• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

Possible Faulty R290X

CitizenEra5ed

CitizenEra5ed

CitizenEra5ed

Associate
Joined
27 Jan 2014
Posts
97
Location
West Yorkshire
Hi Folks, looking for a little guidance...

I got a new Sapphire R290X from OC yesterday and having a few issues.

Im using 2 screens, 1 connected by HDMI and one by DVI.

The HDMI screen sometimes flickers really badly and horizontal lines across the screen. The DVI screen looks fine at this point.

If I unplug the HDMI screen, so im only using 1 screen, the DVI screen still looks fine until you move the mouse, then the screen just turns black and stays that way.

Ive tried re-seating the card a couple of times and ive also deleted the drivers and then downloaded the latest from the sapphire website.

My previous card (xfx 8750) worked flawlessly and the only hardware change has been the new R290X. I've tried the 8750 back in the PC and it is still working fine.

Has anybody come across this? Any suggestions?

C
 
A quick update to this.

My friend tried it on his PC, just 1 screen set up connected with DVI cable and it appeared fine. He left it mining for doge coins for about 15 minutes and no problems encountered what so ever.

I decided to bite the bullet and format my hard drive and install Windows 8. I downloaded the latest drivers from the Sapphire website in case the ones ones on the disk were out of date. The only other thing I installed was cgminer to do a little mining.

The card appeared fine and mined away for a few hours with no problems.

The next day, I turned the pc on again and straight away, all the lines were back. I managed to start cgminer and immediately the lines went away. So the card appears fine when under full load but very problematic when not.

I also updated the bios of my motherboard to the latest level but that hasn't fixed it either.

99% of the time, it starts on the monitor which is connected by HDMI cable and then spreads to the DVI monitor. I know it's not the monitor as I've tried swapping the cables around and the problem jumps to the other monitor.

I'm going to try a different cable and if it's still no good, It looks like it's going back :(

c
 
This may not be connected but I recently got my reference 290X and I had a lot of random issues abit like what your having when I was using the HDMI part of the card and then a 2nd DVI connection, I tried all sorts to fix the problem until I saw a random thread on other forum saying that the HDMI connections on ATI cards mixed with a DVI connection at the same time often caused issues like I was getting and I thought surely not.

So I swapped out my HDMI to DVI Cable to a DVI to DVI cable and my problems where sorted. Basically went from running one screen HDMI to DVI and other DVi to DVI and now its working using both screen with DVi to DVI cable.

Hope that makes sense lol in short scrapping my hdmi plug that went into the back of the 290X solved it.
 
Glacius said:
This may not be connected but I recently got my reference 290X and I had a lot of random issues abit like what your having when I was using the HDMI part of the card and then a 2nd DVI connection, I tried all sorts to fix the problem until I saw a random thread on other forum saying that the HDMI connections on ATI cards mixed with a DVI connection at the same time often caused issues like I was getting and I thought surely not.

So I swapped out my HDMI to DVI Cable to a DVI to DVI cable and my problems where sorted. Basically went from running one screen HDMI to DVI and other DVi to DVI and now its working using both screen with DVi to DVI cable.

Hope that makes sense lol in short scrapping my hdmi plug that went into the back of the 290X solved it.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that Glacius.

I've just found another DVI cable in my cables box in the loft so i'm now connected with 2 DVI's - i'll see how it goes. Like yours, the HDMI cable I used is not a proper HDMI cable - it's a HDMI to DVI converter as both my monitors only have DVI inputs and my old card only had 1 HDMI port and 1 DVI port so I needed the converter.

I've just ordered a nice Dell 24" which should be here tomorrow so I can try a proper HDMI lead (if the 2 x DVI doesn't fix it)

c
 
Well, using two DVI cables has not made a difference :(

I've started and stopped the PC a few times and its just started doing it again. The PC shuts down after about 10 - 20 seconds of flickering and gives the error video tdr error and atikmpag.sys

If I can manage to get cgminer working before the flickering starts/crash the screens are perfect and they'll stay like that all night but as soon as I stop the miner, it starts again.

It's a shame because it's crunching some great numbers :rolleyes:

c
 
Another update....

What's the chances of me getting 2 faulty cards on the trot?

I returned my original R290X to overclockers for a refund and decided to buy the Sapphire R290X Tri X edition. OC didn't have it in stock, nor did they know when it would be in stock so I bought elsewhere.

The new card worked fine as soon as it was installed, mined away for a few hours - it was cooler and much quieter than my first card so I was a little happy bunny, for a few hours anyway.....

The next time I stopped the PC and restarted it, it was exactly the same as my original card - bad flickering, horizontal lines and a black screen after a few seconds :mad:

I knew my PSU (750W) was the minimum recommended, so I went out and bought another, Corsair 860 watt jobby and guess what? The card still crashes every time.

So I've had

Reformat of the HD
Fresh install of Windows 8.1
Latest drivers from Sapphire
Flash MB bios to latest level
Brand new power supply


My trusty 8750 still works fine.

Can anybody think of any thing I may be missing? If I return this card, i'll have spent £70 on shipping cards back and forth and nothing to show for it :mad:

C
 
If the card was fine in another system why did you return it as faulty? That would have pointed me to something else in your system. Try swapping the card to a different pci slot. Chances of getting 2 cards with exact same fault are slim to none imo.
 
Hi mate, thanks for the reply.

Technically, I didn't return the card as faulty, I returned it under the Distance selling/OC happiness guarantee as I didn't want to risk OC to finding the card as fine and returning it to me when quite clearly I was having issues with it. (whatever the reason)

It was fine in my mate's PC for the time it was in but it has also been fine in my PC for much longer times, including the very first time it was fitted - it run for several hours, scrypt mining with no apparent issues. (as did the 2nd card)

I've just taken my PC to the local computer specialists along the road and they are going to evaluate it for me, including trying the card in other PC's so I should know one way or another by tomorrow.

I agree, I'd be bloody unlucky to have 2 faulty cards, but it is possible I suppose....

c
 
Last edited:
Make sure you have the latest motherboard BIOS. Those D3H are temperamental buggers and the latest BIOS has sorted it for a lot of users.
 
Is it only happening when your sat at the desktop or only browsing for example? I'm thinking it's when it clocks the memory down to 150mhz at idle and cant handle two screens. I know when I had HDMI hooked up at first I had few problems but then got a Display port cable and now have no problems.

Check to see if its happening when your clocks are getting clocked down to idle speeds if it is you may need to bump the speeds up some how.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom