7970 Matrix Platinum - safe mode all the time

[czeslaw]

Hello,

I've run into an issue with my graphic card.
After building my pc, installing windows 8 and drivers my card was flashing green all the time. I discovered that it was connected to Asus EPU engine, what I described here: http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?29501-Matrix-Platinum-EPU-Engine&country=&status=

Since then my card was doing perfect. Today I've opened my chassis, removed RAM to try it with different PC, installed it again and now my card is in constant safe mode (led indicator flashing green). GPU Tweak ask me each time after boot to "recover my graphic card" but after boot it's still green !

Please help ....

Can it be that something happened to my psu and now graphic card can't work normally ?
Should I try holding the safe button while pc is booting ? Flashing card's bios ? Resetting the motherboard's bios ?

[desmondwiera]

czeslaw wrote:
I have a possible solution I'll try today.

It's based on this thread:
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1843379/asus-matrix-280x-aftifacting-boot.html#.

It fits the situation because the card is ok after reflash/clear cmos and then fails after first poweroff

What I'll do:

- Switch to iGPU / connect only one monitor to intel gpu.
- Try to reflash matrix once again (do not reboot)
- Disable the burn service in msconfig
- Clear cmos / optimized / clear cmos

... and we'll see...

You'll do that in what condition? Before or after you reset the gpu tweak?

[czeslaw]

No I skipped recovering as I noticed that sometimes it's going back to blue on it's own.
I repeated the procedure (more or less). I've switched to iGPU, clear cmos and stuff, but the blue color returned only after I rearranged monitor cables and switched to U3 (Single link dvi bios).

Looking at the card from the bottom (having DVI ports below DP ports) I've connected as follows:
DP1.2 Dell -> most left DP
DP1.1 Dell -> second DP from the right
Samsung DVI -> right most single link dvi

and it became blue also after short sleep... I will have to check longer poweroff again...

EDIT:
This thread explains why in multimonitor setup Radeon can behave differently!
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/got-some-trouble-with-asus-7970-directcu-ii.190718/

When you connect more than one monitor, the GPU changes idle 2D clock speeds to UVD clock speeds (quite a big jump for the core clock...).

EDIT:

I don't know if I understand it correctly. The order is as follows:

- PC boots, the GPU is now in state 0 Boot, yes? (gpu clock 1100, mem 1650, vddc 1256)
- Then it goes to State 2 - UVD because of multimonitor so -> min core clock 501, mem 1650

is this correct ?

[czeslaw]

I've just found out another thing that can trigger safe mode in my Matrix 7970.
It's the monitor (Dell U2713HM). It's making this buzzing, high-pitch noise when I use application containing a lot of text / fonts in full screen mode.

Monitor is ok normally, then I'm making for example an Excel spreadsheet, Eclipse IDE or a Putty console fullscreen and the sound starts.
I didn't notice it earlier. I though it's comming from the GPU maybe... I can read all over the Internet about people having this issue 😞

I will try to figure out if it's also cable dependent... and I will try leaving only samsung dvi monitor connected over the night, and then try if safe mode appears.

[czeslaw]

I've changed the mobo to Maximus VII Hero and safe mode issues disappeared !
Card is working flawlessly with the new gear, so probably it's the old M5F to be blamed.

After 3 months of using my new config I realized the LED Indicator is missing some colors.

Before it was behaving like they show in the picture:


Now its starting in green (without flashing like safe mode) GPU Tweak is showing 500Mhz. The color changes only to red when gpu clock goes to 1100Mhz. It's not in safe mode and games are running very good.

Whats going on with this cr*ppy indicator ?!