• 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.

Radeon 295x2 Issues

Vinno

Vinno

Vinno

Associate
Joined
11 May 2010
Posts
1,652
Hi all, I originally posted this in the owners thread but I doubt it gets as much traffic as I'd like - so I have decided to make a new thread in the hopes that someone can help me.

This is pretty much copy-paste so I apologies for anything which doesn't make sense. I tried to update it best I can. Anyway.....

I bought one of the Radeon 295X2s which were in the clearance section on Thursday.

Whenever I install drivers for the card and reboot, I just see a black screen after the Windows logo and Windows doesn't finish booting up. (No login sound)
If I then reboot into safe mode I can use the computer and remove the drivers using DDU etc and try again.

I have tried the following things in roughly this order with the following results:

  • Reformatted and reinstalled Windows 7 - Same black screen after Windows Logo
  • Reformatted and reinstalled Windows 7 with all other drives unplugged - Same black screen after Windows Logo
  • Reformatted and installed Windows 8.1 with all other drives unplugged - Same black screen after Windows Logo
  • Went back to Windows 7. Tried a multitude of different driver versions and methods of installation (installing only the driver not CCC etc)
  • Flashed the BIOS to a newer version
  • Tried a different monitor & cable using a different port on the card.
  • Installed the drivers manually via device manager and the "have disk" thingy - this actually got me into Windows for about 1 second before I saw the black screen again. Upon subsequent reboots I just saw the black screen as usual.

Every combination of installing Window or Drivers in any order or method - I have tried, believe me. I'm sick of seeing the damn thing boot up after this weekend :D

Now after all those attempts I decided to try more hardware type things.

  • I first tried a different power cable from the PSU which didn't change anything.
  • Unplugged all other fans in the system - no change.
  • Removed a stick of RAM - got into Windows for a few seconds and then black screen. - That kind of tipped me off that this could be a hardware fault rather than some sort of weird software clash.
  • Swapped the sticks of RAM over so I was using just the other one - a similar sort of result. Trying each stick in different slots also had the same result.
  • I then removed my sound card (which has been playing up recently) and holy crap the system booted and remained stable. I rebooted again and it worked again! So I fired up Dark Souls 2 (only graphical intensive thing I have installed) for about 15 minutes and everything seemed fine.

At this point I honestly thought I'd cracked it. During this whole time the PC has been lying down on it side. So I stood the pc up and booted again. Now this is what really bothers me.

The system wouldn't boot at all. It wouldn't even POST. I just see a black screen and after 10 seconds or so it rebooted itself and the same happened again over and over. No amount of plugging in and out of things would change it. I reset the CMOS and it showed the BIOS splash screen then immediately rebooted again.

At this point I kind of gave up and put my 7970 back in - which fired up first time.

During this time also, the onboard network adapter on my motherboard ceased to work anymore.

I don't really know what to think about it. Part of me thinks its the motherboard because of a few recent issues (soundcard intermittently not being detected, getting stuck in boot loops as soon as I touch the voltage to overclock, onboard lan breaking). But then I wonder why is it working right now with my 7970? The model of the board in question is Gigabyte Z68AP-D3.

Then I think could it be my PSU? But its a pretty good PSU and I haven't had it very long. I dont know...I'm at a complete loss now.

I could buy replacements things but I don't really want to unless they are actually broken. OCUK Tech Support assure me that the card was tested as fully working before it was sold to me and I personally don't think its the card at fault - but I could be wrong.

Does anyone have any suggestions or pearls of wisdom for me? Please! lol
 
Have you got another PC to test the card in, or a spare Motherboard, an older one would be fine for testing as long as it has a CPU and PCIe 2
 
Vinno said:
Does anyone have any suggestions or pearls of wisdom for me? Please! lol
Click to expand...

a) I assume you have placed the radiator as per instructions.
Vertically, pipes down, and on higher level than the card.

b) I assume you have the latest BIOS (F8 i believe) for your motherboard

c) Unplug everything from your system keeping only the bare minimum
Motherboard, CPU, RAM and graphic card. Power on. (no drives or anything else).

d) Try the second PCI-e slot. if still not working.

e) Check your wiring. While the Superflower is good, I hope you haven't used any extensions to power the graphic card. It needs 56A for a reason.

f) Except your post, seems there are numerous others having issues with your motherboard and the 295X2.
However you said it was working. So I believe, there is some loose connection somewhere.

g) How you connect to the monitor. It either has mDP or DVI. Any adaptors to HDMI aren't working with this card.
I tried it before on my old monitor and wasn't working.

Let us know how is it going.
 
Last edited:
Hi, thanks for the replies.

Unfortunately I don't have any spare motherboard or any other computer to test it on :(

In answer to your questions Panos.

a) Yep

b) Yep

c) I tried it with everything unplugged except the main drive which is a 120GB SSD. I will try with the absoloute bare minimum tomorrow though.

d) This is the one thing I havent tried simply because its a colossal pain. Requiring me to remove the motherboard since the card wouldn't fit in the case. I could try it though since I seem to have exhausted everything else.

e) Yep all wires are straight to the card with no extensions.

g) I have tried both mDP and DVI. I dont have any HDMI cables or adapters.
 
So if you put your system sideways works, but when you put it upright doesn't?

That looks to me like a fault PCI-E slot. Try the second one.
 
It's hard to say really. Since it's not worked consistently.

BUT, yes.. whenever its been working. As soon as I stand it up...it fails. Actually I forgot to mention this - when it first started rebooting. I shutdown and then when I started it up again, I physically held the card in and up to prevent sagging - and it booted to Windows.
It then crashed about 30 seconds after I took my hand away.

That does seem like there is some type of connection problem. I will have to remove the hard drive cage and try the second slot tomorrow.

And if that works then I guess its new motherboard time because that's only a 4x slot

I can't believe I forgot to mention that. :D
 
I have an update.

I couldn't wait until tomorrow and tried the card in the secondary PCI-E slot. The drivers installed first time and the system booted to Windows. It did suffer a driver crash from which it recovered and has been fine since then......whilst lying down.

After running furmark for a bit I decided to stand it up.

The system just will not boot when its standing up. I just get the usual black screen after the Windows logo. I tried to boot up 3 or 4 times with it standing up and it wouldn't work. So I lay it down again - booted first time.

So now I'm sitting here with my pc lying on its side looking sorry for itself. But the 295x2 is running and is doing quite well.

I'm very confused as to why it wont work when standing up with either slot. Or why its even worse in the primary slot over the secondary one.

Very confusing to say the least.
 
That is without doubt one of the weirdest issues I've heard regarding a gfx card! And I've been doing this **** a long long time :D

Hope you get it sorted man, I have no potential solution to offer that hasn't already been mentioned :(
 
Another small update. I have been playing Dark Souls 2 for the past 2 hours without a hitch. Seems like the card is running fine...

If only it would work with the pc standing up :rolleyes:

It must be something to do with the PCI-E slots right?
 
Vinno said:
Another small update. I have been playing Dark Souls 2 for the past 2 hours without a hitch. Seems like the card is running fine...

If only it would work with the pc standing up :rolleyes:

It must be something to do with the PCI-E slots right?
Click to expand...

The card is big and heavy. Assuming you put all the screws to it, it could be that the motherboard slots are of such bad quality, that cannot hold it.

I would advice you to put it on someone else's PC before you go and buy new motherboard though.
 
Vinno said:
Another small update. I have been playing Dark Souls 2 for the past 2 hours without a hitch. Seems like the card is running fine...

If only it would work with the pc standing up :rolleyes:

It must be something to do with the PCI-E slots right?
Click to expand...

It would suggest theres air bubbles trapped in the cooler imo. I'm not sure how you bleed a self contained system. Maybe play around with the position of the the rad and see what happens. I'm guessing the previous owner had similar issues hence why it was in the clearance section.
 
Ok Freddie, so I just tried what you suggested.

I moved the rad around, twisted it round etc and I could just about hear a faint sound of liquid sloshing around inside. I did this for a bit and then I heard the same noise coming from the card itself, but much louder and it lasted for about 30 seconds. Similar to in this video.

http://tinypic.com/player.php?v=15wjthz&s=8#.VY_La0YVguU

The sound from the card has stopped now, but if I move the rad around I can still hear the water sloshing. Would this really cause an issue with the card booting from cold though? I don't know what the inner workings of these things are like but I'd assume that they don't have any type of mechanism to stop the card running if there are air bubbles etc?
 
Another update.

I stood the tower up and now that the card is in the secondary slot, its much closer to the bottom of the case. So I wedged a few things under it to take the load and raise it slightly. It just booted up fine.

If I remove one of the things I wedged so that a little more of the cards weight is on the slot I start to see artifacting on the screen.

I'm going to try running some stress tests and games to see if its stable.

Wow - as I was typing this reply I saw artifacting and the screen froze, flickered and then went black. It sort of flickered on and off for a bit. So I wedged my credit card underneath the support tower (lol) and the display returned telling me that the drivers crashed but recovered.

I feel sorry for my poor weakling motherboard :rolleyes:

I really have no way of testing the card in another PC. Unless I was to take it to a repair shop which I really don't want to do.
 
had a few issues that looked like mobo was packing up recently myself. blue screens, reboots, crashes. not booting past bios. started a few week ago but would only do it every few days, other than that worked perfect. ODD.

Turns out it was the sata cable to my C drive ( SSD ) which had gone bad, replaced it and been fine since.
 
Last edited:
Yeah I guess it is.

I just left the card running Furmark for 1 hour at 1440p with 8x MSAA and it seemed ok.

Got up to a max of 64 degrees.
 
An update for everyone who's been helping me.

I managed to get hold of another motherboard to test this card on.

After briefly working both lying on its side and standing up it refused to work again today when I tried after work. It hung on a black screen after the Windows logo every time I tried it both lying down and standing up.

I threw my 7970 in and it booted up fine straight away. It just has to be some issue with the card. Such a shame. I don't think I can stretch to buying one for new brand prices.

Any ideas what card I can get which will come close to matching it? I'm guessing only the 980ti or Fury are my choices?

Thanks to everyone for the help. I'll update again when I get a verdict from OCUK.
 
Did you try flipping the physical bios switch and restart? I remember someone had issues with theirs and that fixed it?

If that fails then sorry, got nothing to add feom the above suggestions. What budget have you got in mind?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom