[Update - looks like searching the forums for 'Catalyst' was my first mistake - nobody seems to call them that! I'm just about to take a chance and try 13.1 and see if that solves the problem]

Sorry if the answer to this is already posted somewhere but I have looked for far too long - and not found it.

I have a variety of CPUs running Win7 64bit with all patches and updates.

All machines have 1 or 2 ATI 5870 based GPU cards from a variety of suppliers.

Just about every BOINC project I run is fine *except* the straightforward MilkyWay@Home (is it 1.02? - I just aborted the few work units I had left) and this always fails with a computation error. Separation (Modified Fit) 1.28 (opencl_amd_ati) runs fine.

I see much here and on other projects saying the ATI Catalyst drivers seem to mess up open CL support every time they fix another game bug. I've even had a notice from the project saying my GPU driver version won't work but I can't find anything telling me which - if any - version *will* work with my 5870s I have tried 14.1, 13.12 and 13.4 and each time I try to clean out a newer version and load an older one, I get at least one system crash usually needing a start-up repair and then requiring my RAID to re-verify!

Please *PLEASE* - if anyone can tell me a Catalyst version that is good for ATI 5870s I'll take the chance one more time and give it a try. I don't need games support, just a fair reliability for everyday Windows apps and - ideally - MilkyWay.

Thanks and best wishes to all.

Try 12.8

13.1 should do it.

And lol, yea most people shorten catalyst to cat ;) (including for car cats).

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Team AnandTech - SETI@H, DPAD, F@H, MW@H, A@H, LHC, POGS, R@H, Einstein@H, DHEP, WCG

Main rig - Ryzen 5 3600, MSI B450 G.Pro C. AC, RTX 3060Ti 8GB, 32GB DDR4 3200, Win 10 64bit
2nd rig - i7 4930k @4.1 GHz, HD 7870 XT 3GB(DS), 16GB DDR3 1866, Win7

An update for anyone interested...

Repeating problems getting 13.1 to install correctly after 13.4 with display driver running fine but MilkyWay (and GPU-Z) telling me there were problems with the open CL driver. I've been uninstalling from the control panel and then using Driver Sweeper in an attempt to get everything cleared out before each downgrade attempt.

I've loaded 12.8 seemingly exactly as it should be. GPU-Z sees open CL capability and MilkyWay sent me some 1.02 work units - which all failed - before reporting;

08/03/2014 00:32:48 | Milkyway@Home | Message from server: Catalyst driver version is not OK for CAL application with this GPU

I guess a man has to know his limitations - and I've reached mine. About to go back to 13.12 and just not request any 1.02 work units - life is too short!

The 5870s are getting old but the spec for double precision calculations is still better than many more recent GPUs.

Thanks to those who tried to help and I'll keep an eye open for any news.

Weird, once I followed the steps in the 6950 thread my 5850 was crunching mw 1.02 WUs no problems, as did another user with a 5870.

Did you do the following? :-

Uninstalled everything of previous cat driver using cat manager (including itself).
Rebooted to safe mode
Ran Display Driver Uninstaller (driver sweeper's replacement)
Rebooted into normal mode & installed Cat 13.1 driver
Rebooted 1 last time!

5870s were well ahead of their time when they came out :), & their DP power is still good by todays standards with NVidia crippling their cards DP (bar the Titan)& AMD doing similar for their latest gen cards.
Only the 6900s, 7900s, & R9 280s are significantly better than the 5870s (with R9 290X modestly better), & their much more expensive atm.

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Team AnandTech - SETI@H, DPAD, F@H, MW@H, A@H, LHC, POGS, R@H, Einstein@H, DHEP, WCG

Main rig - Ryzen 5 3600, MSI B450 G.Pro C. AC, RTX 3060Ti 8GB, 32GB DDR4 3200, Win 10 64bit
2nd rig - i7 4930k @4.1 GHz, HD 7870 XT 3GB(DS), 16GB DDR3 1866, Win7

Weird, once I followed the steps in the 6950 thread my 5850 was crunching mw 1.02 WUs no problems, as did another user with a 5870.

Did you do the following? :-

Uninstalled everything of previous cat driver using cat manager (including itself).
Rebooted to safe mode
Ran Display Driver Uninstaller (driver sweeper's replacement)
Rebooted into normal mode & installed Cat 13.1 driver
Rebooted 1 last time!

5870s were well ahead of their time when they came out :), & their DP power is still good by todays standards with NVidia crippling their cards DP (bar the Titan)& AMD doing similar for their latest gen cards.
Only the 6900s, 7900s, & R9 280s are significantly better than the 5870s (with R9 290X modestly better), & their much more expensive atm.

YES the 5870's are SUPER at crunching MW units!!! I am doing a unit in around 40 seconds and getting about 80 credits for it! While my 7970 is doing units in about 33 seconds and still getting about 80 credits for it. Each gpu is only running 1 unit at a time and around 92% of it is used by the unit.

That makes your 7970 a modest 17.5% faster than your 5870, the 5870 still doing well! :).

---

Team AnandTech - SETI@H, DPAD, F@H, MW@H, A@H, LHC, POGS, R@H, Einstein@H, DHEP, WCG

Main rig - Ryzen 5 3600, MSI B450 G.Pro C. AC, RTX 3060Ti 8GB, 32GB DDR4 3200, Win 10 64bit
2nd rig - i7 4930k @4.1 GHz, HD 7870 XT 3GB(DS), 16GB DDR3 1866, Win7

That makes your 7970 a modest 17.5% faster than your 5870, the 5870 still doing well! :).

My AMD 6970 is doing them in 32 seconds for the first half dozen so far. This is an older card back online for right now. It replaced a 6850 and will in turn be replaced, in a few days, by a 7970. This is all part of me getting the 7970 back up and running after the cpu fan stopped cooling and I went thru several steps before figuring out exactly what the problem was.

Your 6970's faster on those WUs?? Weird!

---

Team AnandTech - SETI@H, DPAD, F@H, MW@H, A@H, LHC, POGS, R@H, Einstein@H, DHEP, WCG

Main rig - Ryzen 5 3600, MSI B450 G.Pro C. AC, RTX 3060Ti 8GB, 32GB DDR4 3200, Win 10 64bit
2nd rig - i7 4930k @4.1 GHz, HD 7870 XT 3GB(DS), 16GB DDR3 1866, Win7

I knew I should have given up but stubborn sometimes trumps smart!

Tried uninstalling 13.12 and just as before it blue screened when doing the complete un-install from control panel. Very unhappy PC and after a few attempts at start-up repair and restoring to a previous time, all of which claimed to have failed, it did restart with a previous installation of 13.1 running. Running as in video was fine but BOINC and GPU-Z said there was no open CL.

So, did the full uninstall from control panel, uninstalled the Install manager, ran Driver Sweeper and Driver Fusion then re-started in safe mode and ran Driver Sweeper and Driver Fusion again. Restarted and deleted all the ATI folders I could find and even ran CCleaner.

Reboot once more and installed 13.1. It completed but said there were some warnings and see the log file. Clicking on log file it says everything installed OK. However, GPU-Z sees no Open CL and neither does BOINC. Control Panel AMD un-install (repair option) and Open CL is functional. MilkyWay 1.02 work units fail just as before however.

So, I want to give up but...
Having reinstalled 13.12, I now find that many of the non-GPU MilkyWay units are failing and another project (Collatz) is doing weird things with dual 5870s. Most of the time, about 5 seconds after one work unit completes, the work unit running on the other GPU fails. This despite MW and Collatz having been reset, removed and re-installed. Gotta love PCs huh?

My quick check with SFC says no problem and fortunately everything non-BOINC seems to be working fine.

I remain a great fan of the 5870 - especially as they are available for around £70-80 (~$110-130) on eBay here in the UK. They are working well in two other PCs I have on everything but MW 1.02. I just have to get this machine working as well as it did two days ago. Next step is to forego the RAM Disk and see if that's responsible for anything nasty.

Anyway, thanks for all the well meant advice and to those who have their 5870s running - Well Done!

Cheers

Your 6970's faster on those WUs?? Weird!

The 1.02 units are the ones getting done in about 32 seconds each, the Modified Fit 1.28 units are taking from 111.24 to 167.45 seconds to finish. I am leaving 1 cpu core free just for the gpu to use.

Sheridan
Have you tried a stress tester (like OCCT) to see if the mbrd/CPU & RAM are ok?

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Team AnandTech - SETI@H, DPAD, F@H, MW@H, A@H, LHC, POGS, R@H, Einstein@H, DHEP, WCG

Main rig - Ryzen 5 3600, MSI B450 G.Pro C. AC, RTX 3060Ti 8GB, 32GB DDR4 3200, Win 10 64bit
2nd rig - i7 4930k @4.1 GHz, HD 7870 XT 3GB(DS), 16GB DDR3 1866, Win7

Restarted and deleted all the ATI folders I could find ...

Did you check for leftovers in windows\system32 and windows\system32\drivers?

I had it once with a cat11.x version, where uninstaller and cleaners still left old openCL drivers in the windows tree and they weren't replaced with a fresh install of the cat version I wanted. Can't remember if I had to delete reg keys by hand too.
I think I was reading somewhere that cat13.12 puts it's openCL drivers now in an own app folder outside of the windows tree. Cat 13.1 definitely still has them in the windows folders mentioned above.

Thanks to everyone for not giving up on me and I will let stubborn overcome safe and have another go, as soon as time permits - it may not be before next weekend though.

I do need to take a close look at drivers and functionality of this system. It is my newest and is my only Z87 chipset, 4770 processor and UEFI BIOS so still things to learn about this generation. Everything except some BOINC projects seems to be working 100% on a 24/7 basis but there are a few things I need to investigate further. It is also the only machine I run a RAMDisk on (with the intent of extending the life of the SSD by keeping BOINC off it).

I'll report back, be it success or failure, with 13.1 or even back to 12.8 and will delve very deep into registry and drivers folder the next time. All it needs is time and that's a little short over the next few days.

Thanks and best wishes to all - it's good to find a forum where people are obviously trying to help and polite with it!