Dead gpu?

[Armadillo]

So my brother was playing For Honor on his pc, and the game crashed to a black screen, thought nothing of it, restarted, crashed to a black screen again, tried again and for a 3rd time black screen when playing.

Now it won't even load windows. It's connected to a tv via hdmi. It loads all through the bios ok, gets to the spinning windows logo, goes to switch from the low res mode to the proper mode (I assume when it loads the driver), and just black screens. Sometimes it glitches a few times as if it's trying to change resolution, but it just black screens.

Safe mode loaded once, but then started to black screen. If you leave it for a while, safe mode sometimes works.

Bios doesn't show any corruption or any issues, posts ok, just won't load windows at all, just blackscreens.

Gpu is a r9 290 vapor-x and is 4 years 3 months old.

Quick edit:

Managed to get into safe mode, ran ddu. Could boot windows after that and was in the low res mode. Tried to reinstall the AMD drivers, got to 44%, screen went black, it tried to change res and black screen and frozen again.

So I assume it's dead?

 

[HoneyBadger]

It’s going to be heat or power related. Can you get into Windows again and run HW Monitor?

 

[Armadillo]

As long as I don't install the amd drivers and use the low res windows defaults I can. Gpu idles at about 40C which is about normal for it. Can't load it up with a game as it black screens as soon as you try to install the amd display driver.

It had no temp issues when it was working earlier. Playing for honor it was at around 74C (which is about the normal temp for it playing that game).

Edit:

Chucked an old 5850 in it, windows loads fine and so do the amd drivers. Games play fine as well (at least the ones the 5850 can handle).

 

[Armadillo]

Unless anyone else has any ideas, seems like it's dead.

5850 in the system since Saturday, no issues at all.

Revisting the 290 and tried.

Cleaning it and reseating it. Still only works on basic windows driver. Soon as you install AMD drivers, black screen.
Tried a new power supply as well. Still the same, boots fine, but black screen as soon as you try to install drivers for it.

Can't see what else to try, so seems like it's dead. Found a few posts of similar (cards working on basic drivers, but black screen when trying proper drivers) and turned out to be the card.

Anything I'm missing? Any suggestions?, otherwise can only assume it's died .

 

[drakulton]

As a last ditch attempt, you could try re-applying thermal paste and reflash the GPU bios.

 

[SkeeterUK]

Change the dp or hdmi port on ur card to a diff one perhaps?

 

[hardkore]

Thought i'd chime in with my experience with my old 290 vapor x....

When AMD released the Crimson software circa 2015/2016 it caused the exact same issues as you are experiencing. After digging DEEP online, it appears the factory overclock in the bios requires a certain voltage (cant remember now). Those crimson drivers defaulted to a lower voltage which caused similar symptoms and crashes.

I managed to get sapphire to send me a prototype bios which i had to beg for which sorted the issue. The only thing i can reccommend to try is install a Pre crimson driver and see if it works. I know Adrenaline are the latest drivers but i bet a similar voltage issue remained.

 

[Armadillo]

As a last ditch attempt, you could try re-applying thermal paste and reflash the GPU bios.

Has dual bios (one legacy, one uefi), both the same forgot to mention I tried both. Can't see both being knackered, also shows up as r9 200 in device manager still. Bit of a beast to take to bits, will see what they want to do after trying pre-crimson as suggested by hardkore.

Change the dp or hdmi port on ur card to a diff one perhaps?

Vapor-X only has one hdmi. Can't try anything else as they use it on their tv. Tried a different cable, no difference .

Thought i'd chime in with my experience with my old 290 vapor x....

When AMD released the Crimson software circa 2015/2016 it caused the exact same issues as you are experiencing. After digging DEEP online, it appears the factory overclock in the bios requires a certain voltage (cant remember now). Those crimson drivers defaulted to a lower voltage which caused similar symptoms and crashes.

I managed to get sapphire to send me a prototype bios which i had to beg for which sorted the issue. The only thing i can reccommend to try is install a Pre crimson driver and see if it works. I know Adrenaline are the latest drivers but i bet a similar voltage issue remained.

I switched to crimson when it first came out (was originally my card before I upgraded) and it was it fine. It's spent most of it's life on Crimson and then Adrenaline with 0 issues before.

I'll definitely try pre-crimson though & report back. Not unheard of for stuff to need more voltage as it ages, so maybe it can't handle whatever voltage crimson defaults to anymore.

 

[drakulton]

Has dual bios (one legacy, one uefi), both the same forgot to mention I tried both. Can't see both being knackered, also shows up as r9 200 in device manager still. Bit of a beast to take to bits, will see what they want to do after trying pre-crimson as suggested by hardcore.

No not the mobo bios, the GPU bios

 

[Armadillo]

No not the mobo bios, the GPU bios

That is the GPU bios. 290 vapor-x has dual bios and a button on the card to switch between them. One is for legacy mode and one is uefi.

 

[Armadillo]

Pre-crimson is no go .

Tried 15.7.1 WHQL which is pre-crimson and same thing. Fine right until the display driver attempts to install and then black screens and dies . Sapphire logo (changes with temp) was blue the whole time, so below 50C. Temps were fine right up until it seemingly died as well. Will have a word see if they want to try pulling it to bits as a last shot, but seems like it's dead .

 

[heatonpkmassive]

Sounds like it's had it then unfortunately.