290X dying?

[adolf hamster]

so recently i've started getting some crashing on the 290x, arma, borderlands, war thunder and occasionally right after a cold boot in windows.

getting blue squares (sometimes red but mostly blue) appearing on screen, then crash, mostly recovers with a "graphics driver stopped working and recovered" tagline.

tried refreshing the driver with the clean install option, but no luck.

card's a reference one, never been clocked/run in the "high performance" mode.

do we think she's dying or is it something else?

 

[arc@css]

Could be the video memory on its way out. What sort of temps are you seeing? If they are high then I would suggest taking the cooler off and cleaning away the build-up of dust.

 

[Panos]

so recently i've started getting some crashing on the 290x, arma, borderlands, war thunder and occasionally right after a cold boot in windows.

getting blue squares (sometimes red but mostly blue) appearing on screen, then crash, mostly recovers with a "graphics driver stopped working and recovered" tagline.

tried refreshing the driver with the clean install option, but no luck.

card's a reference one, never been clocked/run in the "high performance" mode.

do we think she's dying or is it something else?

Give a good clean to the card. Dismantle it, change thermal paste and thermal pads.

 

[adolf hamster]

so i did take the card out, pulled the top cover off- no real significant build up of dust, surprisingly little really.

temps wise hard to say precisely, but the wattman thing had her registered at ~87° before crashing, which iirc is pretty normal for a reference 290x, although maybe when she underclocks that's whats killing it?

currently have her out of the system, rigs running on a 750m which i had as a physx card (she was running for over a year solid with that setup).

from what digging i can see online seems to be most folk are talking either a bad card brand new, or overclocking issues.

guess i don't have anything to lose pulling her down a bit further, gonna need to order some thermal paste though.

 

[adolf hamster]

so, refreshed the thermal paste, replaced thermal pads, and sadly no change.

i suppose now the debate is either just replace the card or raid the shtf fund and do the whole system refresh that's long overdue.

 

[Panos]

so, refreshed the thermal paste, replaced thermal pads, and sadly no change.

i suppose now the debate is either just replace the card or raid the shtf fund and do the whole system refresh that's long overdue.

so i did take the card out, pulled the top cover off- no real significant build up of dust, surprisingly little really.

temps wise hard to say precisely, but the wattman thing had her registered at ~87° before crashing, which iirc is pretty normal for a reference 290x, although maybe when she underclocks that's whats killing it?

currently have her out of the system, rigs running on a 750m which i had as a physx card (she was running for over a year solid with that setup).

from what digging i can see online seems to be most folk are talking either a bad card brand new, or overclocking issues.

guess i don't have anything to lose pulling her down a bit further, gonna need to order some thermal paste though.

You have reference 290X?

 

[adolf hamster]

You have reference 290X?

aye she's a reference card/cooler, originally planned on going watercooled but you know how these things go it sort of never happened.

paired with a bulldozer cpu (rockin like it's 2012) i figured it was never being pushed to its full potential anyway.

 

[Panos]

aye she's a reference card/cooler, originally planned on going watercooled but you know how these things go it sort of never happened.

paired with a bulldozer cpu (rockin like it's 2012) i figured it was never being pushed to its full potential anyway.

Use DDU in windows safe mode (thats paramount), wipe the drivers from the system.
On reboot use CCleaner and "fix registry" twice. Use latest drivers.

If you are using MSI AB stop using it. Remove it completely before you use DDU.

Then undervolt the GPU by 50mv to 100mv, using wattman

 

[Marine-RX179]

Then undervolt the GPU by 50mv to 100mv, using wattman

Are you sure about that?

I recall the Hawaii cards actually need the voltage for stablising clock speed rather than like the Vega cards that are stupid overvolted to far higher than necessary for stock card.

 

[adolf hamster]

Use DDU in windows safe mode (thats paramount), wipe the drivers from the system.
On reboot use CCleaner and "fix registry" twice. Use latest drivers.

If you are using MSI AB stop using it. Remove it completely before you use DDU.

Then undervolt the GPU by 50mv to 100mv, using wattman

can give that a go, although tbh i'm starting to think she's beyond saving.

Are you sure about that?

I recall the Hawaii cards actually need the voltage for stablising clock speed rather than like the Vega cards that are stupid overvolted to far higher than necessary for stock card.

from what i've been seeing a lot of the posts about this issue on the 290x seem to be from folk overclocking rather than just an old card, i know this card's been stock from day1.

 

[subbytna]

To be fair you've had a good innings out of the card. Even a RX580 would give you similar, perhaps a bit better, performance than the 290x. You can get a 580 now for about £130 (after selling the game) if budget was tight. Otherwise a 5700 non X, would be a hell of an upgrade for you, along with that new 3600 AMD setup

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/powe...ddr5-pci-express-graphics-card-gx-18l-pc.html

 

[adolf hamster]

To be fair you've had a good innings out of the card. Even a RX580 would give you similar, perhaps a bit better, performance than the 290x. You can get a 580 now for about £130 (after selling the game) if budget was tight. Otherwise a 5700 non X, would be a hell of an upgrade for you, along with that new 3600 AMD setup

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/powe...ddr5-pci-express-graphics-card-gx-18l-pc.html

this is true, i picked her up not long after launch and she has worked hard all these years.

might go green team this time though, play a lot of borderlands and arma which afaik are green team advantaged, i do have a 750m running hybrid physx but tbh that's not really a long term solution.

i'll have to have a think, a system refresh is a long time coming although i was hoping i could squeeze a few more years out of the 290x and just get the cpu up to scratch.

 

[Freddie1980]

so, refreshed the thermal paste, replaced thermal pads, and sadly no change.

i suppose now the debate is either just replace the card or raid the shtf fund and do the whole system refresh that's long overdue.

It's sacrilege on these forums but try underclocking the video memory and see if that helps. The symptoms you describe do indicate a video memory issue.

 

[Marine-RX179]

from what i've been seeing a lot of the posts about this issue on the 290x seem to be from folk overclocking rather than just an old card, i know this card's been stock from day1.

I was just referring to Panos's mentioning of "udervolting" the 290x that may be not a good idea.

I have a 290x too before upgrading to the Vega64, and as far as I could remember unlike the Vega cards, undervolting the 290x likely would not net benefit, but rather it would cause a already unstable card even more unstable.

 

[adolf hamster]

I was just referring to Panos's mentioning of "udervolting" the 290x that may be not a good idea.

I have a 290x too before upgrading to the Vega64, and as far as I could remember unlike the Vega cards, undervolting the 290x likely would not net benefit, but rather it would cause a already unstable card even more unstable.

suppose it can't hurt to try going both ways, guess freddie's in agreement if he's saying underclock.

atm i've switched to the 750m which at least means the rig is functional albeit not for proper gaming.

 

[Marine-RX179]

suppose it can't hurt to try going both ways, guess freddie's in agreement if he's saying underclock.

atm i've switched to the 750m which at least means the rig is functional albeit not for proper gaming.

Yea, artefact would usually points more toward memory issue, but with that said since you have also mentioned that "graphics driver stopped working and recovered", which is generally caused by unstable core clock.

You can definitely try "underclocking" the core and memory clock in attempt to improve stability, but I wouldn't recommend "undervolting" the 290x and if anything undervolting a card would actually make it less stable.

Basically for in attempt to increase stability of your 290x:
Underclock YES
Undervolt NO

 

[jennidc]

I have a 290 none X model and I find it more stable running it at 90 percent speed these days. Ok I lose a bit of performance but not enough to notice