techbear Posted September 5, 2011 Share Posted September 5, 2011 Hi All, Since about a month ago I have been playing Starcraft 2 and started noticing a tear on the left side. The tear starts at the bottom left about 10mm from the side and goes op to the top of the SC2 "console" - eventually it will start to go right through the whole left side top to bottom. It seems like the whole screen from the line towards the right is oscillating left and right about 1mm and is very annoying. Had my m18x now since July 2011 and never experienced it before. Vsync is enabled. This is also happening in Counter strike Source. Have tried creating a profile in Radeon Pro, but it does not help either. Current driver info is: Driver Packaging Version 8.80.6.1-110311a-112261C-Dell 2D Driver Version 8.01.01.1105 2D Driver File Path /REGISTRY/MACHINE/SYSTEM/ControlSet001/Control/CLASS/{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}/0000 Direct3D Version 8.14.10.0798 OpenGL Version 6.14.10.10358 Catalyst Control Center Version 2011.0311.2131.38595 This started appearing after I installed the updated 6970 ccc driver on Dell's website - have since restored an to an image created with win7 back to where the driver was still the first dell one that was available for download, but the problem is not going away - temps on the both cards is running 72 degrees max. Have not done any bios updates on my machine. The only thing that helps is disabling xfire in ccc. I hope it is just a small that I'm missing to fix Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Founder Michael Posted September 5, 2011 Founder Share Posted September 5, 2011 Kinda sounds like a hardware problem. Did u try to reseat the CF cable ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Founder StamatisX Posted September 5, 2011 Founder Share Posted September 5, 2011 Do you experience this issue only on those two titles? what about the rest? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
techbear Posted September 6, 2011 Author Share Posted September 6, 2011 How easy/risky is it to reset the CF cable ? - do not want to void the warranty on the 3 month old laptop. So far I have experienced this tearing in the following games: SC2, CSS, From Dust. I have installed Crysis 1 last night and there is NO tearing with crossfire switched on As far as I can tell from Google, SC2 it does not fully support crossfire - can any of you confirm this ? It is just strange that this issue were not there from the start - it is so obvious and annoying that I could not have missed it from the start. I will try with more titles and let you know. Thank you for your replies so far Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Founder StamatisX Posted September 6, 2011 Founder Share Posted September 6, 2011 For a start I would completely remove the drivers and perform a clean installation Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
techbear Posted September 6, 2011 Author Share Posted September 6, 2011 Yeah I forgot to mention that I did remove the ATI driver in control panel, rebooted, used Driver Sweeper to clean any leftovers and then reinstalled the ATI driver - currently using the latest one from Dell driver page. The driver numbers is quite confusing as I know that 11.8 drivers is out on the AMD page, but even with a clean windows install I was unable to install the AMD mobility driver - don't know if the AMD driver is really any better then Dell driver ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Founder StamatisX Posted September 6, 2011 Founder Share Posted September 6, 2011 What version are the Dell drivers? cause I am pretty sure they are outdated and probably the cause of these issues. Now I am not so sure why you can't successfully install those from AMD's website, did you try to install them on top of the Dell drivers just to test them and in the very end just remove them again? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
techbear Posted September 6, 2011 Author Share Posted September 6, 2011 The Dell Version file name is R309894.exe - for the actual version part I'm unsure - the only info on it is in my first post.Regarding the AMD Driver after having installed win7 loaded win7 SP1 and installed all the drivers except the ati driver, updated win7 with all the latest updates and then tried to install the AMD mobility driver. After "express" installing the AMD driver there were no errors in the install log, but it did not ask me to restart like the Dell drivers do - restarted, but while starting up noticed that the resolution is lower and looking under device manager only the default VGA driver was still installed - tried to install again and restarted, but did not help.There must be something small and simple I'm missing in installing it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Founder StamatisX Posted September 6, 2011 Founder Share Posted September 6, 2011 then give it another shot by installing the Dell drivers first and without removing them install the AMD ones on top, who knows maybe this will do the trick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
techbear Posted September 6, 2011 Author Share Posted September 6, 2011 Ok thanks StamatisX will try that later tonight when back at home. Do you think it maybe a card/cable that shifted ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Founder StamatisX Posted September 6, 2011 Founder Share Posted September 6, 2011 If it is the cable, then all games that utillize the crossfire should be affected, not only specific titles, that's why I believe it is software related Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
techbear Posted September 6, 2011 Author Share Posted September 6, 2011 Have uninstalled the Dell driver, rebooted, cleaned with Driver Sweeper, rebooted again, ran Drive Sweeper to make sure and reinstalled Dell driver A02, rebooted, installed "11-8_mobility_vista_win7_32-64_ccc.exe" driver from AMD site, once again it did not ask to restart, but I anyways restarted, checked the driver version and the version numbers is all newer then previously, but tearing still in SC2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
techbear Posted September 6, 2011 Author Share Posted September 6, 2011 Also tested this installation in Crysis 1, but fps slightly lower and when looking at the sky gives weird flickering - uninstalling... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
techbear Posted September 6, 2011 Author Share Posted September 6, 2011 (edited) Tearing in SC2 fixed about 90% - tearing line only slightly appears when moving the camera with the mouse fast from one side to the other - you have to really look for it and the screen does not vibrate along this tearing - have tested this for about 5 mins so cannot say if it will get worse after playing longer in SC2.CSS still the same, but its an old game.Here's what I did: 1. removed Dell driver once again, rebooted, 2. cleaned with Driver Sweeper, rebooted, 3. downloaded + installed "dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe" from Microsoft, rebooted, 4. downloaded + installed "infinst_autol.exe" from Intel - it's the live update utility on Intel website: "http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/detect", detected updated version of the Intel chip-set + installed, rebooted, 5. downloaded + installed "directx_Jun2010_redist.exe" from Microsoft, 6. installed "R309894.exe" from Dell (6970 A02 Driver), rebooted twice to get brightness control back as well. Edited September 6, 2011 by techbear Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Founder StamatisX Posted September 7, 2011 Founder Share Posted September 7, 2011 If you disable crossfire, do you still see it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
techbear Posted September 7, 2011 Author Share Posted September 7, 2011 I presumed it should, but will test with single gpu and let you know - thanks for your help so far - it is so frustrating if one keeps on reinstalling display driver over and over and at the same time wearing out the SSD. but at least there is a huge improvement - will have to stress test over longer period to confirm if it is really better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
techbear Posted September 7, 2011 Author Share Posted September 7, 2011 I spoke too soon - tearing is back and whole screen is vibrating slightly left and right and is very annoying I will try to restore now to image made just after I bought the laptop - only problem is it is Win7 Home, not Pro and the partition I'm restoring to is smaller - will try to use Acronis... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Founder StamatisX Posted September 7, 2011 Founder Share Posted September 7, 2011 before you do that, can you run furmark (multi-gpu) and check if you have issues there as well? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
techbear Posted September 7, 2011 Author Share Posted September 7, 2011 I can try furmark - hope it's not too big download - is there a free version available ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Founder StamatisX Posted September 7, 2011 Founder Share Posted September 7, 2011 it is very small actually(GPU Tool) FurMark 1.9.0: The Return of the Furry Donut - 3D Tech News and Pixel Hacking - Geeks3D.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
techbear Posted September 7, 2011 Author Share Posted September 7, 2011 Ok just ran it at 1080 fullscreen and the famous tearing is there - the screen sometimes scrolls as well - so something not right somewhere.Is Driver sweeper only removing files not registry entries ? - in that case I will rather try to clean with ccleaner that everybody is raving about - just do not like any registry cleaners as they sometimes removes more than they suppose to making more damage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Founder StamatisX Posted September 7, 2011 Founder Share Posted September 7, 2011 hmm.... try to run it windowed mode and check if you see the tearing again cause right now it sounds like a hardware issue...the driver sweeper removes registry files as well, didn't have any issue so far with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
techbear Posted September 7, 2011 Author Share Posted September 7, 2011 Have done in 1080 windowed mode and no more tearing or scrolling - strange Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Founder StamatisX Posted September 7, 2011 Founder Share Posted September 7, 2011 at this point there is only one thing left to do... respawn, just to eliminate the drivers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
techbear Posted September 8, 2011 Author Share Posted September 8, 2011 Hi StamatisX - I do not understand why it does not happen in windowed mode ?Also I only have an factory image made in win7 that was made on it's original 320GB drive and now have to try and restore to 120GB SSD - win7 might not like it - Acronis should be able to do the trick.Was thinking of before writing to the SSD once again wearing it more, like to try to recover to an external hd just to verify that the drivers issues is resolved, but might be too complicated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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