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Problems with my new 2 x MSI R9 290x

Ashley Long

Ashley Long

Ashley Long

Associate
Joined
9 Feb 2009
Posts
110
I have been experiencing a few issues with my new gfx cards, and wanted to double check a few things with you guys.

System Spec :
2 x MSI Radeon R9 290X Gaming Edition 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (Catalyst Software Suite 13.12)
Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail
Asus P8Z77-V LX2 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s
XFX 850W XXX Edition Modular '80 Plus Silver' Power Supply
NZXT Phantom Enthusiast USB3.0 Full Tower Case
Windows 8 (64-bit, no service pack atm).
3 x BenQ GL2450 24" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black

The problems are

1) With both GFX cards installed Windows boots fine but shuts off when you launch a game or 3d stress test. When the PC reboots the bios says Asus Surge protection was activated and asks you to go in to the bios setup. I figure its a PSU issue but from my calculations 850W should be enough to power this build, I have removed secondary HD's and CD player but no joy.

Currently the cables from the PSU are all plugged in to one side (i.e. fan down installed in the case they are all on the motherboard side, with a whole row unused). Could it be that with the way these are plugged in they are all drawing power from the same component and switching half of the cables to the other row will help to share out the load?

2) After the above problems i have taken out one card. The card left seems to have stability issues. The drivers crash (and "recover") when in game, the FPS will sit at 90+fps then drop to 3-10fps before jumping back up ( i believe this might be to do with the driver crashing ). When running FurMark tests the temperatures stay low, however the GFX card performance swings drastically, first test was a 70fps average, never dropping below 50ish, i believe the final "score" was around 4400, when it ended the gfx drivers crashed and recovered. after a few more tests i was scoring in the 600 area with very poor fps, never really getting above 15fps. ( I can drag out some comprehensive numbers and run some more tests tonight if you think it will help ).

I believed it is a unstable factory overclock, which needs a few extra core volts to become stable. However as the card is MSI its voltage locked (i don't want to flash the bios if i'm going to RMA it). I have tired reinstalling drivers but with no joy.

I will try and swap out the other card tonight after work to confirm its just the one card which is unstable. The system was (and still is) stable with my pair of old 7950's in.

Any ideas?
 
I'm going to go with a lack of power.

How does the system run with just one card?

Edit sorry reading in work so read fast and missed bits.

Test both cards individually see if the issues you have only happen a certain card, regardless i think you need a better psu.
 
Last edited:
Go into your motherboards bios and look for an option called 'Asus surge protection'. Disable it. I found it used to shut my pc off as well when i was benchmarking. I would also suggest updating to the very latest bios, if you have not already. 2x290X's is cutting it a bit fine on a 850W psu to be honest. I guess it will be ok at stock or with a small overclock.
 
I have that almost the same system as that with that power supply, the only things different are the CPU which i have i5 3570k @ 4.5 plus i have 2 x sapphire 290's tri-x... and i have a gigabyte MB,

I have zero issues with cut outs..I would not think our power draw would be that much different so i would not go down that route just yet...

I would make sure you have the latest bios on the MB, i had a mate who had loads of issues until we sorted that out, then test the cards on there own.

Hate to say it, but did you do a new OS install before banging the cards in, myself and friends have had countless issues with new cards until that was done, even going from amd to amd its not just something that can cause issues going from green to red or the other way.
 
I've had a couple fail. Black Editions...So personally, regardless of who makes them I refuse to use them as I'm sure there's an underlying fault with that particular model at least. Like anything though I'm sure people have had many happy hours out of them.

But otherwise, looking at Guru3Ds findings 290Pros require a minimum of 800W PSU in Crossfire. So logic dictates that for a pair of 290Xs 850W is going to be pushing it, least with very little headroom.
 
I have that power supply unit as highlighted above, with a system not miles away from the OP, i would look at solving the issue within the system as outlined by Matt & myself before jumping on the power supply...

If its a duff card, doing some basic problem solving could save £100's, as buying a new power supply may not solve the issue outright.
 
UkSoldierBoy : Yer i was thinking about a lack of power with both cards. my calculations work out 750w needed for my system (but i based on stock 290x's and new powersupply, not one which is a year and a half old).

the system runs poor with a single card (see second point) with the drivers crashing. i believe this might be a problem with the factory over clock being unstable on that one card. As its MSI there is no option to up the core volts a bit to test it.

LtMatt : I found the option to turn off Surge Protection, i just haven't had a balls to turn it off yet. I have read online of it causing problems but it seems like i'm cutting off my nose to spite my face by just switching it off and ignoring the underlying problems. Will update the Bios tonight and see, both cards are straight out of the box, so no personal overclock.

EL_Jock : Thanks for the reply, i'll update the MoBo bios and see if that helps. The install of windows is only a few weeks old but was done with the old cards installed. It's not a big thing to reinstall windows, however i believe i might be getting close to the OEM reinstall limit on my copy of windows 8.

MjFrosty And LtMatt : From what i have read LtMatt is right and they are the same as the Corsair HX series

Scooby : you think its an issue when crossfire kicks in? i.e. second card is effectively turned off when in desktop mode and tries to launch when a game/3d application starts?
 
Ashley Long said:
Scooby : you think its an issue when crossfire kicks in? i.e. second card is effectively turned off when in desktop mode and tries to launch when a game/3d application starts?
Click to expand...

I had a lot of problems with freezing and driver errors when I had 2x 7950's only when benchmarking and BF4. Once I disabled the ULPS box it all went away.
 
Disable ULPS first.

Once you have done his test. Still unstable try one card at a time.

Still unstable PSU!!!
 
PSU is 1.5 years old.

Ok done some more investigation, 1 card is unstable on it own (causes the GFX card drivers to crash) the other card runs perfectly, so it looks like an unstable card.

I will RMA the card and then test with the replacement card to see if this changes the crossfire power problem.
 
Ashley Long said:
I will RMA the card and then test with the replacement card to see if this changes the crossfire power problem.
Click to expand...

Seems the best plan, if it cannot work on its own but the other does it would appear its a little duff, no point messing with volts etc, it should just work on its own,

Once you get the new card, its back to square 1 and see what happens,
 
as with any components it doesnt matter what brand you buy you could get a faulty unit.

my mate had 3 brand new corsair psus go in under a year.
 
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