Topic: GPU usage drops to 0% on 6970 (Read 2476 times)

.... lol, you're welcome. You would've saved hours if you didn't do what I told you to, though. 

Kluge, thanks for the advice.  I ran CGminer in windows 7 and I haven't had a problem yet.  They have been running for 45 minutes so far with no problems *knock on wood*.  I can't understand why GUIminer was causing errors.

Doubt it, but CGMiner's easy enough to set up and test if you want. Or you could try BitMinter, which is practically plug-and-play. Sorry I couldn't help.
(bump)

Ok, so my night was filled with these trouble shooting steps.

I switched my GPU into a different PCI-E.  Same Issue. 
PSU is good. tested rails for accurate voltage.
I installed Ubuntu since it's easy and had to resetup the settings and such, but same issue.
I didn't get a chance to only run one card on the board.  I really hope that's not the problem since I'd like to add two more cards to this board with the exodus of cards on the market the past few days. 
I did stresstest with no failures. 

I'm using GUIMiner.  Do you feel that could cause the issue? 

Are you overclocking the cards?

Well...thanks for the night worth of work!  I'll try these when I get home and I'll update the thread.  Thank you.

Well... then I'll just prattle off theories that sound plausible:
*Power issue. Could be a bad molex cable/adapter, or something wrong with the PSU itself (though this seems unlikely since there's nothing wrong with the other). I'm guessing you're not in an area with frequent brownouts... I'd switch the molex cables on the 6870 with the ones on the 6970, reboot, and see if issue is solved. (or if PSU is modular, just use different molex cables for 6970)
*Your OS or BIOS is trying to switch which GPU (between integrated/dedicated) it's using for display, causing some type of software/driver problem. Obviously not the problem if you don't have an motherboard-integrated GPU.

Other ideas:
-Switch which GPU you connect a monitor to, or try a dummy plug in the 6970.
-Switch out PSU with known-good, if available. Re-test.
-Switch the position of the 6970 and 6870 on the motherboard. It's possible there's an issue with the PCI-E port on the mobo.
-If you have multi-boot PC, try a different OS and re-test. If you're on Windows and maybe don't have much Linux experience, Ubuntu's pretty easy to install with LiveCD versions.
-Take out the 6870 and see if the 6970 still drops load. If not, and other issues are proven non-issues, there may be something wrong with the motherboard itself.
-If all else fails and nobody comes in with more ideas.... try running Furmark or a similar gfx benchmark tool and see if the load drops on there, too.

They are not in CrossFire.

That's weird. They're not in Crossfire, right?

I've been searching the forums and either don't know what term to use to search or just can't find anything... Can anyone give any insight on this please?  Why does my graphics card go from 98% load while mining to 0% mining load.

I'm using MSI Afterburner to observe these results.  Thanks!

My 6970 will drop the load on it and not recover. 

CCC - 13.1
Graphics Cards 6970 & a 6870
1000w power supply

It's has been running at 69c on average and runs like a champ.  Than it drops whatever load it has on it currently and never recovers.  Does anyone else have any experience with this issue?  How would I begin trouble shooting that?  Thank you!