Revenge of the grey stripes

[somedood4]

I've been reading up a lot about ATI 5xxx cards having the grey stripes crashing issue, but it seems that they all happen to people when the PC isn't under any specific video stress. I have the same problem, only that it happens when the video card is under significant video stress, i.e. shattered horizon, left 4 dead 2, "oh i was just playing around with x24 super sampling", etc. Which makes me think that it isn't the same problem. Another factor is that my PC did something similar to this before i got the 5870, with an nvidia 8800 GTS 512, however instead of grey stripes it would just be a black screen and it would take much more stress to cause it.
My current build:

Intel Core 2 Quad
Extreme Q6850 @ 3.00GHz
ASUS Striker Extreme Motherboard w/LGA775/Nvidia nForce 680i SLI (v.1901 BIOS)
G.skill PI Black 2GB DDR2 800(PC2 6400) RAM x4
XFX ATI Radeon HD 5870 (XXX edition)
Creative SoundBlaster X-fi Titatium Fatality Pro
x1 Western Digital Caviar Blue 500gb
x1 Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB
BFG Ageia PhysX Physics processor (128mb)
Windows 7 Ultimate x64

 

[edeawillrule]

It's happened to me a couple of times with my XFX Radeon HD 5850 in Sins of a Solar Empire and I think once or twice in Assassin's Creed. It's been quite a while since the last time it did it though.

I opened up a ticket with them because I was curious to see if they knew the cause of it, and this is what they said: "What you are experiencing doesn’t seem to be something caused by a common problem, but rather a symptom that manifests due to multiple problems. So it could be software, drivers, hardware (not only the video card) Here are some things we have had some success with though. If you are overclocking your CPU or system memory then revert back to the default frequencies for those devices through these tests. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT NOT TO OVERCLOCK ANY COMPONENTS DURING THIS TEST. Download the 9.12 hotfix driver from http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/ATICatalyst912Hotfix.aspx. This is different than the release 9.12 driver. Remove your previous display driver from Programs and Features in the ATI Catalyst Install Manager. Right click your desktop and select Catalyst Control Center. Select Graphics and go to ATI Overdrive. If this screen is grayed out than leave it. If you have already accepted the EULA and have enabled Overdrive than disable it. Remove any utilities capable of controlling clock frequencies like Rivatuner or Afterburner. Completely remove them from the system, not just disable. You want to run the card at our rated frequencies through these tests. Test again with the new driver if you are still seeing the same issue. If you are still having the same issue than right click your My Computer icon and select Manage. Go to System Tools\Device Manager\Sound. Disable all audio controllers in the system. If this resolves the problem than you can go back and enable them one at a time to see which is causing it. Let us know if you are still having an issue. Thank you."

My reply: "I'm not overclocking any components, I have the Catalyst 9.12 hotfix drivers installed already, and I don`t have any overclocking utilities installed. I`ll try the audio controllers fix and see if it helps. Thanks a lot :]"

I haven't done it though since I haven't even had the crash in a week or 2, but if it does it again I'll give it a try. For those that are having the problem see if that helps and post your results (or lack thereof).

 

[somedood4]

Quick question, but do both of you have any creative hardware/drivers installed? I've had some silly problems with creative's wonderful[/sarcasm] drivers like this before, and maybe i can find it as a common factor. (i'm omitting it as a cause for now because my other card doesn't support win7 and i'm a massive audio OCD)

 

[edeawillrule]

Quick question, but do both of you have any creative hardware/drivers installed? I've had some silly problems with creative's wonderful[/sarcasm] drivers like this before, and maybe i can find it as a common factor. (i'm omitting it as a cause for now because my other card doesn't support win7 and i'm a massive audio OCD)

Nope I have Realtek integrated audio lol.

 

[adroc31]

I had the same problem a few weeks ago with my XFX 5850
it happened 2x's both times while just idle at the desktop
i reinstalled the drivers and it hasnt happened since, but im curiouse to find out why