slow draw on some 2D apps and dynamic clocks not working properly

[.CME.]

Ehllo Tehre!
firefox
Slow draw/redraw on some pages like www.boadica.com.br (never noticed on many pages);
Corruptions when informative yellow boxes are showing and scroll the page;

afaik this is a firefox bug (i had the same problem with nvidia and intel), try firefox4/minefield

[Raphaela]

This will be little help I suppose but I have had a simliar problem with a Gigabyte Radeon 5870 on the same motherboard. I did not do such detailed testing as I have a spare card I can use (a Nvidia GTX 260 SOC), the monitor though is a Samsung 305T (2560x1600). The main problem showing up where the screen background image drawing VERY slowly, around 1/5 th of a second, sometimes drawing speed is OK when image is first displayed. Gimp simliar.

A difference though (possibly) in my case the monitor is not detected correctly FGLRX bringing it up as a 1280x800 not 2560x1600 and it appears the failures only occur in the higher resolution. One wonders a little if FGLRX does NOT like dual link DVI.

I am going to give the card another crack when catalyst 11/1 comes out. Hopefully it will work OK some time soon. In my case no real major disaster as I have decent cards on standby, as well as the Nvidia there is a Radeon 4870 and also a 3870 (I have two main systems in use).

Hmm. I really like my 5870 and don't want to give up. Aside those problems with Linux, it is a good video card.

I've read that the Catalyst 11 will be released on Jan 26. I'll wait for that. Hope that the problems be solved.

afaik this is a firefox bug (i had the same problem with nvidia and intel), try firefox4/minefield

Thanks for that info. The corruption problems are not a big problem for me, so, I'll wait for the stable release of Firefox 4.

[Blacksmith]

I purchased the 5870 as a sort of long term investment. In the past by the time the video drivers became bullet proof one could no longer purchase the item, examples being the Radeon 3870 and 4870 and in fact most cards made. The 5870 performs wonderfully in windows and from memory videos were OK in linux. Also FGLRX was reliable and the system did not crash but one could see the screen being redrawn and compared with my other two systems both of which are in theory slower the performance was pathetic. But one day it WILL be good and I will keep it for that day.

Incedently my machine with the 3870 is using the open source driver and one is very impressed with its performance,. 2D in particular is lightning fast, and the card and the OS driver is one of the few I have ever used that just worked out of the box so to speak without any configuration at all. The 5870's time WILL come.

Radeon cards for ever,

Blacksmith

[Blacksmith]

I may point out to all in case its not obvious the previous post comes from a person with a foot strongly in both the ATI and NVdia camps having used cards (and still using them) from both manufacturers.

Blacksmith

[Raphaela]

I've installed the Catalyst 11.1 today. The problem persists...

I'm in despair! These random problems have left me in despair!

[Raphaela]

I've made another test, installed Slackware 12.2, which uses XORG-7.3. There were no draw delay, but, the dynamic clocks was also increasing by the same way.

By the way, anyone knows what happened to http://ati.cchtml.com? All the old bugs have disappeared.

[Blacksmith]

When you say swaping to a new work space the background draw takes "some" time how slow actually is this. On my 5870 the swaping to a new screen one can see the background being drawn in. Probably would take around say around 1/5th of a second. Full screen video though draws instantly when swapping work spaces. On my Samsung 305T (2560x1600) would be at around double that (which is unacceptable). Does not occur with my 4870 (using FGLRX) though.

As previously stated the 3870 and the OS driver does 2D lightning fast.

It IS something of a pain to have the 5870 take so long to "come up to speed" in Linux. What highlights the problem is that the 5870 is VERY fast in Windows (XP anyway).

Blacksmith
So one REALLY hesitates to even think about a 6000 series card.

[Raphaela]

When you say swaping to a new work space the background draw takes "some" time how slow actually is this. On my 5870 the swaping to a new screen one can see the background being drawn in. Probably would take around say around 1/5th of a second. Full screen video though draws instantly when swapping work spaces. On my Samsung 305T (2560x1600) would be at around double that (which is unacceptable). Does not occur with my 4870 (using FGLRX) though.

As previously stated the 3870 and the OS driver does 2D lightning fast.

It IS something of a pain to have the 5870 take so long to "come up to speed" in Linux. What highlights the problem is that the 5870 is VERY fast in Windows (XP anyway).

Blacksmith
So one REALLY hesitates to even think about a 6000 series card.

Yeah, it's about 1/5 of a second the time to redraw the background, but, what really bothers me is the clocks increasing to maximum. The VGA temperature idling on Windows stays around 35~44 (depends on ambient temperature), and on Linux, 50~60, and I dunno if that constantly change of clocks can damage the card. It's the same with your 5870?

I'm living with that problem since I've bought the PC. I've tried so many things that is driving me crazy.

[Blacksmith]

aticonfig --odgc says Core 157Mhz memory 300 Mhz both way below maximum which is 850 and 1200 Mhz respectively

aticonfig --odgt says currently temp is 40c room temp is 27c

The temp rise on the 5870 has always been around this rate even on Windows XP on 3D gaming it never gone more than 22C above ambient. The hishest I have seen it is 57 C and that was with a room temp of 33c.

I do not keep track of graphics cards clocks but when I have checked them even on my 4870 they were always on the low to very low side.

You would unlikley have any long term trouble as long as the temp of the card dos not go much above say 65c.

Just to be complete I use Debian testing and have always installed FGLRX as directly downloaded from AMD's web site, ie I do not use prebuilt packages.

Blacksmith

[Blacksmith]

Just a thought you may wish to check the accuracy of the temp sensors. Check them as SOON as possible after system startup after the system has been turned off for at least 3 hours. From my expierience if the sensors are accurate the readings will be never more than 3 or 4 degrees above ambient. Note: I do NOT use a graphical startup, the system boots to a shell from there I run "startx". So in my case the system has done little work on startup.

Only on one board have I found the temp sensors inaccurate though.

Blacksmith