Strange 290x Issue?

[Stunted]

So, lets keep this short and sweet.

I've had a Asus dcuii 290x oc etc etc since january. Aside from some disturbing vrm temp reports, it ran fine.

That is, it ran fine on cat 13.12. Then 14.1 hit. Black screen within seconds of getting to the desktop. No problem, mantle's not a big deal atm, I'll stick with the nice stable 13.12.

14.4 beta comes, then WHQL, both the same black screen on desktop insta-crash on boot.

Watch_dogs gets released, to a flood of internet rage, 14.6 beta released to improve performance for both that (and now wildstar!... somewhat). But again, that insta-crash.

Basically, *ANY* mantle driver (that is, any driver released after 13.12) causes this issue for me. And yeah, with newer games coming and amd's rather horrific launch performance with games (the 2 above a typical example), this is becoming a really big problem.


And here's where it gets strange. *IF* I can start a fullscreen, 3d app (say wildstar) in the 2-3 seconds before I blackscreen, I'm fine (praise be to gaben for ssd's). No issues, stable as you like. Even then, once I close it, I could sit on the desktop all day with no problem. Just that initial boot onto the desktop.

Added to this, after the blackscreen, I'm obviously forced to restart, and I get "Overclock failed! Press f1 to enter your bios and reconfigure etc etc". Even at stock settings on my cpu, this is the message I get @ the post.

Any ideas? This is already my 2nd 290x, the 1st very literally refused to run a 3d application at all, and this one seems to not want to do anything but. At this point I'm not sure what to try. Do I RMA *again*? Am I missing something obvious? Yes, the card comes factory overclocked (if you can call 50Mhz on the core an overclock), but I can't imagine I'd be alone with this issue if that was the case.

 

[LtMatt]

So, lets keep this short and sweet.

I've had a Asus dcuii 290x oc etc etc since january. Aside from some disturbing vrm temp reports, it ran fine.

That is, it ran fine on cat 13.12. Then 14.1 hit. Black screen within seconds of getting to the desktop. No problem, mantle's not a big deal atm, I'll stick with the nice stable 13.12.

14.4 beta comes, then WHQL, both the same black screen on desktop insta-crash on boot.

Watch_dogs gets released, to a flood of internet rage, 14.6 beta released to improve performance for both that (and now wildstar!... somewhat). But again, that insta-crash.

Basically, *ANY* mantle driver (that is, any driver released after 13.12) causes this issue for me. And yeah, with newer games coming and amd's rather horrific launch performance with games (the 2 above a typical example), this is becoming a really big problem.


And here's where it gets strange. *IF* I can start a fullscreen, 3d app (say wildstar) in the 2-3 seconds before I blackscreen, I'm fine (praise be to gaben for ssd's). No issues, stable as you like. Even then, once I close it, I could sit on the desktop all day with no problem. Just that initial boot onto the desktop.

Added to this, after the blackscreen, I'm obviously forced to restart, and I get "Overclock failed! Press f1 to enter your bios and reconfigure etc etc". Even at stock settings on my cpu, this is the message I get @ the post.

Any ideas? This is already my 2nd 290x, the 1st very literally refused to run a 3d application at all, and this one seems to not want to do anything but. At this point I'm not sure what to try. Do I RMA *again*? Am I missing something obvious? Yes, the card comes factory overclocked (if you can call 50Mhz on the core an overclock), but I can't imagine I'd be alone with this issue if that was the case.

Try my fix here please.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=25247146&postcount=5

 

[Stunted]

I should mention I'm on win7, not win8/.1.

Also, during the blackscreen on startup, I can hear the end of the typical windows "welcome" jingle looping rapidly, BSOD-esque. Of course, I've checked for dmp files, none exist.

Nothing amd-releated in the untrusted section of the certmgr either, just to double check.

 

[LtMatt]

Use the links in my sig to report the issue and send Warsam (AMD Community Rep) a trust message to see if he can help.

 

[Stunted]

I've sent the message, and I've been reporting this since 14.1 beta, though sadly (for me, not in general at least!) this seems to be a problem localized to me, I've not seen much of anything about it elsewhere.

One thing that I've not been able to try is using the card in another machine entirely to see if the problem transfers over. I'd think it'd be my next logical step, to discount the possibility of it being some sort of hardware conflict/configuration/compatibility issue.

 

[LtMatt]

I've sent the message, and I've been reporting this since 14.1 beta, though sadly (for me, not in general at least!) this seems to be a problem localized to me, I've not seen much of anything about it elsewhere.

One thing that I've not been able to try is using the card in another machine entirely to see if the problem transfers over. I'd think it'd be my next logical step, to discount the possibility of it being some sort of hardware conflict/configuration/compatibility issue.

Good man. Sometimes it's better to go straight to Sam rather than through the report submission.

What connection are you using on your gpu-monitor? Could you try a different one for now to see if that makes any difference?

 

[Stunted]

I'm using a dvi connection atm, I've also tried hdmi, no difference.

 

[LtMatt]

If you're getting an overclocking failed message that would indicate something else in your pc is unstable and might be causing the issue. Do you have anything else overclocked, cpu or memory? If so put it back to stock. If not maybe try increasing voltage a tad.

 

[Stunted]

I've got my cpu OC'd, I've tried it at stock, no difference.

The card comes factory overclocked, I've not touched it beyond that.

Though I'd expect the issue to be present under the 13.12 drivers too if it were an OC issue.

As I said though, I need to find someone with a large enough case/psu to fit this fat-assed card and test it there. Would be next on my list to try.

 

[LtMatt]

It's not normal to have an overclocking failed message when you press restart though and would indicate either the cpu or memory are not stable.

 

[Stunted]

Only happens after that black screen, which only occurs using a 14.x driver. Beyond that, 100% stability. Under 13.12, not a single crash.

Only notable hardware gap in my setup is an aging psu, bought it 5 years ago, a hx1050w. Has served me well, but the rest of the parts run fine.

I can swap in my older 7970 and the pc will run without skipping a beat also, both stock and OC'd. Something to keep in mind.

 

[LtMatt]

Can you try the 290 on a difference pc, perhaps a friends? Or do you have a difference psu you could try? May not be either of those issues but you have to go through the process of elimination sometimes.

 

[Stunted]

Hoping to find a buddy with a pc large enough to fit one, they've all got these fashionable tiny boxes these days, ugh.