I have been getting black screens from time to time when my rig is on idle. I wonder if there is anything I can do to fix this? Right now I am trying upping the voltage from 0 to 25mv to see if this fixes it.
Well I will do that. Right now I am trying a few things first. Right now I have my card underclocked to the reference specs and I have a slight voltage increase of +50mv and I set my power limit to +50. To see how that works out. Plus I turned off Surface format optimizations and set my application control from AMD optimized to a non AMD setting in the CCC. I also plan on talking to Sapphire's technical support to see what they recommend me do first because I do not want to void my warranty If my Bios flash goes wrong.
I replied in your other thread about the bios update and someone else uploaded the file, guess you didn't see it....? http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=393021
Also then I though I have fixed the problem by not Ocing the card and setting it back to default clocks. Yeah I saw it but the black screens have been happening more often even at the 1000/1300 default clocks that Sapphire set to.
starting to think this GCN architect is not very stable and will always have this black screen issue its been going on for to long for my liking! surly if they were driver issues they would have it sorted by now? never had this much probs with any other ATI/AMD gpu befor
I am thinking that it has something AMD has done with voltage control with in the drivers because of the issues with reference cards and it is effecting OC cards for witch they cannot handle the OC due to the lower voltage. But your theory makes sense too. I have a BIOS upgrade for my card and I hope it fixes my issues because I even getting black screen issues during POST and where Windows wouldn't even load the AMD driver and it loaded my Igpu driver.
hmmm not sure now, because my cards I've just sent back were also AMD reference design with powercolor sticker on fan also had Hynix ram, now with one monitor connected even crossfired the cards would run grate never blacked screened nothing 100% stable although, if It was not for the fact I use three monitors then I would also believe that my cards are fine and have no issues. makes me wonder how many more of these 290/290X's have this hidden problem I say hidden because like I just said one monitor connected it works like a charm can game for weeks at a time no issues. but the fact still remains when I run an three monitor setup, black screen issues all the time even idle at desktop. people who think there cards are fixed should try running multi monitor setup to ensure that it is indeed fixed. I mean by hmmm my theory, your prob's closer than my thoughts with volts theory the more I think about it, but im not so sure its just gpu volt issue but also vram volts to, or more like you say the controller that controls both gpu and vram volts... just wish AMD would post an official statement about this .. not just leave us all guessing with no fix in sight lol :/ and really I i am far from being qualified to make such bold statements as i am not an qualified graphics card designer, although I do know that 95C is stupid hot even if AMD does say its fine/acceptable ... erm just like there blower cooler lol that's fine/acceptable as well ... well they seem to think so lol sozz about edits its late.
I have a question when flashing my vBIOS on my tri-x r9 290 card I was wondering if I could use the igpu as my display to flash the vBios of my r9 290 card or do I have to use the r9 290 card as the primary display?
yea you can that's how I've recovered bad flashed cards before, use IGPU for main display then flash the r9 card you have to typ the number of the card you want to flash, I think your display for your igpu is 0 and the r9 will be 1 so make sure you check first. sozz first post before edit was for motherboard this is for gfx lol :\ this will have all the switch commands you will need to know run atiflash -i first this will give you the id number for the r9 card although im sure It will be 1 http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/how-to-use-atiflash.57750/ oh I forgot to say the easiest way to stop your r9 black screening at desktop is by using amd overdrive in the performance tab change the max gpu temp to 55c or 60c this will/should stop your card from black screening at desktop although everytime you want to play a game you will have to change it back to 95c or the gpu will limit its self due to the 55c or 60c max gpuu cap set for desktop. don't ask me why but it work 100% of the time for me and my setup just got sick of having to keep changing it and also thought well I shouldn't need to do this anyway lol
I hope so, because if not then its not going to look like good news for my replacement cards .. ffs, that will mean I will have to return them again and even more waiting to get them changed for NVidia brand cards, if that's the case then these R9 290X's will make my upgrade experience the worst I've had in 14 years lol
Yeah with my 560 ti and my gts 250 before that I never had a problem with black screens at all. I also thought it could be either my HDMI cable or my HDMI port being faulty because I have read that some people had issues with HDMI ports on AMD based cards but that wouldn't cause lock ups.
I wouldn't be surprised if it was something to do with the heat blowing out of the rear of the cards, its very hot, might effect cheaper hdmi leads? who knows ? I did move my pc further forward, away from the wall in case the exhaust heat set fire to me curtins or strip the paint from me walls!, just joking.... although the exhaust is like a pubilc toilet hand drier, not that I specialise in pubic toilet Hand drying utility services! im hasten to add lol
come to think of it .... AMD should use a picture of a really hot chick with only a bath towel wrapped around her holding a pc in the air next to her head quoting ... Powered By AMD, The New R9 290X More Than Just An Graphics Card.
Well it seems the BIOS fix did the trick. I have had the PC running for over 5hours since flashing and no black screens.
GOOD NEWS !! thank god for that. so there is hope for my replacement cards after all just wish you could test it with multi monitors ideal test would be multi monitor, running Metro Last Light built in demo @ 4386x1024, dx11, quality very high, motion blur normal, SSAA enabled, tesselation very high. that test will stress the cra! out of the cards and make sure its stable I used to loop it 10 times no problems crossfire 1 screen but like I said soon as used 3 screens black screen city time