AMD ULPS Issues on New AMD Vid Cards

[Pudgie]

Heya Radeon users,

I'm posting on my issues that I've been having w/ my Fury X getting very seldom & random video corruption (the green horizontal lines flickering across the entire screen that would render the screen view garbled).

I had earlier researched this corruption & had narrowed it down to the AMD driver's ULPS (ultra low power state) switching (my Fury X's Fiji GPU has this capability along w/ most of the new AMD refreshed GPU's) & so I had thought that when I upgraded my drivers from Cat 15.7 to Cat 15.7.1 then finally to Radeon Crimson 15.11 drivers that this would stop altogether, but it would eventually show up again as mentioned above.

Now this would only show up when I was using IE in 1 tab & the screen wasn't busy (no mouse movement or view movement) which would drop the GPU usage below 1% but on a random pattern & very seldom in nature.....
I found that I didn't have to reboot the box or the monitor to clear this.....only needed to do something that would call for the screen to be redrawn (I did the 3 fingered salute to force a graphics draw call then cancelled the request once the screen refreshed) & the prior screen view was back w\o issue...........

This was pointing to the ULPS switching of the AMD driver so I went into MSI AB & clicked the checkbox to disable ULPS in the Win registry then followed up by going into the registry & checked the "EnableULPS" key in the AMD driver class to ensure that it was disabled & witnessed the "0" hex so I knew this was disabled but the video corruption didn't stop....................

I couldn't figure this out but I DID notice that when I had MSI AB open & I moved my mouse pointer (which is using the supplied Asus ROG 3D graphics mouse pointer, among other items) I would see the GPU clocks respond from the low GPU clock speed of 300 Mhz to around 500-650 Mhz & when I stopped moving the mouse pointer the GPU clocks would drop back down to the 300 Mhz speed setting..... I thought this behavior was not normal as there wasn't enough 3D graphics present to tax this Fiji at the low speed setting of 300 Mhz & I would get the same GPU behavior when I was surfing in IE as well but I couldn't tie it all together for quite some time........until this morning..............

I was reading a posting on the HardOCP forums concerning this issue & 1 poster made mention of checking the OS's power state setting to see if the OP had this set to "High Performance" & that's when the light bulb went off in my head...........

I remembered that I had set this setting in Win 7 to "High Performance" back when I had built this box & had reset this back to this power state when I did a fresh install of Win 7 SP1 on the Plextor M6e Black Edition PCI-E 512Gb SSD that I have installed recently as I wanted my CPU to have full power available to it at all times--even though my CPU is using Intel's Speedstep & will step down on the power & clocks when the CPU load drops down & this can't be disabled in the Asus UEFI.....been there, done this several times (the UEFI setting is Enhanced Intel Speedstep which I proved was preventing my CPU from going into CPU Turbo Cache OC speeds when CPU was put under a load even though the CPU temps & power levels were WAY below the thresholds so this is disabled in the Asus UEFI on my Asus Rampage IV Gene & then verified that my CPU will now go into Turbo Cache OC speeds under a CPU load but I also verified that the CPU is still speed stepping down when the CPU loads drop off......verified thru using Asus AI Suite CPU Frequency monitoring software). I got the idea that the AMD driver probably needs to see this set in the OS to any other power state setting than High Performance for the AMD graphics driver to operate the GPU properly (driver needs the OS power state set to enable power saving at the OS level for the driver to work ULPS in the GPU) so I went in & reset the power state level in my OS from High Performance to Balanced & then opened MSI AB & performed a mouse pointer movement as I have done before & voila! the GPU clocks didn't move off the low clock speed of 300 Mhz....no matter how much I moved the mouse!
 
I then went up in AHII & flew around & I noted that all was operating as before (holding 59-60 FPS & all gameplay was butter smooth) then I went out of the game & opened MSI AB to see the GPU performance graphs & all was looking very good but I also noted the GPU clocks ingame had actually dropped another 5%-10% lower than my last recorded graphs (around 400-650 instead of 650-837)......liking that even more.

So far I have been testing my box since these OS setting changes & reenabling ULPS in my Crimson driver for the last 3 1/2 hrs while in IE & haven't had any more video corruption issues to date.....GPU clocks are holding steady at the low speed setting of 300 Mhz & GPU usage % is staying below 5%............ I'll keep monitoring this to get a definitive call but it does appear that this issue just may be resolved now.............

In closing it appears that the AMD graphics driver needs the OS power state set to be using it's power saving coding to tell the driver when to use the ULPS switching on the GPU so that all coincides & works together................ If the OS power state is set to High Performance this causes the AMD driver to err & cause the GPU to stumble resulting in a graphics error....guessing that the GPU tries to render a 2D drawn frame in 3D........

I can't say that this will help w/ AMD drivers using ULPS w/ AMD Crossfire (main issue here is ULPS shutting down 1 of the 2 GPU's when GPU usage loads drop off causing stuttering & BSOD's during gaming) as I don't have 2 AMD GPU's set up in Crossfire.

Putting this out there if someone else runs into this issue on a new single GPU AMD graphics card...........

 

[Skuzzy]

There have always been issues with Microsoft's power management in every version of Windows.  All they seem to be able to do is to move the issues around and alter them slightly.

The best thing you can do for you computer is to disable all power management.

[Pudgie]

Hi Skuzzy,

I hear what you're saying concerning this subject..............

So am I hearing from you that the issues w/ MS's coding of power management is the issue w/ my driver's coding.....................

Ahhhhh so what you may be alluding to here is that MS's power management coding is in conflict within itself even though a user may choose to "disable" it in the Control Panel but can really only be truly disabled thru the registry keys...... and these internal code radicals within the OS is interfering w/ any driver software that is written w/ power management coding to control the hardware that it was written for, since the driver is the other half of the interface................

So in essence when I reset the MS OS's power management to the "preferred" setting of Balanced this then kinda solved the internal power management conflicts within the OS's coding which in turn then freed the vid card's driver to actually perform along it's coding structure w/ the GPU hardware w\o interference from the OS thus eliminating the issue w/ the GPU causing the video corruption issues.......

This is interesting to me as I can clearly note that now as I went into the registry & physically ensured that this power management was disabled in the AMD driver & the issue still existed.............. This would suggest that the OS's power management coding is actually attempting to override\bypass the driver & access the GPU hardware itself................

Ain't cool......................... .. 

You wouldn't happen to know the registry path to access the key(s) to fully disable power management in Windows....................?

Just asking.....................

 

 

[Bizman]

I'm interested in this as well.

I tried to look for instructions for Win7 and there seemed to be quite a lot of variation about what to do. All of the advice I found seemed to lead to Control Panel-> Power Management and one way or other choosing the Best Performance option. The variations I found were in fine tuning: HDD poweroff time, Hibernation, PCI-express were all mentioned but not in the same piece of advice.

[Pudgie]

I'm interested in this as well.

I tried to look for instructions for Win7 and there seemed to be quite a lot of variation about what to do. All of the advice I found seemed to lead to Control Panel-> Power Management and one way or other choosing the Best Performance option. The variations I found were in fine tuning: HDD poweroff time, Hibernation, PCI-express were all mentioned but not in the same piece of advice.

Hey Bizman,

I have been doing a lot of research on this as well since Skuzzy's posting & ran some tests as well & I have found out some interesting things concerning Win 7..............

1st off, I found mostly the same things that you did until I ran across this:



This is the Windows Power Theme settings in the registry & the 1 key that actually sets the power theme to be used in Windows 7:

HKEY_CURRENT_USERS\ControlPanel\PowerCfg    Value Name "CurrentPowerPolicy"

My theme was initially set at 0 "Home\Office". I noted the High Performance theme was "4".

Now I couldn't make sense of this until I ran across this:



So these themes are designed to tell the OS how to determine the CPU throttling capabilities depending on the power theme used.

I also made note that these settings had direct access provided to them thru Win XP but I couldn't do this thru Win 7, even when I switched categories in the CP to go to Classic, so these appear to be hidden in Win 7............

So from this I ran some tests as follows:

I went into the Win 7 Power Options & switched from Balanced to High Performance then once done I then went into the registry & checked HKEY_CURRENT_USERS\ControlPanel\PowerCfg CurrentPowerPolicy & found the power theme was still set to 0 "Home\Office" instead of being reset to 4 "High Performance"........

I then did the same test w/ the other power plan choices available in Win 7 Power Options & in each case the registry theme never changed from the value setting of 0.

Now this may not matter much as in the 2nd snippet when the OS senses the computer is using AC power the Home\Office theme tells the CPU to not throttle on power-the same as High Performance theme...........

I'm wondering if the AMD drivers are written to look for the OS "CurrentPowerPolicy" value setting.......haven't found out any info to either verify\deny this assumption yet............

So I changed the value in CurrentPowerPolicy to 4 in the registry to test all out to see if this changes anything & I'll post if I find anything out.............

This is what I've found out to date.

 

[Bizman]

Thanks, Pudgie!

I took a look at my Registry and lo and behold, it was set to 0. Skuzzy, any comments about that?

[Skuzzy]

I never bother with the registry settings. 

I set the power settings to high power (whatever they call it these days), then hit the advanced settings to reset all the values there to ensure nothing goes without power, then I disable the service, so it does not matter what the settings are, for Windows.

[Bizman]

Heh, too simple to ever be thought about! Now I have one process less running in the background. 

[Pudgie]

I never bother with the registry settings. 

I set the power settings to high power (whatever they call it these days), then hit the advanced settings to reset all the values there to ensure nothing goes without power, then I disable the service, so it does not matter what the settings are, for Windows.

Hey Skuzzy,

Are you referring to disabling the "Power" service in the services tab in Task Manager after setting all up in Power Options High Performance power plan?

 

[Skuzzy]

Hey Skuzzy,

Are you referring to disabling the "Power" service in the services tab in Task Manager after setting all up in Power Options High Performance power plan?

 

Yes, but you usually have to do it before you install all your drivers, for everything.  Sometimes it will break some sound devices, for example, if you disable it after installing all the drivers.  It really depends on the devices.

[Pudgie]

Yes, but you usually have to do it before you install all your drivers, for everything.  Sometimes it will break some sound devices, for example, if you disable it after installing all the drivers.  It really depends on the devices.

Ah IC now..............

Just so you know, I had actually tried this prior to posting & had found that when I did this it broke my sound (SoundBlaster X7 USB DAC-AMP) & so I went back in & reset the power service to manual so that it wouldn't start up automatically but it would start up when the audio service called for it.

I will remember this on the next time that I need\have to do a reinstall of Windows & set all this before I install the sound drivers & test it then......................... ...

 
 

[Pudgie]

To finish up concerning the OP,

I have set up my box's OS power policy as follows:

I went back into the registry & reset the power theme back to the initial setting of "0" which was Home\Office power theme.
Then went into Win 7 & reset the power plan in Power Options to High Performance then went into the advanced settings & made sure that all settings were set to ensure that nothing cut any power as per Skuzzy's recommendations...

Then went into the Task Manager & reset the Power service from "Automatic" to "Manual" so that the Power service won't start up until my audio service called for it to fix this as when I disabled the Power service this broke my sound device.....otherwise all else came up OK.

Will redo this when I need\have to do a reinstall of the OS at a future time............

Then I went into the registry & disabled ULPS in the AMD driver so this is turned off as well.

So far I haven't seen any more video corruption to date happening while I was running IE........so far, so good.

Will post if something changes..................othe rwise all is looking good at the moment.

 

[Bizman]

Yes, but you usually have to do it before you install all your drivers, for everything.  Sometimes it will break some sound devices, for example, if you disable it after installing all the drivers.  It really depends on the devices.

I was just going to tell about that! Today, after the first boot after disabling the Power service, I noticed a red X on my taskbar sound icon. After some troubleshooting I found out that enabling the Power service enabled the sound too. What I find funny is that a) there are no dependencies listed for the Power service, b) Windows troubleshooter says that the Sound services aren't on and can't be started and c) neither of the two Windows Audio related services depend on the Power service.

Manual works well.

[Pudgie]

I was just going to tell about that! Today, after the first boot after disabling the Power service, I noticed a red X on my taskbar sound icon. After some troubleshooting I found out that enabling the Power service enabled the sound too. What I find funny is that a) there are no dependencies listed for the Power service, b) Windows troubleshooter says that the Sound services aren't on and can't be started and c) neither of the two Windows Audio related services depend on the Power service.

Manual works well.

I just looked at this myself & that is weird. I ran every service that showed up under the dependencies of my Creative Audio service & every service that showed up under those services as well & none of them showed to need the Power service to run..........

Got some digging to do........................... .........

 

PS--Checked on BlackViper's site & he lists the Windows Audio Event Builder service needs the Power service to run........
Why Windows doesn't list this under the dependencies tab for Windows Audio Event Builder service is beyond me.........

FYI...............

 

[Pudgie]

To finish up concerning the OP,

I have set up my box's OS power policy as follows:

I went back into the registry & reset the power theme back to the initial setting of "0" which was Home\Office power theme.
Then went into Win 7 & reset the power plan in Power Options to High Performance then went into the advanced settings & made sure that all settings were set to ensure that nothing cut any power as per Skuzzy's recommendations...

Then went into the Task Manager & reset the Power service from "Automatic" to "Manual" so that the Power service won't start up until my audio service called for it to fix this as when I disabled the Power service this broke my sound device.....otherwise all else came up OK.

Will redo this when I need\have to do a reinstall of the OS at a future time............

Then I went into the registry & disabled ULPS in the AMD driver so this is turned off as well.

So far I haven't seen any more video corruption to date happening while I was running IE........so far, so good.

Will post if something changes..................othe rwise all is looking good at the moment.

 

Looks like this did the trick as I haven't had not 1 issue w/ screen corruption while using IE since making the above setting changes.

Thanks, Skuzzy!

Happy New Year to you & to all AH'ers!