Hello,

I just purchased a XFX HD 7850 Radeon 1GB card for my system. I was previously running a nVidia GTS 250 without any issues, but it's age was showing in Skyrim and other newer games. After installing the HD7850, I noticed that small boxes would appear on my desktop at random times. The boxes are smaller than 1cm, and appear to be made up of green, white, and pink pixels. If I refresh the screen, the boxes disappear, but I've also had them expand in to green, white, and pink rectangles that cannot be cleared unless the Catalyst center resets the card or I reboot. I also see some lagging in Skyrim after installing the new card, but that could also be an issue with the processor not keeping up. 

I have been working with XFX support, and have returned one card already. I still have the same problem. The GTS 250 draws more power than the HD 7850 (at least it looks that way when I compare the specs), so I think the PSU is sufficient. 

I was hoping someone here had come across a similar problem and could help me resolve this. 

Thanks. 

Graphics Card

XFX Core Edition FX-785A-ZNFC Radeon HD 7850 1GB 256-bit (no overclocking)

AMD Catalyst Driver Version, and Driver History

used 12.8, also tested with 12.6. Used Driver Fusion to clear out all old drivers

Operating System

Windows XP SP3

Issue Details

Small boxes of green/white/pink pop up on the desktop. Either idle or while working

Motherboard or System Make & Model

Biostar 790GX XE Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Power Supply

Rosewill RG700-S12 Single +12v Rail 80 PLUS Certified 700W Active PFC Power Supply

Display Device(s) and Connection(s) Used

Acer G235H with DVI cable

Applications and Games

The issue mostly occurs when I am on the Windows desktop. But I also see lag in games like Skyrim or Saints Row III. It's as if the character has a limp. Movement is not fluid. 

CPU Details

AMD Phenom 9950 Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Black Edition Processor (no overclocking)

Motherboard BIOS Version

Biostar A78CM525 BIOS. This is the last non-beta BIOS they made for the board, and the notes for the two beta BIOS builds don't appear to address PCI-E or graphics issues. 

System Memory Type & Amount

OCZ SLI-Ready Edition 2 x 2GB DDR2 800 Dual Channel 

Additional Hardware

Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Hard Drive

2 side-panel 120mm fans, 1 front 120mm fan, 1 rear 120mm fan

Additional Details

Regular scans done with Norton Anti-Virus and Malwarebytes. No issues found. 

Old drivers have been removed with Driver Fusion. I followed a driver purge routine from XFX to make sure I did a clean install with the Catalyst drivers. 

I have not tried testing with Prime95 (not sure what that is)

Update: I've been working with XFX Support, and I tried reinstalling the card using a HDMI cable instead of the DVI cable I usually use. Had GPU-Z running in the background to monitor temperatures. The pixel boxes appeared again after the card was idling for a couple of hours running at 27C.

So this doesn't appear to be a overheating issue. And only seems to happen when I'm on the XP desktop. I was able to take a screenshot of the issue but l keep getting an error when I try to attach the file. 

I uploaded some screenshots to my SkyDrive in hopes someone else has encountered this. 

The random boxes (the ones that can be cleared by doing a refresh of the desktop) look like this: 

https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=5D943E42C1A2CACB!107&authkey=!AMiG8AxmzvZXymk

Sometimes after the screensaver activates or the monitor goes to sleep, I come back to the screen below. It covers the entire desktop and affects the mouse pointer. I can only recover from this by rebooting or opening the Catalyst Center and changing the desktop resolution. The screen darkens, Catalyst Center reports the driver is no longer responding, and then the screen goes back to normal

https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=5D943E42C1A2CACB!108&authkey=!AKAE8fkg4FNrJX8

Did you try Driver Fusion (and Crap Cleaner) to remove all of the Nvidia software? Before installing the AMD card?

Intel I7 960 @ 3.87ghz *Intel DX58SO *HIS HD6970 2gb *Corsair TX650M *2x4gb Corsair XMS3 *WD Black 1TB *Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit *Gateway HD2401 24" 2ms 1920x1200  ***Asus N71Jq laptop *Intel I7 720QM Processor *Mobility Radeon HD5730 1gb *8gb Ram *Windows 7 64bit  ***Acer 5750 laptop

* A clear conscience is usually a sign of bad memory *

Driver Fusion - yes. Crap Cleaner - no. I'll grab that and try it again.

Thanks.

Uninstalled the Catalyst drivers, ran CCleaner and Driver Fusion and removed anything labeled nVidia or ATI, and reinstalled the driver. Rebooted on each step.

Same issue, unfortunately. I even reinstalled the chipset drivers for my motherboard in case it was having issues handling the card. 

I think I've finally found the answer to this issue. I've been checking back on my post and reading posts on issues other folks have had, and ran across this:

http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=440&threadid=161849&enterthread=y

I tried the suggestion in the post about increasing my core clock. 400MHz did not fix it, but 500MHz appears to be doing the trick. The card has increased the memory clock to 1200MHz to compensate. I've been running all day with no artifacting, even after leaving the PC idle for a few hours. I have a couple of different profiles in CCC to play around with, but this appears to be the winner. 

Thanks to Canis-X for the tip!