Not a happy bunny

altrewin · 21 Sep 2014 at 20:03

So I have a lovely ASUS R9 290 DCUII in my system which I built in July, it's been pretty much flawless. However I did have one or two black screens/crashes which in the end I thought I'd pinned down to Core Temp not liking Windows 8.1.

But it seems that it may be my GPU, in the past hour or so I've had 5 black screens just browsing the web and listening to music. I tried putting the memory to stock 290 clocks (it had a 10Mhz increase out the box), no luck. Also returned core to stock 290 clocks, and it black screened twice.

I'm currently at the following settings and it's been working for the past ~15min.
Pwr Limit: ~50%
Core: 950
Mem: 1200
Fan: Auto (default curve)
Edit - Also running 14.6 Beta drivers, have had them since I built the PC.

What I don't get is why has it suddenly started happening when it has been pretty much flawless for the past 2.5 months chomping through BL1/2, Arma 3 etc. with the settings maxed (and sometimes beyond with RadeonPro, ini tweaks) at 1080p with no stutters?

Is there anything I can do? Clearly something isn't quite right, and I'd rather not send it back to OcUK/Asus for them to find nothing wrong.

CEUOTC · 21 Sep 2014 at 20:10

You could look to running DDU and doing a clean install of the GPU drivers, AMDMatt and Co will probably have more constructive input soon.

May also be worth disabling Overdrive for the time being to see if that settles it down.

What drivers are you running atm.

altrewin · 21 Sep 2014 at 20:20

altrewin said:
Also running 14.6 Beta drivers, have had them since I built the PC.

I'll try using DDU and redo the drivers in a bit, are 14.7 beta the latest? Also I'll disable afterburner for now then, or at least stop it applying the overclock (or underclock atm) on start up.

CEUOTC · 21 Sep 2014 at 20:32

Aye best to apply overclock after start up. Aye 14.7 Beta are the latest, l did think l saw a ref to 14.8 but not sure, AMD website is showing 14.7 Beta.

NoNameNoNumber · 21 Sep 2014 at 20:35

CEUOTC said:
AMDMatt

You mean LTMatt? He's not biased you know

altrewin · 21 Sep 2014 at 20:37

Mini-update, just had another black screen a while after I'd reset the clocks in AB and was waiting for DDU & 14.7 to download I had another black screen. It was only for about 5 seconds, the music stuttered like it usually does but it seemed to recover and everything looks normal except I have a gigantic cursor, also I was unable to find anything in Event Viewer. I'll do a clean install of the drivers after DDU and report back later.

altrewin · 21 Sep 2014 at 21:03

OK, just uninstalled 14.6 and ran DDU. Installed 14.7 and in under 5min after the restart had a black screen.

This is still at stock clocks. I'll put it back to the clocks I mentioned in the OP so I can at least use my PC for more than 5-10min.

Ayahuasca · 21 Sep 2014 at 21:05

NoNameNoNumber said:
You mean LTMatt? He's not biased you know

Panos · 21 Sep 2014 at 21:17

altrewin said:
OK, just uninstalled 14.6 and ran DDU. Installed 14.7 and in under 5min after the restart had a black screen. This is still at stock clocks. I'll put it back to the clocks I mentioned in the OP so I can at least use my PC for more than 5-10min.

Use MSI AB and check the temps

Also 14.8 WHQL are the latest Catalyst and far superior to 14.7rc3 in terms of performance and stability

You will find them at guru3d.

I would advice you to keep an eye on the temps via the MSI AB Overlay. Both for CPU and GPU. (how to activate the overlay is the 2nd or 3rd tab on the settings)

How big is your PSU and how long do you have it?
FYI Re-Install DirectX.

Qitarah · 21 Sep 2014 at 21:27

Format and try again maybe try a different PSU if possible. If nothing changes then I guess something broke and its an RMA jobby.

altrewin · 21 Sep 2014 at 21:29

PSU is an EVGA Supernova NEX 650w, I've had it for about 1.5 years now. Temps have been fine from what I've seen. During the heatwave we had around the time I got the card it never went over 80c, although the VRMs did creep up towards 90c. These days though temps hover around 76c during games and the VRMs never go much over 80c.

I'll have a go at installing the 14.8 drivers after another sweep with DDU. How would I go about reinstalling DirectX? I can only find the runtimes for older versions on the MS website.

Qitarah said:
Format and try again maybe try a different PSU if possible. If nothing changes then I guess something broke and its an RMA jobby.

I'd rather not format if possible. As for another PSU afaik the only other one around is an ancient 300-400w PSU which I wouldn't trust hooking up my PC to even without the GPU.

Qitarah · 21 Sep 2014 at 21:33

RMA it then. Nothings going to magically fix that frequency of blackscreens, unless something is reallyyyyyyyyyyyy messing it up at a software level.

altrewin · 21 Sep 2014 at 21:53

No dice, still blackscreened ~5min after installing 14.8 using stock clocks. As for RMA, I kind of hope it doesn't come to that. Hopefully tomorrow some AMDMatt or someone else will be around tomorrow and may have some answers. For now I'll just stick to using the card at the reduced clocks in the OP.

Qitarah · 21 Sep 2014 at 22:07

Does it still Blackscreen at the reduced clocks/upped power limit?

bloodkil · 21 Sep 2014 at 22:10

altrewin said:
So I have a lovely ASUS R9 290 DCUII in my system which I built in July, it's been pretty much flawless. However I did have one or two black screens/crashes which in the end I thought I'd pinned down to Core Temp not liking Windows 8.1.

But it seems that it may be my GPU, in the past hour or so I've had 5 black screens just browsing the web and listening to music. I tried putting the memory to stock 290 clocks (it had a 10Mhz increase out the box), no luck. Also returned core to stock 290 clocks, and it black screened twice.

I'm currently at the following settings and it's been working for the past ~15min.
Pwr Limit: ~50%
Core: 950
Mem: 1200
Fan: Auto (default curve)
Edit - Also running 14.6 Beta drivers, have had them since I built the PC.

What I don't get is why has it suddenly started happening when it has been pretty much flawless for the past 2.5 months chomping through BL1/2, Arma 3 etc. with the settings maxed (and sometimes beyond with RadeonPro, ini tweaks) at 1080p with no stutters?

Is there anything I can do? Clearly something isn't quite right, and I'd rather not send it back to OcUK/Asus for them to find nothing wrong.

Could you download this and tell me which memory brand it says: http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2326/asus-radeon-memoryinfo-1-005/

Marine-RX179 · 21 Sep 2014 at 22:14

I noticed all the drivers you've tried are beta drivers. Could your problem have been caused from using beta driver instead of WHQL driver?

Have seen many people skip using WHQL driver and go straight for beta driver and end-up causing them more trouble than it is worth.

altrewin · 21 Sep 2014 at 22:33

Qitarah said:
Does it still Blackscreen at the reduced clocks/upped power limit?

I haven't had it happen yet, so I'd say that's grounds for RMA due to it not being able to run as advertised.

bloodkil said:
Could you download this and tell me which memory brand it says: http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2326/asus-radeon-memoryinfo-1-005/

Marine-RX179 said:
I noticed all the drivers you've tried are beta drivers. Could your problem have been caused from using beta driver instead of WHQL driver?

Have seen many people skip using WHQL driver and go straight for beta driver and end-up causing them more trouble than it is worth.

I guess I could try 14.4 tomorrow, but equally 14.8 is supposedly WHQL.

EDIT - Just had a blackscreen with the clocks in the OP, going to back the memory down another 50Mhz.

Qitarah · 21 Sep 2014 at 23:14

Well two options

You test more (run a clean install/format) / try the card in another PC if possible? Maybe test your ram but I highly doubt that's the issue.

Or RMA it.

Something has broken, be it software or hardware related. You can rule out software by running a clean install but I'm guessing this is just a straight up RMA.

Panos · 22 Sep 2014 at 09:22

altrewin said:
EDIT - Just had a blackscreen with the clocks in the OP, going to back the memory down another 50Mhz.[/B]

What connection to the monitor you use? Please make sure the power settings on windows force the monitor to stay on at all times.

Might seem silly but worth a shot.

Marine-RX179 · 22 Sep 2014 at 09:25

In complete honesty, if you still get blackscreen with the WHQL driver, then you'd probably should rma the card. Though I would say it'd best try it on another PC first if possible.

At this point, I'm just hoping that your problem is may be the beta drivers not liking Windows 8/8.1.