Video Freezing - motherboard issue?

[gtunney]

I have a GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 with firmware F13 and am trying to use Sapphire HD 7950 3GB OC that keeps freezing on me.  I'm wondering if it could be the motherboard.  Looking for suggestions/help.  Sapphire support wants me to try OCing the MB because testing the card in another machine that was OC'd had it working fine.  I've Tested an nVidia GTX 460 and Gigabyte AMD HD 6950 in my rig and both worked fine....hmmm.  Curious.  Also tried a fresh Windows install to my SSD and when trying the Windows Performance Index, the card froze.  So, not likely a software conflict. I also had found that I had not enabled XMP for my memory.  After doing that and selecting Profile1, the right setting for my memory were populated to the system 9-9-9-24-2.  But on reboot, the MIT status showed the command rate at 1 instead of the 2 in the memory profile.  Manually changing the settings had no effect.  Could that be an issue?

Graphics Card - SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 7950 OC 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card ( 11196-02-40G) – Factory overclock.  Did not overclock over the factory settings
 
AMD Catalyst Driver Version, and Driver History -  Current13.4, tested 13.1, 12.2, 12.4, 12.8
Operating System - Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
Issue Details - Video card randomly freezes under varying operating conditions.  Most typically when 75% through Windows Performance Index test ( Tuning Windows Media Decoding) and right after viewing Yahoo or Youtube videos.  Other times seemingly at random.  Because it is just a freeze, there is no memory dump.
Motherboard or System Make & Model - GIGABYTE GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 with firmware F13
CPU Details - Intel i7-2700K, stock settings
System Memory Type & Amount - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Power Supply - CORSAIR Professional Series Gold AX850 (CMPSU-850AX) 850W - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139015
Display Device(s) and Connection(s) Used - Dell 1908FP with DVI connection
Applications and Games - Windows Control Panel & Device Manager, Yahoo and Youtube videos using IE 10, Windows Performance Index Test
Additional Hardware –
-   Mushkin Enhanced Chronos MKNSSDCR60GB 2.5" 60GB SATA III SSD
-   WD Green WD7500AARX 750GB IntelliPower 64MB Cache 6.0Gb/s SATA HD
-   HGST Deskstar 7K1000.C 0F10383 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" HD
Additional Details - Furmark and Windows Memory testing.  Tested EVGA nVidia GTX 460 and Gigabyte AMD HD 6950 in my system and both cards worked fine. Tested my card in another system and it ran fine. 
Other system specs:
-   Intel i7 2600k OC 4.6ghz
-   Asus p8-z68 mobo
-   16gb Ram Gskill Ripjaw ddr3 12800
-   OCZ Agility 3 120gb SSD
-   2x western digital Black 2.5tb
-   Windows 7 x64
-   Antec 900 case
-   Antec true blue 750watt ps

[dmdilks]

You have a couple of things going on here. The CPU doesn't support 3.0 cards. The board is a 2.0 and you are trying to run a 3.0 card.

Yes by what they say the card should work. But I have read enough threads that people are having the same kind of problems.

If you had a Ivory bridge CPU you might not be having any problems. The Ivory bride supports 3.0 cards. I'm not saying that is the fix.

If you want the full performance out of the card I would upgrade to a Z77 or a Z87 board. Plus with Ivory bridge CPU.

Plus if you near a Micro Center check them out.

[gtunney]

I had wondered about the PCI-e level.  Does that level of compatibility vary from board to board or manufacturer?  I ask because the card ran fine in my bud's Intel i7 2600k /Asus p8-z68 combination albeit his system is heavily overclocked.

[dmdilks]

The Z77 with a Ivory bridge CPU & all X79 boards support 3.0 PCI-e slots. Everything below that like the z68 do not.

Yes it could be the board it just doesn't like the card. The other thing is what bios is he running.   

Plus yes it runs in his system but again you are not getting the full performance out of the card.

When you run the 7950 are you OC it? One other thing is yes he got it to work.

But you taking a new card and trying to run it in old stuff that doesn't even support it.

Have you tried older video drivers? I know they had some problems with some of the newer drivers.

[gtunney]

I'm running stock levels on everything.  The card is a factory OC at 900MHz.  The default is 810MHz for this card.  Yes, I have tried older drivers and the result is the same.  One thing I'm considering is seeing if I can scam up someone else's AMD 79xx card and give that a go.  The guy who loaned me the 6950 currently has a 7970 and maybe I can get him to let me try that.

As for running something new in old gear, the 7950 video card and GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 board were both current hardware at the time of my purchase last year.  The current 7950 I have is an RMA replacement for the first one I had.  The first one used to crash hard to the point of twice corrupting my Windows installation.  The replacement card doesn't crash, just freezes so I don't get a memory dump.   

Next step, short of getting my hands on my friend's 7970 is to do some memory testing with MEMTEST86 and maybe OC my rig or underclock the video card.

Greatly appreciate the help. 

[dmdilks]

The only problem is that the 2nd card you got was a rma card from somebody else too.

All they did was fix it and sent it to you for a replacement.

If that is the case I would be looking at the card. You could have another bad card.

Yes you can test the memory but most of the times if you have bad memory you would get BSOD.

The two other cards you said ran great. So if it is the memory it would shown up with them too.

[gtunney]

Yes, the idea of having been given someone else's bad card has crossed my mind.  Kind of odd that it ran fine in my co-workers machine, though.

The idea of multi-hour memory testing is a bit daunting.  So for starters I tried the blended Prime 95 tests albeit for short durations.  The system passed the short Prime95 testing so I decided to try 3dMark.

First I tried my card in my old system, a EVGA 680i SLI board, with a Corsair HX620 PSU, E8600 processor and 6GB of RAM.  The card ran fine under all conditions including 3dMark testing.  No freezes after any of the scenarios I encountered in my current rig.  So on to 3dMark in my rig.

When I first tried 3dMark, I found that I could not watch Hardware Monitor and 3dMark at the same time on one monitor as 3dMark wants to hold focus.  So, I put my normal monitor (Dell 1908FP) on a DVI to HDMI adapter and connected it the HDMI port.  Then I connected a Sony SDM-S71R to the DVI port using a VGA to DVI adapter.  I ran 3dMark on the Dell and had Hardware Monitor on the Sony.  The 3dMark tests ran fine in my rig.  Curious. 

So, with both monitors running, I decided to run all my other scenarios that caused freezing including Youtube videos in Flash player with hardware acceleration enabled.  Lo and behold, no freezes!  I then tried disconnection and testing with each monitor disconnected and wouldn't you know, with either one disconnected the freezes return!  Plug the both back in and goodbye freezes.  What the...?

Thoughts?