MSI Afterburner Borked My Rig

[Elfear]

I was using AB last night to find my max memory overclock and after getting a checkered screen, the display driver went haywire. The screen kept flashing on and off and the keyboard and mouse quit responding. Rebooted (which generally solves the issue when I'm unstable) and as soon as Windows loads up I get the same flashing non-responsive computer. Tried uninstalling AB (choosing to NOT save settings) and get the same issue. Finally booted into Windows using the DVI port on my motherboard, uninstalled all traces of AMD software (again choosing NOT to save any settings), rebooted using my 7970, and reinstalled the drivers. Everything was working at that point.

So I reinstalled AB, put in the EULA info to unlock the overclocking, used the -xcl extension to extend the clocks, and rebooted. Got the same endless loop of flashing and then blank screen with warning messages that the display driver had quit working. This was without touching any of the clocks. As soon as I got into Windows everything went haywire again. Tried deleting all the entries in the registry relating to AB but that didn't seem to help.

I'm thinking there must be something left over from AB that is raising clocks to the unstable setting when it originally crashed so when I reinstall AB it picks up those settings and causes the display driver to wig out. When I first install AB I can open it up and everything seems ok, but once I reboot same looping cycle.

Any ideas how to fix AB without a complete re-installation of Windows?

 

[RavenSEAL]

Damn, that sucks :\

Have you tried a system restore?

 

[blackened23]

I had a few issues with MSI afterburner as well. Honestly I have better luck just using afterburner to extend clocks and then just use ccc to overclock with. Be cautious about selecting "apply overclock at startup" -- if you select that and
have an incorrect OC you will have a reboot loop.

I'm using crossfire so i'm just sticking to 1125/1575 for both cards for the time being.

Edit: System restore might be a good bet - restore to something prior to the afterburner installation. You can do this by booting off your windows 7 media and just select repair.

 

[Termie]

Can you get into Afterburner long enough during the flashing screen to set the option to not apply overclocks at startup? That should do the trick. It's the little green button on the lower left hand corner of the main afterburner screen. You don't even have to go into settings.

 

[suklee]

Are you using the latest beta 11?

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=2842

 

[RavenSEAL]

Also, try booting into Safe Mode.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

I'm pretty sure Afterburner is causing my computer to not reawaken from sleep. I can game for hours on end with no artifacts at 1125/1575, but I appear to be having some weird windows bugs and I'm not sure it's the GPU.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

I have had a similar issue, but I got BSODs instead. I have found that if you try to overclock beyond the CCC limits with "apply overclocking at start up enabled" the display drivers do not like it one bit.

My method for getting extended clocks is to use a registry hack.

http://www.techimo.com/forum/graphi...9-enable-higher-overclocks-ccc-reg-entry.html

Then I use afterburner, without having to enable their experimental overclocking mode. Only problem with this setup is I am not sure if it will work with the 7970. DO YOUR RESEARCH before you try it.

 

[Grooveriding]

If all else fails a sysprep, if that is no good, reinstall :/

You could try a registry search for 'afterburner/msi' and delete every entry.

 

[blackened23]

Sirs I need help.

Has ANYONE found a way to extend clocks on GPU2 in crossfire.

I can extend clocks on GPU1, but not GPU2. I get weird issues when oc'ing gpu1 but not gpu2. In my experience they need to be identical in settings for stability. Halp.

 

[know of fence]

Are you using the latest beta 11?
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=2842

I just found out that Afterburner is based on Rivatuner (it's not the usual MSI ____ware), they also have a support forum.
http://forums.guru3d.com/forumdisplay.php?f=55

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Sirs I need help.

Has ANYONE found a way to extend clocks on GPU2 in crossfire.

I can extend clocks on GPU1, but not GPU2. I get weird issues when oc'ing gpu1 but not gpu2. In my experience they need to be identical in settings for stability. Halp.

Do you 'need' or 'want' more performance?

 

[blackened23]

Do you 'need' or 'want' more performance?

Gotta break world benchmark records bro! Me and balla are about to do battle!

 

[Elfear]

Damn, that sucks

Have you tried a system restore?

I had system restore off since I'm using SSDs but maybe I'll have to rethink that strategy. :\

Can you get into Afterburner long enough during the flashing screen to set the option to not apply overclocks at startup? That should do the trick. It's the little green button on the lower left hand corner of the main afterburner screen. You don't even have to go into settings.

Tried that but I don't have time to do anything before the computer becomes unresponsive. Weird thing is that I never had the "Apply Overclocked Settings at Startup" option clicked in the first place. Not sure why AB is grabbing the settings when Windows boots.

Are you using the latest beta 11?

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=2842

I am using Beta 11.

Also, try booting into Safe Mode.

Tried that and it works fine since the drivers don't load. I can't uninstall AMD drivers in Safe Mode though but luckily my little integrated graphics came in handy since I could use that to boot into Windows.

If all else fails a sysprep, if that is no good, reinstall :/

You could try a registry search for 'afterburner/msi' and delete every entry.

I'm not familiar with sysprep. From a quick search it looks like a nice tool for deploying multiple machines from a single image. Maybe I'm missing some other functionality though.

I did go through the registry and deleted any entries related to "Afterburner".


Would a good registry cleaner do the trick?

 

[Concillian]

My experience is that once you get an AMD driver to start having issues with the recovery, you can't fix it without reinstalling.

I had an issue where the driver kept recovering, and sometimes would just go black forever, and no amount of safe mode, uninstalling, driver cleaner, reinstalling, etc... would fix it. Had to re-install. System restore worked when I had a hardware configuration change and went back to the old hardware.

I wouldn't be 100% sure it was afterburner. I've had some really wonky stuff happen with the AMD video driver that just should not happen (changed monitor --> AMD driver would reliably crash. Change monitor back --> AMD driver fine).

 

[Elfear]

Got it sorted. Went back into the registry and there were a few Afterburner entries that I missed. I guess it's not like a normal document that you can CTRL-F and it searches through the entire doc and then starts from the top again. I had to click on the root folder (Computer) and search from there. Deleted the errant entries, reinstalled AB, and it works now.

Thanks for the help guys.

 

[badb0y]

A bit off topic but what was your stock voltage Elfear?

 

[Elfear]

A bit off topic but what was your stock voltage Elfear?

Stock voltage is 1.05V according to AB. Although for the clocks in my sig I raised it to 1.175V.

 

[soccerballtux]

Can you get into Afterburner long enough during the flashing screen to set the option to not apply overclocks at startup? That should do the trick. It's the little green button on the lower left hand corner of the main afterburner screen. You don't even have to go into settings.

yeah probably a leftover registry setting that didn't get cleaned up on uninstall.

 

[MrK6]

Got it sorted. Went back into the registry and there were a few Afterburner entries that I missed. I guess it's not like a normal document that you can CTRL-F and it searches through the entire doc and then starts from the top again. I had to click on the root folder (Computer) and search from there. Deleted the errant entries, reinstalled AB, and it works now.

Thanks for the help guys.

Nice work, wish I was around to direct you there sooner. MSI AB doesn't have a clean uninstall and can screw things up like it did for you. I've run into the same problem myself and fixed the same way, nice work. :thumbsup:

 

[Elfear]

Nice work, wish I was around to direct you there sooner. MSI AB doesn't have a clean uninstall and can screw things up like it did for you. I've run into the same problem myself and fixed the same way, nice work. :thumbsup:

Yeah it's nice to have a forum where I can get help from other enthusiasts. What did we ever do before the internet?

 

[MrK6]

Yeah it's nice to have a forum where I can get help from other enthusiasts. What did we ever do before the internet?

I shudder to think of it. Thankfully, I got into computers after Al Gore did us all a favor.

 

[Panopticon]

MrK you are running at those clocks 24/7 on air or did you go water.

 

[MrK6]

MrK you are running at those clocks 24/7 on air or did you go water.

Water. 24/7 clocks are actually 1125/1575 (CCC limits) simply because nothing I'm playing atm pushes this card. When I do get into something that does, they'll go to 1300/1600. 1340/1775 are my 3DMark11 maxes.

 

[AdamK47]

I was having some problems using MSI Afterburner with the 8.921.2 RC11 drivers. After one minute from getting into Windows I would receive a BSOD. It would happen every single time. The only way for me to solve it was to quickly delete the MSI Afterburner profiles for my three 7970s and reboot. After that I recreated the overclock settings and all was fine. No more BSOD after 1 minute into Windows. MSI Afterburner seems to be very driver dependant when it comes to these cards. Previously saved overclocking profiles have a fit when new drivers are installed.