Powercolor 7850 O/C

[seinfeld]

Hey guys. I have a V2.0 powercolor 7850 O/C its gpu is up from 860mhz to 1000mhz and the Ram is up from 1200 to 1225mhz.

http://www.powercolor.com/Global/products_features.asp?id=410

I have a question. it seems to be running cool and alright but lately its been making some funky noises. I have disconnected the fan and I still here a noise coming from it. it doesn't seem to be unstable or anything. it happens under load, when load stops the noise does as well.

I also was looking in my CCC and I see the power control setting now from what I read everywhere, everyone recommends to put it at +20 for overclocking. well mine is factory overclocked. so should I put it at 20%? or is it +20 percent in the bios?

thanks Tom's

 

[stickmansam]

The factory OC may or may not have increased allowed power.

I run my 7850 factory OC card at 1ghz without any changes except to the speed slider

You don't need the +20 since the card should be stable at it's factory OC settings already

The noise maybe coil whine due to excessive power or conversely not enough power

What is you PSU?

 

[seinfeld]

its a antec 850 watt quatro
my system is a Fx 6300, the 7850 1 7200 rpm drive, and 2 5400 green drives no dvd. just some usb stuff. my 12v rail sits on 12.7 in bios all of them are in + 3v and 5v

 

[stickmansam]

Then if likely an issue with the card or coil whine

You can try RMAing the card if it is a bother to you or try tweaking the power, clock rates and fans

 

[seinfeld]

alot of other sites are telling me to increase the voltage. I put the power correction on +20 ill take it for a game and see what happens

 

[stickmansam]

you can try that too as well, just see what happens

 

[seinfeld]

well I put the power correction to +20% and ran the artifact tester ati tool. no artifacts, and noisy as a mofo! getting 278 FPS tho haha. I tried clocking the GPU and ram down to a std 7850. still noisy, and reducing the std core clock by 50% to 400mhz, and the ram to 600. still just as noisy. in fact the frequency of the noise becomes lower but that's all that changes. the card runs at 48 degrees under 100% load 15 minutes. so its not heat or anything. i did turn the fan up to 50% to achieve that.

I downloaded a few ATI overclocking tool. ati tool, msi afterburner. but no of them will let me adjust the voltage of the card. they all say its not supported.
is there a program I can get you can recommend?

 

[stickmansam]

Like Sapphire TRixx

https://www.sapphireselectclub.com/ssc/TriXX/

MSI afterburner sometimes needs mods

http://forums.overclockersclub.com/index.php?showtopic=182403

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=327291

 

[nevillethedevil]

I have the exact same card OP (PCS+ 1GHZ edition), exact same issue too. But its been going for a couple of months now completely fine! From what i've seen its just the manufacturing process, theres nothing actually wrong with it (actually a very good buy for the price)

One thing i did notice (but may not apply to you) is when the card is overclocked, the whine has stopped maybe give that a try and watch the load temps, but it could just be my hearing could just be cutting it out. Hope i cleared this up for you a bit OP.

 

[seinfeld]

okay so a few things I have found over the course of trying things out.
1 download the power color over clocking tool (it lets you alter the voltage. because even though they set the voltage to 1.212 its real voltage is only 1.8.

So d/l ati GPU tool and run the artifact tester and keep the power color o/c tool on so you can monitor voltage. for me to get it to the 1.212 voltage.
I have to run it at 1.251 and in the reported voltage it sits on 1.215 v and the noise has gone away. its basically under volted and was screaming for moar power!

Also check your CPU and ram's reported voltage. I had to put my DDR voltage on 1.52 to get a stable 1.5v reported voltage. and my cpu needed +.2 as well to get it to its real voltage. my system is much faster and stable now.

 

[stickmansam]

Nice fix

 

[seinfeld]

thx Stickmansam. a lot of o/c forums were telling me to up the voltage. so I listened to them, but recording votages etc, showed me that power correction/ power output greatly varies. so spend a few minutes making sure you are getting the right power specs, under or over creates problems.