Radeon HD 6870 is blacking out.

Someone7272 · (This post was last modified: 01-20-2012, 10:57 AM by Someone7272.)

I've mentioned this before, but this issue is becoming so severe, that I'm gonna start a topic about it.
Recently, my Radeon HD 4890 was replaced by a Radeon HD 6870, wanted DirectX 11 etc etc. The following did NOT happen when using the Radeon HD 4890.
BUT, and this is not just Dolphin Emulator specific, but it has a big problem with turning off in games, the screen goes blank and displays 'NO SIGNAL'. Dolphin or any other application which utilises a large amount of 3D acceleration.
I could be playing fine for an hour, and then suddenly, the screen will go blank, sound will loop, and the hard drives click off inside the PC. Then the sound stops completely. Now this causes me to believe it's the graphics card. When using Realtek's god awful 'HD' -.- audio, the sound continues looping for about 10 seconds before stopping. However, when using HDMI audio (which is part of the Radeon HD 6870), the audio stops looping within a second, or almost instantly.
Something is really wrong here, it doesn't matter what game I'm playing on Dolphin, it will still happen after extended periods of playing.
Yes, I've checked my temperatures, the HD 6870 never goes over 60C, and my watercooled CPU never goes over 45C and has not been overclocked. I've checked the voltages in the BIOS, they're all within the ATX specifications.
This happens in the PC game, Saints Row The Third too, especially at large fight scenes, but it crashes much quicker than Dolphin Emulator does, say half an hour, or as soon as I enter a massive fight.
It doesn't happen in CoD:MW3, probably because I hardly play it, or never play for extended periods of time cos I get bored after about 2 matches... Dodgy

Any simlar experiences? My money's on dodgy drivers causing this. I've looked up on the internet, and it seems a few people with Sapphire versions of the card are also experiencing similar problems.

**Starscream** · (This post was last modified: 01-20-2012, 11:04 AM by Starscream.)

Sounds like a power issue to me, maybe your PSU is dying. Maybe the extra power the new video card needs is too much for everything you have running.

**NaturalViolence** · 01-20-2012, 11:53 AM #3

Agreed. Either a power issue or very unstable drivers.

**LordVador** · 01-21-2012, 12:00 AM #4

(01-20-2012, 10:54 AM)Someone7272 Wrote: I've mentioned this before, but this issue is becoming so severe, that I'm gonna start a topic about it.
Recently, my Radeon HD 4890 was replaced by a Radeon HD 6870, wanted DirectX 11 etc etc. The following did NOT happen when using the Radeon HD 4890.
BUT, and this is not just Dolphin Emulator specific, but it has a big problem with turning off in games, the screen goes blank and displays 'NO SIGNAL'. Dolphin or any other application which utilises a large amount of 3D acceleration.
I could be playing fine for an hour, and then suddenly, the screen will go blank, sound will loop, and the hard drives click off inside the PC. Then the sound stops completely. Now this causes me to believe it's the graphics card. When using Realtek's god awful 'HD' -.- audio, the sound continues looping for about 10 seconds before stopping. However, when using HDMI audio (which is part of the Radeon HD 6870), the audio stops looping within a second, or almost instantly.
Something is really wrong here, it doesn't matter what game I'm playing on Dolphin, it will still happen after extended periods of playing.
Yes, I've checked my temperatures, the HD 6870 never goes over 60C, and my watercooled CPU never goes over 45C and has not been overclocked. I've checked the voltages in the BIOS, they're all within the ATX specifications.
This happens in the PC game, Saints Row The Third too, especially at large fight scenes, but it crashes much quicker than Dolphin Emulator does, say half an hour, or as soon as I enter a massive fight.
It doesn't happen in CoD:MW3, probably because I hardly play it, or never play for extended periods of time cos I get bored after about 2 matches...
Any simlar experiences? My money's on dodgy drivers causing this. I've looked up on the internet, and it seems a few people with Sapphire versions of the card are also experiencing similar problems.

No such issue here

haddockd · 01-21-2012, 01:49 AM #5

Maybe I just missed something because I didn't read the whole post, but I do not think Windows takes joysticks into consideration when power saving mode is enabled. I have Win 7 64bit and mine did this too. I have a 6950. I had to tell Windows to never turn off my monitor in power saving and presto...problem disappeared.

You may also want to just tell it to leave everything on that you are using, HDD, etc too, but that's your call. It also explains why it doesnt happen CoD because you are using keyboard/mouse (I am assuming anyways).

Someone7272 · (This post was last modified: 01-21-2012, 07:17 AM by Someone7272.)

(01-21-2012, 01:49 AM)haddockd Wrote: Maybe I just missed something because I didn't read the whole post, but I do not think Windows takes joysticks into consideration when power saving mode is enabled. I have Win 7 64bit and mine did this too. I have a 6950. I had to tell Windows to never turn off my monitor in power saving and presto...problem disappeared.

You may also want to just tell it to leave everything on that you are using, HDD, etc too, but that's your call. It also explains why it doesnt happen CoD because you are using keyboard/mouse (I am assuming anyways).

Thanks for all the help so far. It's on high performance mode anyway so that can't be the problem. The 360 controller is working fine. I do have hard drives turn off, but ONLY the NON OS drives, a game uses it all the time, so it'd be stupid for it to turn off the OS drive during the game. Dolphin Emulator is on a different drive which is always powered down unless I'm running Dolphin.
You know, for a minute, I actually thought Coolermaster were an okay PSU brand. It's only about 6 months old, and I'm hearing sparking coming from what I think is the PSU. But I'm not sure, and the sparking is completely random, isn't related to the blackouts at all. It could go for days without making a sparking noise, and then sometimes the next time when I do something non-demanding, it'll spark for a few seconds. The sparking noise has no effect on the PC though.
I'm almost certain it is the PSU, but what I send it back, and it doesn't spark when they test it... It's a lose-lose situation here. Sad

gaiachaos · 01-21-2012, 08:09 AM #7

The "pops" you hear are normal and is caused by the capacitors emitting minute amount of hydrogen gas (due to electrolysis), which explodes under high heat (energy). There are vent marks on the capacitors for that reason or else the capacitors will blow up.

Someone7272 · (This post was last modified: 01-21-2012, 08:46 AM by Someone7272.)

(01-21-2012, 08:09 AM)gaiachaos Wrote: The "pops" you hear are normal and is caused by the capacitors emitting minute amount of hydrogen gas (due to electrolysis), which explodes under high heat (energy). There are vent marks on the capacitors for that reason or else the capacitors will blow up.

It's a full-on electrical sparking/ARCING noise... not a popping noise.
I've got an OCZ one doing the same thing, except sometimes it's so severe, it causes the whole server to restart.