Brand New HD7870 Shuts down under low use

[Andrew Dahl]

Specs:
ASUS P5QL Pro Motherboard
3GHz CPU
4GB RAM
500W Power Supply
HIS Radeon HD7870

I just installed my new HD7870 graphics card this afternoon. It seems to be working fine most of the time. I've installed the latest Catalyst drivers from AMD's site.
I've run the Bioshock Infinite benchmark tool and it works great on ultimate. I've also played about 10 minutes of Bioshock Infinite.
Other than that I've just been browsing the web. Twice now, the video had just gone black after 20-30 minutes of normal use. When I restart the PC, I get one long beep and 3 short beeps from the BIOS. If I power off completely, then things come back up normally.
I have tried a different 535W power supply and had the same results.
I have installed the HIS iTurbo software to try controlling the fan speed better in case it's overheating.

Do I not have enough power from my power supply? Is it likely a bad card?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[EvgaLover]

are you sure that your cmos pin connector is in?

 

[Mousemonkey]

Looks like a ULPS issue, have you tried disabling that feature?

 

[Andrew Dahl]

are you sure that your cmos pin connector is in?

Wouldn't this cause more problems? I haven't checked this, but I doubt the CMOS pin connector has moved, since all I've done with this PC is remove my old HD4750 video card and install the HD7870 card. I did change power supplies as well, but nothing else on the motherboard has moved.

Looks like a ULPS issue, have you tried disabling that feature?

I went into regedit and search for EnableULPS and set both the EnableULPS (one instance) and EnableULPS_NA (one instance) options to 0. I then restarted, and then double checked that they were still 0. I was hopeful that this worked, as the computer was sitting fine for about 30 minutes. Sadly about 5 minutes later the screen went black and it not longer responded. The PC wasn't doing anything, just sitting at the desktop.

I have the power setting such that the screen turns off after an hour, so that is not affecting this. I've also tried shortening that window, and it will turn off the display and then return to normal when the mouse is moved as it should be.

I am running Windows 8 64-bit (not 8.1).

The video card temperature is steady at around 35 degrees C.

Thank you for the suggestions so far. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Try MSI Afterburner, that has an option to disable ULPS and it seemed to work better than turning it off in the registry. It did cause my card to remain on 3D clocks permanently though.

 

[Andrew Dahl]

Try MSI Afterburner, that has an option to disable ULPS and it seemed to work better than turning it off in the registry. It did cause my card to remain on 3D clocks permanently though.

I'm not seeing anyplace in MSI Afterburner to disable ULPS.

Also, new symptom:
After about 10 minutes of use, my secondary monitor (1280x1024 on DVI) went bleck, but my main (1920x1080 on HDMI) went white with thin vertical black lines. The PC seemed to be operating, as the HD light was blinking, but nothing responded graphically until I reset.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Try MSI Afterburner, that has an option to disable ULPS and it seemed to work better than turning it off in the registry. It did cause my card to remain on 3D clocks permanently though.

I'm not seeing anyplace in MSI Afterburner to disable ULPS.

Also, new symptom:
After about 10 minutes of use, my secondary monitor (1280x1024 on DVI) went bleck, but my main (1920x1080 on HDMI) went white with thin vertical black lines. The PC seemed to be operating, as the HD light was blinking, but nothing responded graphically until I reset.

It's definitely there.

 

[Andrew Dahl]

It's definitely there.

I did find it. Apparently I had an old version of Afterburner.

After disabling ULPS in Afterburner and restarting, things were pretty stable for about an hour. But the crash eventually happened again.

I don't know if it's a bad card, or some incompatibility with my system, but I am RMAing the card for a full refund. Maybe I'll try my luck with a different card next year.

Thanks for all the help.