problem with new 290

sti007 · 8 Nov 2014 at 15:41

Hi guys. Just treated myself to this
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-166-PC&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752
unfortunately I seem to be having issues which seem to have been quite common in the past with these cards. I haven't been able to find the solution though. When gaming I am getting gpu usage spikes from 0 to 100% every second or so and this is causing major stuttering in gameplay. I have tried the usual things like reinstalling drivers after using driver cleaner in safe mode. I also removed msi afterburner but still no joy. I am using the latest drivers. Any help would be much appreciated.

snips86x · 8 Nov 2014 at 15:47

Try the following but make sure you've installed the most recent drivers.

Install MSI AB and do the following
- Disable ULPS
- Disable Power Play support
- Enable Unified GPU monitor

If that doesn't work, download Radeon Pro and create a profile to use max clocks.

sti007 · 8 Nov 2014 at 16:01

Thanks snips. I'm out at the moment but will try what you have suggested when I get back later. Was this a common problem then. My gtx 580 never skipped a beat and just worked as it should. Thought I would try the red team again for mantle support being as my cpu is an old man now!

Heisenberg · 8 Nov 2014 at 17:23

snips86x said:
Try the following but make sure you've installed the most recent drivers.

Install MSI AB and do the following
- Disable ULPS
- Disable Power Play support
- Enable Unified GPU monitor

If that doesn't work, download Radeon Pro and create a profile to use max clocks.

Is that not only a fix for crossfire issues?

humbug · 8 Nov 2014 at 17:53

sti007 said:
Hi guys. Just treated myself to this
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-166-PC&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752
unfortunately I seem to be having issues which seem to have been quite common in the past with these cards. I haven't been able to find the solution though. When gaming I am getting gpu usage spikes from 0 to 100% every second or so and this is causing major stuttering in gameplay. I have tried the usual things like reinstalling drivers after using driver cleaner in safe mode. I also removed msi afterburner but still no joy. I am using the latest drivers. Any help would be much appreciated.

Some games, which games? or all games?

I have the same card BTW.

thesmokingman · 8 Nov 2014 at 17:57

snips86x said:
Try the following but make sure you've installed the most recent drivers.

Install MSI AB and do the following
- Disable ULPS
- Disable Power Play support
- Enable Unified GPU monitor

If that doesn't work, download Radeon Pro and create a profile to use max clocks.

sti007 said:
Thanks snips. I'm out at the moment but will try what you have suggested when I get back later. Was this a common problem then. My gtx 580 never skipped a beat and just worked as it should. Thought I would try the red team again for mantle support being as my cpu is an old man now!

You don't need to disable ULPS, but on single card it won't hurt. Don't disable powerplay though because that will enable unofficial mode. If you don't know what that is, don't enable it. The main thing you need to do is enable unified gpu monitoring.

sti007 · 8 Nov 2014 at 19:03

Will be home in a couple of hours so will try enabling unified gpu monitoring. The problem occurs on every game I have played so far apart from fifa 15 which hardly uses the gpu anyway. Crysis 3 was really bad and titanfall. I bought this card after reading your review humbug because at the time you were using the same cpu as me.

Confused Stu · 8 Nov 2014 at 19:07

Is this a fresh Windows install, or still the one you were running the 580 on? If it's not a fresh install, how did you uninstall the Nvidia drivers? It could be fragments of the Nvidia drivers interfering with the new AMD card and causing problems. Have you tried using DDU to remove all the old drivers?

sti007 · 8 Nov 2014 at 19:30

I uninstalled through control panel and then ran driver cleaner in safe mode to remove all traces of nvidia. Googling my issue shows loads of people with identical issues.

sti007 · 8 Nov 2014 at 22:43

Right. I have tried all suggestions and still no joy. Gameplay is stuttering in practically every game I play. I am starting to remember why I have had so many NVidia cards! Anymore suggestions before I RMA?

tommybhoy · 8 Nov 2014 at 23:00

Might not be the fault of the 290 on your ageing system.

You shouldn't have to fiddle with any settings though it should work without any mucking about.

If your Antec True power is quite old now(5+ years?), it may not be providing enough juice to the gpu via one twin ganged pci-e connector, use two separate pci-e cables to split the load from the psu.

Possibly not be the driver specifically either, your system may be having a software conflict somewhere too.

Driver cleaner programs are known to corrupt Windows resulting in borked OS's.

humbug · 9 Nov 2014 at 00:01

Ok, First disable Hardware acceleration in FireFox, Chrome, IE or whatever browser you use, see pic for FireFox example.

Test your games, if thats no fix please load up MSI AB and GPU-Z, in GPU-Z click in the ? and start render test, then got to the sensors Tab, run it for a few minutes and take a screen-shot, post that screen-shot here, i need to see whats going on.

Marked in Yellow, UN-Check Hardware acceleration.

GPU-Z + MSI AB

sti007 · 9 Nov 2014 at 12:05

Just to rule the card out, I reinstalled my gtx 580 and ran some tests with that. Strange thing is that the stuttering was present with that card as well now. Not quite as bad but definitely there. So in the process of changing cards my PC has developed problems. Is it time for a fresh o/s install and try again with the 290?

humbug · 9 Nov 2014 at 13:14

sti007 said:
Just to rule the card out, I reinstalled my gtx 580 and ran some tests with that. Strange thing is that the stuttering was present with that card as well now. Not quite as bad but definitely there. So in the process of changing cards my PC has developed problems. Is it time for a fresh o/s install and try again with the 290?

A reinstall every 6 months to a year is always a good idea anyway.

sti007 · 9 Nov 2014 at 16:07

I always used to do that but don't have as much time as I would like. I will do a fresh install tomorrow and let you know my findings. Thanks to everyone for their help.

humbug · 9 Nov 2014 at 16:21

sti007 said:
I always used to do that but don't have as much time as I would like. I will do a fresh install tomorrow and let you know my findings. Thanks to everyone for their help.

Hope it works out for you, if not let us know.

sti007 · 11 Nov 2014 at 13:28

Hi guys. Just a quick update. I have managed to sort out the problems without a o/s reinstall thankfully. There were two issues which were causing problems. Firstly, my Northbridge overclock wasn't quite getting enough juice. Was fine with gtx 580 but with the 290 it needed to be bumped up a couple of notches. This worked for most of my games and the card was actually being used properly. Unfortunately I was still having major stuttering issues in Titanfall and Crysis 3. I tried a mix of settings and nothing I selected helped at all. I then ran both games in borderless windowed mode which made a big difference but there was still some stuttering. I then disabled origin in game and bingo, games runs beautifully. I have to agree with humbugs views of this card. It is so well made and oozes quality. I haven't seen temps above 63 degrees at the moment and card is still quiet enough. I think the deal with these amd cards at the moment is hard to beat. Four free games which realistically puts this card at about £165. An absolute bargain imho for the performance you get. I was debating this or the GTX 970 but think I have made the right choice with my ageing CPU. All games apart from crysis 3 are maxed at 1200p with a 60 hertz monitor so the bottleneck isn't even visible to me. The added bonus is you also get Mantle which should breathe new life into my 1090t. Thanks to all who helped me and especially humbug for his superb review of this card. Anyone wondering if it's worth the upgrade and have a similar system to mine just do it. Fingers crossed I can just enjoy the card now!

bloodkil · 11 Nov 2014 at 15:10

All good to hear matey, glad you enjoy your team red beasts!

humbug · 11 Nov 2014 at 18:21

sti007 said:
Hi guys. Just a quick update. I have managed to sort out the problems without a o/s reinstall thankfully. There were two issues which were causing problems. Firstly, my Northbridge overclock wasn't quite getting enough juice. Was fine with gtx 580 but with the 290 it needed to be bumped up a couple of notches. This worked for most of my games and the card was actually being used properly. Unfortunately I was still having major stuttering issues in Titanfall and Crysis 3. I tried a mix of settings and nothing I selected helped at all. I then ran both games in borderless windowed mode which made a big difference but there was still some stuttering. I then disabled origin in game and bingo, games runs beautifully. I have to agree with humbugs views of this card. It is so well made and oozes quality. I haven't seen temps above 63 degrees at the moment and card is still quiet enough. I think the deal with these amd cards at the moment is hard to beat. Four free games which realistically puts this card at about £165. An absolute bargain imho for the performance you get. I was debating this or the GTX 970 but think I have made the right choice with my ageing CPU. All games apart from crysis 3 are maxed at 1200p with a 60 hertz monitor so the bottleneck isn't even visible to me. The added bonus is you also get Mantle which should breathe new life into my 1090t. Thanks to all who helped me and especially humbug for his superb review of this card. Anyone wondering if it's worth the upgrade and have a similar system to mine just do it. Fingers crossed I can just enjoy the card now!

LtMatt · 11 Nov 2014 at 18:25

sti007 said:
Hi guys. Just a quick update. I have managed to sort out the problems without a o/s reinstall thankfully. There were two issues which were causing problems. Firstly, my Northbridge overclock wasn't quite getting enough juice. Was fine with gtx 580 but with the 290 it needed to be bumped up a couple of notches. This worked for most of my games and the card was actually being used properly. Unfortunately I was still having major stuttering issues in Titanfall and Crysis 3. I tried a mix of settings and nothing I selected helped at all. I then ran both games in borderless windowed mode which made a big difference but there was still some stuttering. I then disabled origin in game and bingo, games runs beautifully. I have to agree with humbugs views of this card. It is so well made and oozes quality. I haven't seen temps above 63 degrees at the moment and card is still quiet enough. I think the deal with these amd cards at the moment is hard to beat. Four free games which realistically puts this card at about £165. An absolute bargain imho for the performance you get. I was debating this or the GTX 970 but think I have made the right choice with my ageing CPU. All games apart from crysis 3 are maxed at 1200p with a 60 hertz monitor so the bottleneck isn't even visible to me. The added bonus is you also get Mantle which should breathe new life into my 1090t. Thanks to all who helped me and especially humbug for his superb review of this card. Anyone wondering if it's worth the upgrade and have a similar system to mine just do it. Fingers crossed I can just enjoy the card now!

Great to hear and good work Humbug.