Strange behaviour from new r9 380 during POST

[ChrisGTL]

Why oh why is nothing straight forward like it used to be......

Today I upgraded from a AMD HD6450 to a Sapphire r9 380 Nitro - below is PC spec:

I7-4790k (Corsair H100i)
Asus Z97-P
EVGA G2 750w
2x4GB Kingston HyperX 2400


Basically during POST my screen shows flickering/scrambled/patterns and I can't see my BIOS options any more unless I unplug the r9 380 and either use the onboard HDMI or go back to the HD6450.

As soon as the PC gets into desktop everything is normal - I've run some benchmarks and all is good. If I reboot from within Windows 7 I get a scrambled/messy version of my shutting down screen instead of the POST screens....

I've uploaded a video but still waiting for Photobucket to approve it.


Any ideas? I've updated the Asus Z97-P to latest BIOS and cleared to defaults before setting the XMP profile on my RAM. Still exactly same behaviour.....

Never seen anything like it!! And there's me thinking it was all going to be straight forward!!! haha

 

[AlamoX]

quite common issue for dying cards or mobo xD
but try first basic stuff like reseating the card to make sure it's correctly locked in, and a new clean driver install, you can also try a system restore to a period when it was working fine, see how that turns out

 

[fs123]

try updating motherboard and gpu BIOSes. If GPU has a bios switch try switching to 2nd bios.

 

[ChrisGTL]

quite common issue for dying cards or mobo xD
but try first basic stuff like reseating the card to make sure it's correctly locked in, and a new clean driver install, you can also try a system restore to a period when it was working fine, see how that turns out

Really? I don't understand why my card would have problems during POST but no problems under load. I've reseated it about 5 times now and tried different VGA ports on the PSU. System restore won't help as the problem is outside of Windows.

try updating motherboard and gpu BIOSes. If GPU has a bios switch try switching to 2nd bios.

Motherboard has newest BIOS installed. I can't for the love of me find any BIOS files for the GPU. Just been researching this issue and it seems to be a EDID HDMI handshake problem with certain TV's/GPU combos.

Only bought the r9 380 today (new from shop) so I can return it if it does turn out to be a duff GPU. Also, already tried the secondary BIOS with the switch.

DOH!

 

[ChrisGTL]

 

[FoxEye]

Only way to be sure is to try the 380 in another PC.

 

[Confused Stu]

There's a tiny switch near where the crossfire connectors would go (if AMD still needed them). This switch changes between UEFI BIOS and Legacy BIOS. Try flicking the switch to the other position.

This review has a picture with the switch highlighted - it really is tiny.
http://www.techporn.ph/sapphire-nitro-r9-380-4gb-review/

Used to get garbled mess of screen during POST on my Sapphire R9 285 ITX card when this switch was in the Legacy BIOS position, but was all fine with the switch in the UEFI position. Seeing as the R9 380 is an updated 285, might be the same thing.

 

[ChrisGTL]

Just an update for anyone reading this with a similar setup.

I've tried everything to get my BIOS and POST screen to show including flicking the little UEFI/Legacy switch over on the GPU card.

Nothing worked but then I had a little brain wave -

Clearly this problem is a HDMI error to my TV as I'm guessing my TV doesn't support the resolution needed for BIOS using this GPU. I remembered my AV receiver has a option for 'HDMI Video Scaling' which was set to passthrough as I play 1080p content on a 1080p TV. Now, if I set this option to processed my BIOS/POST screens show up 100%.

So, as and when I need to see my BIOS screen I simply select processed until I'm finished and then I can go back to passthrough. Works every time.

Finally happy and content.


On another note my Foobar using WASAPI seems somewhat louder than my old HD6450. Not sure what is going on here as HDMI is a digital signal but for whatever reason I do believe things sound better/louder on this r9 380 vs my old HD6450.


Hope this helps others.