Asus HD 7970 DirectCUII TOP help

[Towel]

I bought an Asus HD7970-DC2T-3GD5 card and downloaded GPU Tweak, and when I opened it up I noticed that the voltage was maxed out (cranked up all the way to the right), and I was wondering if that's normal? It seems to be the default setting for the card. Are there any problems with the card? I don't know anything about voltages and anything about overclocking. I have an imageof my GPU Tweak to show you guys what I mean...

[hill01]

Unfortunately this behaviour can be seen in a number of 7970 DCII cards. Multiple people across different forums reported similar voltage-locked cases. For other people everything works fine however, apparently there are two slightly different versions of DCII cards available: one with free voltage control that was given to all testers and some customers, and one with locked voltage (meaning that the maximum allowed voltage equals the default voltage, like in your case. 1100 mV defaut voltage is fine btw and well within safe values. However, you can't increase your gpu voltage for overclocking purposes. Usually the slider should be somewhere in the middle with the absolute maximum being something around 1300 mV.)

My DCII is locked at 970 to 1060 mV GPU voltage, and I've tried every version of GPU Tweak available (funny thing: the version of GPU Tweak that came with the card could only adjust core frequency, nothing else), as well as Sapphire Trixx and MSI Afterburner, all in combination with different versions of Catalyst. But nothing works.

I contacted Asus support which made me fill out a support form with lots of serial numbers from my graphics card, mainboard and so on. They even suggested a couple of things like leaving power target at default value and so on, but nothing worked and after a while they no longer seemed to care. It's a real shame because it's a mighty fine card and mine achieves 1100 MHz even at 1060 mV and due to full-cover watercooling it barely reaches 45 °C during summer, but thanks to this very restrictive gpu voltage limitation I can't go beyond 1100 MHz and see what the card can really do

[lenehan]

This was lock and only be able to oc higher with those Asus motherboard with Hotwire. The voltage meter sllder shown the max voltage of this card but not the actual voltage.currently running. To view the actual voltage currently running. you need monitoring graph come with GPU Tweak or download copy of other software. Such as GPUz, Aida64 etc.

No fix yet amd this issue is already reported and pending for Asus reply.

[Towel]

Yeah, and yet, I've ran into another problem with the card. It might be my fault, but I'm not sure. I have made a new thread about it though, and it's about 3D Mark 11 and the 7970's "battery" and low performance.
The link is: http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread...335#post155335

[HiVizMan]

OP - The DCII has voltage control via the ASUS hotwire and compatible motherboards. Software based voltage control is limited as you have noticed. The ASUS VGA guys are aware of what folks are saying.

[regujohn]

i have same problem that locked voltage .can anyone help me solved this issue

[MrTomek]

Well, I bought my 7970DC2 (non-TOP) last week and I must say that I'm really disappointed. I only checked the reviews on sites like tomshardware and anandtech, so, looking at the temps and noise level I was pretty confident that this card was a beast and I'll have no trouble to push the freqs and voltage hard. How wrong was I ! At stock freqs the card is indeed running cool and quiet, but it seems that I stumbled upon "one of those cards" with a locked voltage control.

So... Looking on Google, it looks like this problem is known since MAY of this year. We're in October now, and no signs of a GPU Tweak update, and I'm not even talking about a BIOS update ! I'm not expecting much from Asus right now, I think I'll just return my card and look at the competition... That's sad because I trusted Asus, until now. And now, seeing how they ignore the issue... That's probably the last time I'll bought or even recommand an Asus product.

[hill01]

Same for me. My next card will be in standard design with a full cover watercooler. I'm really dissappointed that there is no way except hotwire to adjust gpu voltage on the DCII. Why pack beefed up power supply, custom board and improved cooler and then lock voltage / make voltage changes available to only a fraction of people who actually own hotwire compatible mainboards? And non of the samples issued to testers did have this issue.

[Towel]

The voltage problem was fixed for me... Now I can get 1.4V, but I still can't push the clocks up more. I've maxed them out, and until a custom BIOS or something comes out, I guess I'm stuck...

[kovoet]

I have two Asus cards the matrix 5870 and now this still no problems. But if I get it up a bit more will it perform as well as the new version of the 7970's