Flashing Console/Application Window

[HarryMuff]

Hello everyone
My name is Steve and I seem to be having a problems with getting performance test 7 to run on my machine. I contacted support today and was informed that there were others using SLI & Crossfire with the same kind of problems. So my aim here is to find out if anyone else has had the same problem and if they were able to over come it. . Threw tonight I will be trying various things so I can hopefully single out the process that is throwing a spanner in the works. First of is pull the SLI GFX bridge out and the second gfx card.
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Problem:
The software seemed to install correctly. The same as other times i have installed it (no delays/stalls in the install). When i start the program performance test 7 the console just seems to flicker and it is non responsive. I assume the benchmark is running while it flickers as my system resources all max out (except ram it sits at about 60% used). The only way to stop the program is threw the task manager, it seems to stop as soon as you hit (End Task). I have restarted the machine since install and tried to use it a few times, there was 2 times it seemed to start but then started to flicker,
when i moved the mouse pointer over the console and clicked in the application window it showed up as normal. All the hardware was identified and it looked normal, but went back to flickering and became unresponsive. I have installed it a few times and I am getting the same problem every time.

Link to Image of Console Bugging out:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/225/performancetest64bitfla.jpg/

System Spec:
Mobo: Asus M4N98TD EVO
CPU: AMD phenom II X4 840 @ 3.2GHz (My Overclock @ 3.6GHz)
RAM: 4 x 2gig DDR3 budget sticks ( Unganged 2000MHz)
HDD's: 1 x 500 gig WD 7200 rpm Blue (operating system)
1 x 500 gig WD 7200 rpm Blue ( Fast data/programs)
1 x 1000 gig Samsung 7200 rpm ( Backup Drive)
4 x 2000 gig WD 5200 rpm Green ( Data storage)
Graphics: 2 x GTX 270 Galaxy cards running in SLI & Dual monitor mode (I swop to SLI for gaming)
PSW: No Name 1100w (never had problems)
Expansion Slots: PCIE1 has a USB3 controller
PCI has a Raid controller for extra Sata slots
Opp System: Windows7 64bit ver: 6.1 (Build 7601 sp1)
GFX Driver: Nvidia 275.33 (Latest)
Windows Updates: all up to date


I would like to thank everyone in advance for any help and all suggestions.


Steve

[David (PassMark)]

The link to the image isn't of any use. The screen shot is too small to see anything, and is also linked to a number of pop up casino adds (imageshack have really gone downhill).

There has been about 3 people report this problem (out of about 1 million users). So it is very rare and we haven't been able to reproduce it here. In each case they seemed to be using dual monitors AND dual video cards. Just having dual monitors, or dual cards doesn't seem to provoke the problem.

[HarryMuff]

Thanks for your reply, 3 out of so many i feel special.
I didn't realize imageshack had stooped to that lvl of advertising either, time to find a new one. If you still need a copy of the image I can upload one somewhere else.
I started playing with a few settings and realized its only flashing when the SLI is disabled and was only happening with Hybrid enabled (also with bridge removed). I believe the problem has to do with the Hybrid SLI system and the SLI being disabled, and don't believe the dual screen has any thing to do with it. So I tested single screen & double screen so as to supply me with a range of data. Here is the data that brought me to my conclusion.

One Screen
HYBRID ON
SLI ON/MAXIMIZE:
PhysX on card 2 Performance Test 7 = 1584.0
PhysX on 980/780 Performance Test 7 = 1608.4

SLI OFF/DISABLE:
PhysX on card 2 Performance Test 7 = Flashing
PhysX on 980/780 Performance Test 7 = Flashing

HYBRID OFF
SLI ON/MAXIMIZE:
PhysX on card 2 Performance Test 7 = 1643.4
SLI OFF/DISABLE:
PhysX on card 2 Performance Test 7 = 1595.8

Two Screen
HYBRID ON
SLI ON/MAXIMIZE:
PhysX on card 2 Performance Test 7 = 1613.5
PhysX on 980/780 Performance Test 7 = 1592.9

SLI OFF/DISABLE:
PhysX on card 2 Performance Test 7 = Flashing
PhysX on 980/780 Performance Test 7 = Flashing

HYBRID OFF
SLI ON/MAXIMIZE:
PhysX on card 2 Performance Test 7 = 1630.1
SLI OFF/DISABLE:
PhysX on card 2 Performance Test 7 = 1596.1

I myself can live with this out come because this will hardly affect me. If there are any other bits of information you would like me to collect or things to try, just let me know I'm always happy to help where i can.

Thanks again

[djedi81]

Same problem here, but with 1 video card.

System specs:

Windows 7 64bit SP1, all critical updates

i5 2500k @ 4.3 GHz
p8z68 Deluxe, all drivers up to date.
8GB DDR3 @ 1866
4x 32GB OCZ Vertex II's Raid0
Diamond Multimedia Radeon HD 6950 (just 1) Latest 11.6 Catalyst driver package
Razer AC-1 sound card, latest driver

Dual monitors.

[Michael (Passmark)]

We've only seen this on dual card set up up until this point. Does disabling one of your monitors have any effect?

Also, just to be sure this is the same problem. Can you confirm it is the case that the PT window is flashing and unusable from the moment you launch the app? (Typically with this problem all the icons on the desktop start flashing too)

[David (PassMark)]

djedi81,
The i5 2500k does in fact contain a 2nd GPU. So maybe if this is enabled in BIOS you are running dual cards.
We are going to do some more research here.

[djedi81]

djedi81,
The i5 2500k does in fact contain a 2nd GPU. So maybe if this is enabled in BIOS you are running dual cards.
We are going to do some more research here.

Whups, didn't think about that.

You're right.. If I disable the intel graphics, the program works fine.

[David (PassMark)]

djedi81,
Good that it fixed the issue.

HarryMuff,
If you are still following this thread, we were looking at your results. Our understanding of HYBRID SLI is that can use the on board motherboard GPU. But your motherboard doesn't have a motherboard GPU. So turning on this feature without a MB GPU might be related to the issue.

Our speculation at the moment is that the desktop is switching rapidly between running on the various GPUs available, resulting in the flashing of the screen as it switches from one GPU to the other. PerformanceTest uses DirectX for 3D and thus the starting up of DirectX might be the trigger the device drivers to start running the dual GPUs.

So you need,
- Dual GPUs,
- Both GPUs enabled
- A motherboard that has switchable graphics (Universal Switchable Graphics, or Hybrid SLI support, like the 2 above)
- The GPUs not in SLI mode
- An application like PerformanceTest that uses DirectX but doesn't immediately switch into full screen mode and stays at the desktop.

This is just speculation at this point.

[David (PassMark)]

Djedi81,

Another question. Did you have the optional LucidLogix Virtu software installed (to switch between GPUs)?

[djedi81]

Djedi81,

Another question. Did you have the optional LucidLogix Virtu software installed (to switch between GPUs)?

Yes I did. From what I understand about the program, it only switches to the intel GPU if the specified program is ran... For instance, I run Badaboom which I have entered into Virtu so I can take advantage of the quicksync tech to encode videos.

As I feared, I just disabled Virtu while leaving the Intel GPU enabled, and it still flashes like crazy.

[HarryMuff]

Good evening guys so sorry to have left you waiting on a reply.
I got your email today and downloaded the debug version of pt7. It ran threw each stage without problems. I still have the flashing once the program starts when the Hybrid (on-board) GFX is enabled & SLI is turned off in nvidia CP.
My conclusion from this is I just don't disable it when running the test.
As I stated in the email I'm happy to help out where I can.

[HarryMuff]

To start off I looked and tried to edit my last post to correct myself, it seems that in my haste to run the program in DeBug mode and report back I didn't check enabled against disabled for the SLI option. After switching the SLI back on I realised that when the SLI was enabled there was another 4 checks in the start process.
I've never had to record applications so recording them in best view might take some playing around. I made two clips and uploaded them to you tube so you might get a better understanding of whats going on with my machine.

SLI Enabled Clip

SLI Disabled Clip

If these don't show enough detail just let me know and I'll make a better quality one (after I play with some settings).

Steve

[David (PassMark)]

Thanks again for the additional details.
We were not able to get to the bottom of the problem. But we suspect it is a bug in the hybrid mode function of the newer motherboards and device drivers.

We tested on a bunch of different systems here. (Dual ATI cards, Dual nVidia cards, combination of onboard video with discrete video, SLI on / off, monitor connected to different cards, etc..) but in the end we couldn't reproduce the problem. But we didn't have your exact config either.

The problem must be very specific to a combination of certain hardware and settings, as you found in your testing.

Given that there are a couple of simple workarounds, and that we are only aware of 3 instances of this problem from around 1 million users, we have decided to give up on it for the moment. The problem may fix itself with newer video card drivers.

If we get additional reports of the problem occurring more often, we'll re-open the investigation.

For others with this problem try,
1) Disabling hybrid mode in the device driver control panel
and / or
2) Disable unused video cards (including any inside the CPU).

[Tooms]

I have the same problem, running Crossfire (to just one monitor), flickering and non-responsive PerformanceTest. This Z68 motherboard has the built-in Intel GPU which I tried enabling/disabling, but it had no effect.

System Spec:
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3
CPU: i7 2600k
OS: Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate
RAM: 2 x 4gig G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3-1600
HDD's: 160GB Intel SSD + data drives
Graphics: Crossfire, 2 x MSI Radeon HD r6750, one monitor
Sound: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro
PSU: Corsair AX1200

[Michael (Passmark)]

We've released a new version of PerformanceTest (build 1024 here) that has a possible fix for this problem.

Also for anyone experiencing this problem on nVidia cards we have had a report from at least one person that updating their drivers fixed the issue.