MSI 7850 Problems - Artifacts

[Jimmy Gibbs Jr]

Hi everyone.

I have to share my pain with some more experienced users in case I might find out the right thing to do.

My specs:

ASUS H87 PLUS
i5 4570 3,2 GHz
8GB RAM Gskill 1600
PSU OCZ 600W
SAMSUNG EVO SSD 120GB
Windows 7 64 bit

Two days ago I upgraded my Sapphire 6670 1GB DDR5 to an MSI 7850 OC 2GB. It's been 2 very difficult days. Main problem is that the card is artifacting in some games and also sometimes flickering when I browse with Firefox (both when using DVI or a DVI-VGA adapter). My monitor is a BenQ make, rather old, maxes at 1280x1024 resolution.

In Skyrim I see flashing pixels at random times if I play at any resolution higher than 1024x768. The same stands for Metro 2033 (those flashing pixely artifacts and also CTD followed by the "display driver stopped.." message), however, if I switch to DirectX 10 or 11 the game runs without problems, even at 1280x1024. RAGE and Left 4 Dead 2 are the other 2 games installed at the moment and they both run without problems. I wanted to install more games from steam (especially DX9 games) and test further, but here is what I actually did. I thought that maybe my new card and my old monitor were not best buddies so I went to my HD TV. Used the HDMI port to connect and tested games at hi-res (that's why I got the bloody 7850 in the first place, planning to buy a good HD pc monitor). Metro 2033 at 1080, frequent flashes and artifacts, skyrim as well. RAGE and L4D2 were still fine. I have tried:

-Altering the 2d/3d clocks with Afterburner and Asus gpu tweak,
-Catalyst 13.1 and 13.12 drivers(with 13.12 the DVI port of the card was acting stupid with the little monitor, basically refusing to light up on startup, had to replug to get some picture)
-underclocking the memory clock
-increasing voltage (sice this is a factory OC card and maybe needs some extra juice. V was set at 1138 I raised it to 1225)
-Switching on/off AA, Vsync

Nothing worked. I was almost certain this was a skyrim issue but when I saw the same pixels in Metro 2033 I was mortified and convinced it's the GPU. I will test more games tonight and see what happens at hi-res with games like Fallout NV, Borderlands 2, Bioshock Infinite, Witcher 2 and Guild Wars 2 but I was hoping for some advice too. Should I RMA the card or insist on fixing the issues? I would give the extra 30-40 € and go for a 7870 or a R9 270. I have read soo many posts from heart-broken AMD 7xxx owners and I don't know what to do.

To anyone who actually took the trouble to read my huge post: You are awesome and you have my sincere thanks. I'd be eternally grateful if you could help.

My kindest regards.

EDIT:


OK, so I have a few pics and a little update after some thorough testing.
This is what I get in Metro 2033, Skyrim, Fallout NV and Borderlands 2:

http://i1328.photobucket.com/albums/w532/Tanuki13/Borderlands22014-01-0113-53-50-56_zps1d1ac8ba.png
http://i1328.photobucket.com/albums/w532/Tanuki13/FalloutNV2013-12-3117-49-25-57_zps78a55dcd.png
http://i1328.photobucket.com/albums/w532/Tanuki13/TESV2013-12-3117-41-19-86_zps6a9f298c.png
http://i1328.photobucket.com/albums/w532/Tanuki13/Metro20332014-01-0101-08-50-20_zpsd1b7c28c.png

The glitch is frequent enough to easily capture those screenshots with fraps, flashing every few seconds.

GPU temp hovers around 45 and peaks at 50 C. GPU usage is between 50-90 % at all games (usually hovering around 70% and spiking at 90%)
Core clock is fixed at 900MHz under load and 300MHz idle while Memory clock is 1200MHz load and 150MHz idle.
The artifacts appear on both monitors (my 1280x1024 BenQ and also the big HD TV downstairs at 1920x1080)
I am inclined to RMA the card tomorrow or the day after, I just want to exhaust the possibility that this might be some other hardware-related fault which I have yet not discovered (I would be really miserable If I get a replacement 7850 or If I buy a 7870 with the refund money and still have the same problems). Before packing the box to send the card back I will try the other PCI slot on the mobo. I don't want to flash the BIOS and risk frying up things, my ASUS H87 is brand new, I think newer than the GPU, and the whole computer worked fine with the previous 6670 card. RAM should be ok too.

I have tried catalyst 13.1, 13.12, and 12.6 with the same results. One interesting thing is that fallout, when auto-detecting specs, sets the game setting to medium quality, which I find hilarious but leads me to believe that the card is indeed the culprit. Needless to say that I could play at ultra high with the 6670.

For powering the card I am using the pci-e extension from the PSU not the double molex to 6-pin that came with the card and judging from my devices i shouldnt be using more than 350-375 W at highest loads.

Once again any thoughts, suggestions or expertise would be greatly appreciated.
Happy new year folks

It's gonna be a good one...

 

[Ventanni]

I think you have a bad card, honestly.

 

[Termie]

I have owned and tested that card. Didn't have that problem, but it looks like a VRAM issue, based on past experience.

Try underclocking the memory using Catalyst Control Center and see if that helps. The fact that it glitches in Firefox is concerning, however, as it probably is already downclocked in that app. Have you tried another browser? I actually stopped using Firefox long ago because it forces some video cards to run at full clocks.

All this being said, it does seem that the card has a problem, but if it works with downclocked VRAM, at least you know what's wrong with the card.

 

[24601]

All AMD/ATi cards glitch in Firefox. (Experience from Tahiti and every card after)

The problem you describe in the rest of your posts is obviously your ROPs.

RMA the card.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

Don't spend the shipping money on an RMA just yet. Try unistalling the card. Make sure the previous card drivers are gone too. Use a util like driver sweeper to get rid of everything.

I had a 7850 that I was on the verge or RMA'ing for "driver stopped working". I ended up having to do a clean install of win 7 for the dang thing to work properly.

 

[JDG1980]

All AMD/ATi cards glitch in Firefox. (Experience from Tahiti and every card after)

Random colored blocks appearing in the browser? I see the same thing with both my old 7750 and my new 7870. Both cards were adequately cooled - neither had core temps ever getting above the mid-60s - and artifacts never appeared anywhere else, so I'm inclined to blame Firefox for this one.

On the 7870 it seems to be worse if I'm running Scrypt mining (intensity=12) at the same time. That generates artifacts in Firefox on a much more regular basis. (I usually use intensity=12 for multitasking, and switch to intensity=18 when I'm away from the system and can leave it dedicated to mining.) Again, this seems to be limited to Firefox: when I do 2D gaming (on the bsnes emulator) and mining at the same time, no artifacts appear. Nor have I seen any in Google Chrome.

 

[Jimmy Gibbs Jr]

Thank you all for the replies.
I was prepared to do a clean win7 install tonight just to exhaust any other possibility before I RMA the card. I will actually do that If i find the time.

I have installed/reinstalled/wiped/cleaned drivers in all possible ways and tried 13.1, 13.12 and 12.6 WHQL and nothing worked. The "driver stopped..." message appears only when I run Metro 2033 in DirectX9. I couldn't care less about Mozilla (slight screen flickering, no colored blocks), I could live with that but I have a bigger game-ruining problem here. I have also tried reseating the card in the slot too.

Just take a look at the links I posted and see those screenshots with the checkerboard artifacts for yourself, this is what I'm dealing with, in any resolution (except for windowed mode). As I said I tried to underclock and to reset 2D/3D clocks but this didnt work either.

Glitchy squarey pixely artifacts is my issue, in almost every game (except RAGE so far). The kind you get when you overclock or when the VRAM (or maybe the DIMMs on the mobo?) are dodgy.

Thank you all again for responding, any other thoughts?

 

[KingFatty]

Just FYI I recently ran into similar blocks arranged at an angle, but across the entire screen, after blowing out a 5850 with mining to where it's not stable at stock clocks or underclocked. I smelled something burnt, so will take apart the card to see what I broke, but it was due to my abuse of the card so I won't be RMAing it. However, just wanted to point out that I broke my card and saw a similar pattern to what your pictures show.

 

[AlucardX]

looks like a hardware issue to me. if the GPU temp is reported OK, maybe there's other components that are overheating that aren't reported in these utilities. Could try taking apart the factory cooler and/or heatsinks and make sure everything is making good contact and applied correctly.

 

[SiliconWars]

Random colored blocks appearing in the browser? I see the same thing with both my old 7750 and my new 7870. Both cards were adequately cooled - neither had core temps ever getting above the mid-60s - and artifacts never appeared anywhere else, so I'm inclined to blame Firefox for this one.

On the 7870 it seems to be worse if I'm running Scrypt mining (intensity=12) at the same time. That generates artifacts in Firefox on a much more regular basis. (I usually use intensity=12 for multitasking, and switch to intensity=18 when I'm away from the system and can leave it dedicated to mining.) Again, this seems to be limited to Firefox: when I do 2D gaming (on the bsnes emulator) and mining at the same time, no artifacts appear. Nor have I seen any in Google Chrome.

I notice this with my 7850 (blue blocks that can be "wiped away") but I never had any issues with firefox and a multitude of previous AMD cards though.

 

[Jimmy Gibbs Jr]

I have packed the card and I'm ready to ship it. The retailer offers to replace the card, give me a full refund or send another card (and I'll just pay the difference). I just noticed that almost all cards are 7-10€ cheaper if I get the 2gb version instead of the 1gb. Same model either OC or not, full retail or lite retail... The same card, 2gb is cheaper. Stands for MSI, Sapphire, ASUS etc.. What the hell is going on here??

 

[Jimmy Gibbs Jr]

I am inclined to blame the MSI OC version (or that one particular card which was probably a dodgy individual). If the Sapphire 7850 non-OC (arriving on Monday) is also iffy I suppose it's either my mobo compatibility with the 7850 series or some sort of thing that I haven't figured out yet (drivers, BIOS...I doubt it's my PSU it's OCZ 600W, but then again you never know). I shall post on Tuesday again and let you know (those who are interested).

 

[Jimmy Gibbs Jr]

Sapphire 7850 arrived today. Works like a charm, with latest Catalyst (13.12). Metro 2033 doesn't care if I use DX9 or whatever, It doesn't glitch, Skyrim doesn't glitch, Borderlands doesn't glitch, Fallout auto-detects ultra high setting and .... doesn't glitch. No flickering in firefox. Don't know what else to say. Either that one first card was a dud or you all should stay away from that cheap factory-OCed MSI 7850 2GB. In any case, the new card is flawless and I am a happy man!

 

[KingFatty]

I think the first card was a dud, I'm guessing memory issue. I mentioned my broken 5850 above and how it had similar artifacts to your problem, and here is a picture. Note that I've already successfully fixed my 5850 by baking it in the oven, so you shouldn't have to do that with a new card. But I bet your issue could also have been fixed by throwing it in the oven too, in case anyone else with a similar problem is out of warranty or doesn't want to RMA:

 

[Jimmy Gibbs Jr]

Hey thanks for posting again and for uploading the pics. I know what you mean, I remember baking a 1800XT a few years back. However, that MSI was a brand new card and I sort of demand a perfectly working item when I spend good cash for a new gpu (if It's a driver thing or a mobo compatibility issue I'm happy to exhaust all possibilities and work it out but it seemed that card had other problems, either VRAM or power supply related). It would be interesting to try (if I had the cash and the patience) another piece of the same MSI card and even more 7850 OC cards from other manufacturers with my rig, to determine the root of the fault but I have to say I would like to enjoy my new sapphire baby. Sapphire has never let me down by the way... Easily the top ATI brand out there.

Either way, thanks to everyone again for posting.