AMD Vega 64 Random black screen possible fix.

[Boostjunky]

Hi,

First off I am no expert I have just been tinkering with computers for over 10 years.

I recently had an AMD Powercolor Vega 64 graphics card, reference design. For me it was working but I have a Corsair Gold 1000w power supply and I had it connected with two separate cables. I sold it on eBay and the buyer reported a problem with the screen going black and losing signal. After a quick internet search I confirmed this was a problem and accepted the return. Got it back, tested it and again found it working. However in gaming and using vlc player I noticed power fluctuations and high temps in the GPUZ report.

Now I also run a backup system, an ageing Sandybridge 2500K with a much older Corsair 650w PSU. I tried the Vega 64 in that and within an hour experienced the same loss of signal output, black screen. The GPU Tach power led also went out. I tried a variety of Windows 10 power settings and drivers and it made no difference. This happened at idle and under load. Then I tried it using its low power bios and it worked for much longer before developing the same problem. Now seeing as there was output in the motherboard bios and that it worked better on low power. I figured this was a power management problem in Windows. Thinking I had nothing to lose I decided to check the Bios and try flashing it. The bios installed came up as version .008731 in GPUZ. Now I cant find that bios online anywhere. So I flashed it with bios .008730. It flashed fine and I reinstalled the latest Adrenalin software from AMD. I left it for 24 hours with VLC player running various videos, tested Battlefield 1 and 5 as well as Sniper Elite 4 all on ultra setting for 4 hours each. Everything works fine now. Also GPUz reports the cards idle power usage much lower and temps at idle and under load are down by 5-8 degrees celcius.

Obviously not saying this might work for everyone but today is my third day of the pc running 24/7 without a black screen and it was put through a string of Cinebench last night. Finally this was it running in my older backup system. It never had a problem in my Z390 system with the Corsair 1000 watt psu.

Hope this helps someone, Cheers.

 

[Panos]

Hi,

First off I am no expert I have just been tinkering with computers for over 10 years.

I recently had an AMD Powercolor Vega 64 graphics card, reference design. For me it was working but I have a Corsair Gold 1000w power supply and I had it connected with two separate cables. I sold it on eBay and the buyer reported a problem with the screen going black and losing signal. After a quick internet search I confirmed this was a problem and accepted the return. Got it back, tested it and again found it working. However in gaming and using vlc player I noticed power fluctuations and high temps in the GPUZ report.

Now I also run a backup system, an ageing Sandybridge 2500K with a much older Corsair 650w PSU. I tried the Vega 64 in that and within an hour experienced the same loss of signal output, black screen. The GPU Tach power led also went out. I tried a variety of Windows 10 power settings and drivers and it made no difference. This happened at idle and under load. Then I tried it using its low power bios and it worked for much longer before developing the same problem. Now seeing as there was output in the motherboard bios and that it worked better on low power. I figured this was a power management problem in Windows. Thinking I had nothing to lose I decided to check the Bios and try flashing it. The bios installed came up as version .008731 in GPUZ. Now I cant find that bios online anywhere. So I flashed it with bios .008730. It flashed fine and I reinstalled the latest Adrenalin software from AMD. I left it for 24 hours with VLC player running various videos, tested Battlefield 1 and 5 as well as Sniper Elite 4 all on ultra setting for 4 hours each. Everything works fine now. Also GPUz reports the cards idle power usage much lower and temps at idle and under load are down by 5-8 degrees celcius.

Obviously not saying this might work for everyone but today is my third day of the pc running 24/7 without a black screen and it was put through a string of Cinebench last night. Finally this was it running in my older backup system. It never had a problem in my Z390 system with the Corsair 1000 watt psu.

Hope this helps someone, Cheers.

DDU in windows safe mode and install latest drives

 

[Boostjunky]

HI Panos,
I appreciate your reply mate. Like I said on my recent more powerful Z390 machine I never had a problem in the first place. I spoke at length with the buyer he seemed experienced I can only presume he attempted your suggestion. I found the problem testing the card with my old less powerful backup system, to see if I could trigger the problem. I tried using DDU and fresh driver install. The problem still persisted. It was only after I flashed the Bios on the card itself with the 008730 version that the problem was solved. I posted this for anyone who has attempted, swapping PSU, two power cables, fresh drivers with DDU and Windows 10 power options without finding a solution.
I was simply sharing that after trying all of the above flashing the GPU's bios with the fresh 008730 rom using atiflash seemed to work for me.

 

[TimAhKin]

Have this problem once in a while as well. I have Red Devil Vega 64. It sucks that you cannot do anything but reset your PC when it happens. Some disabled hardware acceleration in the internet browser. Last time when it happened it was when I left a music stream on YouTube overnight and in the morning was dead.
I only had the black screen 3 times in 4 months so can't be bothered to troubleshoot more. Will probably replace the card with the 5700XT Nitro when it's launched.

 

[Panos]

HI Panos,
I appreciate your reply mate. Like I said on my recent more powerful Z390 machine I never had a problem in the first place. I spoke at length with the buyer he seemed experienced I can only presume he attempted your suggestion. I found the problem testing the card with my old less powerful backup system, to see if I could trigger the problem. I tried using DDU and fresh driver install. The problem still persisted. It was only after I flashed the Bios on the card itself with the 008730 version that the problem was solved. I posted this for anyone who has attempted, swapping PSU, two power cables, fresh drivers with DDU and Windows 10 power options without finding a solution.
I was simply sharing that after trying all of the above flashing the GPU's bios with the fresh 008730 rom using atiflash seemed to work for me.

As @TimAhKin said there could be something stupid that doesn't work. Browser GPU acceleration or Windows fast boot are common causes.

Hence always have them off, and never had issues.

 

[greatash]

Noticing this more and more often now that im playing classic WoW for long periods of time, just had it happen twice in under 30 minutes. Will have to find a fix as this wont be acceptable in raids. Using a 56 Pulse.

Will try DDU and install latest drivers but I doubt that will fix it.

 

[TonyTurbo78]

I used to get something similar every now and again quite a while back, must be over a year now, not seen it since though. Every now and again I would get a black screen at boot up. I used to just turn off monitor and back on again which always sorted it.

 

[greatash]

Its definitely something to do with power usage/spikes or voltage. Happens way more often on Balanced mode compared to my undervolt, does not happen at all under auto undervolt but then my performance is 10-15% less since memory is locked at 800. Guess I will just use auto undervolt for now and replace the card around black friday.

 

[Davedree]

8731 bios is the 200w bios, (switch to the right closest towards fan).
If the switch is closest to the faceplate, (the default position) then someone had flashed the card with the 8731 bios. It should have had 8730 (220w) on that switch position.
Maybe the buyer tried to flash the lc bios on it and then suffered with the stuttering due to the recent driver lc bios lock out on Reference Air v64 pcbs, So then tried to flash back to what he thought was a stock bios?

Either way it would seem that the powerplay tables in the 8730 bios help the gpu/hbm/soc/uvd clock remain stable when it switches off from the idle p0 167mhz, which occurs when browsing, media playback etc.