Grey screen crash on new 7850

N64 · 26-08-2012 8:18pm #1

Hi guys, I got a new asus 7580 on Friday. The card is great and I love the performance it gives and the overall design of the card however I have a bit of a problem. Basically, I was playing Flight Simulator X and I was maybe about 20 minuites into the flight and the screen just turned grey for no apparent reason whatsoever.

Knowing how buggy flight simulator X is, I hit CTRL + alt and delete at the same time to bring me to the task manager but I got no response. I hit alt + tab and it brought me back to the windows desktop.

I went back into the game and while the game instantly did not recover, I was back flying within 30 seconds. I flew for about another 2 minutes or so and then the same crash occurred again however this time I had to hard reset my system. I have a screen on my keyboard, and even the screen/num lock keys were frozen so I knew it was not just the game

I took a picture of the crash here:
1021279

Do you guys reckon it is a bad card? I ran furmark (just to make sure my PSU is capable of running the card) Then I did two runs of haven benchmark with no problems. I have also been playing a small bit of skyrim since I got it on Friday with no crashes to report.

I am running the latest catalyst version (12.8) and before installing I booted into safe mode and removed all traces of the previous AMD drivers using driver sweeper.

I did have a issue similar to this on a old PC I used to have (running a radeon 3870) I could never replicate the crash however it did happen on another computer once though.

Eboggles · 26-08-2012 8:22pm

I'd roll back to Cats 12.4 if you think it's a driver problem.

Otherwise, google the problem and see if it's common. These HD7850s seem to be getting into a lot of trouble

N64 · 26-08-2012 9:25pm

hmm this is confusing. Some people are reporting unstable hardware while others are reporting that its a driver bug:

When the 12.6 beta drivers got released, there was a change that caused the 2d voltages to be set at 0.79v instead of the normal default of 0.84v (which was the voltage in all previous drivers). However, ever since this change, there are serious bugs (maybe related to the change, I honestly don't know) which cause the card to crash, often in 2D, with either a Gray screen of death, or strangely vertical striped lines, followed by a hardlocked black screen and fan at 100% speed. This usually will happen on the desktop, or on game loading screens (or finishing screens) where the video mode changes, although this seems to be random. One person was able to use an OSD (possibly logitech keyboard?) and he found that when the crash happened, the card had ramped up to 3D speeds, BUT the voltages were still at 0.79v (the 2D speed), so this may be the cause. So it seems to happen when the card kicks in to 3d speeds, but is using 2d voltages for some reason. 12.5 beta drivers and all older drivers were unaffected.

am I correct in saying that flight sim x is not the most demanding of a game when it comes to GPU usage? I was flying around in flight simulator on Friday for a good hour or two with no problems.

N64 · 26-08-2012 10:29pm

sorry to double post but I was having a look in the FSX settings, and apparently the game was capped at 25 fps while it crashed - so my card would have been hardly stressed at all while it was running the game.

Contrary to what that post says, idle voltages (according to GPU-Z) are 0.825V while I'm on the latest revision of catalyst.

cherryghost · 27-08-2012 2:55am

Have you tried any other game on it?

N64 · 27-08-2012 3:43am

Yeah, I played a bit of skyrim on it and it seems to run great. I might give a few other games a go and see how they perform. Simcity 4 is buggy though (when you scroll all the props disappear and the screen tints yellow) although considering the game is from 2003, I would not be too concered about that to be honest with ya

I did perform half an hours worth of testing on furmark and 2 runs of the haven benchmark with no irregularity's spotted.
1021714

One strange thing I did notice though is that when I hit ctrl, alt and delete (to bring up this menu), the screen will turn blank and then the menu will pop up and fade in with sort of a checkerbox pattern around it. I noticed the same sort of stuff while loading web pages in chrome.

I was talking to some people on ocn.net and they stated it could well be the memory chips overheating or just be plain faulty so I may as well RMA it back to dabs and get a replacement.

http://www.geeks3d.com/20100208/tips-what-is-the-gsod/

of course I have a 7xxx series card, and I highly doubt its a driver issue.

Eboggles · 27-08-2012 11:58am

TBH with all the problems you're having you should consider RMAing it, maybe get a refund.

Then you can buy a HD7870 due to the price drops :pac:.

Andy!! · 27-08-2012 12:50pm

I don't think the pic you posted is big enough to illustrate the problem you're having

N64 · 27-08-2012 3:38pm

The thing is that I really like the card, apart from the issue I'm having with it - its perfect. Shame I will be without a PC for roughly 3 weeks though. Oh well

Monotype · 27-08-2012 3:44pm

Isn't this your second 7850? Maybe you should go with nVidia. AMD don't seem to like you.

N64 · 27-08-2012 4:10pm

Yep, its my second 7850 alright (first one being that sapphire card, which was running fine apart from the doggy cooler on it) I always seem to have bad luck when it comes to graphics cards though. My 6850 and 6950 died last year as well :-\ (from unrelated issues, I can't see the link between the defects)

Monotype · 27-08-2012 4:46pm

That's a lot of graphics cards! I don't think I've ever had a graphics card go bad. Maybe you have a dodgy PSU!

N64 · 28-08-2012 5:32am

hmm. It could well be.

Apparently people get the grey screen of death when there memory overclocks are unstable. I have not even ventured into overclocking yet with this card so it might just be bad video ram.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1231670/official-the-amd-radeon-7800-owners-club/1450#post_18035594

Monotype · 28-08-2012 8:48am

Well actually, I did have one graphics card that died on me which was an nVidia card in a laptop. That was from their faulty ones a while back. It went grey screen of death just like in the picture when it crashed. First in a game or when it was on for a while, then at desktop and then just a black screen with a little light when you switch it on. A trip into the oven fixed it for a little while.

N64 · 28-08-2012 2:45pm

Monotype wrote: »

Well actually, I did have one graphics card that died on me which was an nVidia card in a laptop. That was from their faulty ones a while back. It went grey screen of death just like in the picture when it crashed. First in a game or when it was on for a while, then at desktop and then just a black screen with a little light when you switch it on. A trip into the oven fixed it for a little while.

Thanks but no thanks :eek:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1299069/do-i-have-to-rma-another-graphics-card-amd-7850-defect/10#post_18034836

So it is likely a vRam issue. Do you reckon the card might have a manufacturing fault since the vram is not covered directly by heat spreader?

My card is exactly the same as this one but instead of having a power cable extension coming out of the back, it has a power port at the side of it and most of the reviews say the card is okay.

Monotype · 28-08-2012 2:55pm

Oh no, I wasn't suggesting to oven it; you've still got your warranty. The solution is clearly to send it back. I think you've got pretty got evidence as to the cause of it.

ppilihp · 03-12-2012 12:03pm

Hey!

I know the topic is a bit old, but I'll add my post anyway

I recently decided that I do wanna play computer games again and bought mid range components and assembled them this weekend.

The games I had in mind were shooters and the Flight Simulator X ( FSX ).

The video card I bougth is a Gigabyte Radeon HD 7870 OC with 2 Gig RAM and I experience the exact same grey screen just as N64 while playing FSX for 10+ Minutes. Even though my testing experience isnt to broad yet, I havent had any crashes of this kind during shooters or benchmarks.

So I assume it may be a problem with FSX or the driver or FSX and the driver

... or maybe the video card? The card is factory overclocked so there might be a problem even though I never had temperatures over 45°C. Of course I am a bit worried because the card is new, just like the rest of the PC and it's a bit sad, too, because FSX is a game I want to play. I will keep on testing and if I find out that I do not only have issues with FSX I'll keep you posted.

How did your story evolve? Did you send your card back?

carter2 · 03-12-2012 6:16pm

Try disabling hardware acceleration under your browser.
Also you should consider changing that PSU for a better one as its +12v values are low and we are talking about an old PSU:
+3.3V: 30 A
+5V : 28 A
+12V-1: 15 A
+12V-2: 14 A

Something as a Enermax, PC&C, should do the trick for a good PSU

ppilihp · 04-12-2012 5:40pm

Just to update this. I wasnt gonna take any chances as everything is still very new and returned the card to the vendor. Lets see how the 7950 performs that I ordered instead.

ppilihp · 06-12-2012 5:31pm

The Gigabyte Radeon HD 7950 just arrived and seems a bit slower than the Gigabyte Radeon HD 7870 that I sent back. But at least I didnt have any crashes where I would have crashed with the 7870!

Grey screen crash on new 7850

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