or something else?

_________________
NEW SYSTEM: ASUS Rampage IV Extreme, Intel i7-3930K, ASUS Rampage IV Extreme, ASUS Xonar Essence STX, Corsair AX1200 PSU, Western Digital 2TB HDD, OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD, 3X Dell U2410, Corsair Obsidian 800D, Corsair H100 CPU cooler, Windows 7 Pro, Corsair Vengeance K90 keyboard, Logitech G9X mouse, 32 GB (8X4GB) G.Skill Ripjaws, ASUS DVD R/W & Blu-ray R/W, Thrustmaster T500RS Wheel & Pedals, Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog, Saitek Pro Flight Yoke & Instrument Panels, RailDriver

Are you running the same g-card driver that Moose recommended? Or something else?

I am running 8.97-120418a (aka 12.5 unofficial beta). It seems that I had more trouble with the different 12.4 versions. That might be why they have a bad rep (also because of artifacts in several game though).

_________________
Philips BDM4065UC(3840x2160) Acer Z35(2560x1080@200hz); 980 Ti Hybrid @stock ; 6700K 4.6ghz (1.35v)/D15; 16GB 3200mhz; Asus Maximus Ranger VIII; AX860; 1TB 960 EVO; 750GB 840 EVO; Teufel Concept D 500; Sennheiser HD6XX; Windows 10 (latest build)