after so many posts with the black screen issued R9 290/290X's I can't help but also notice that there are a few members on this forum with very high post count's that also have the issue, although most of them have found a work around for there particular problem/s, but that is exactly it, just a work around to keep things working. my question and thinking is, these members with very high post counts must have a fair bit of experience/knowledge when it comes to figuring problems out, which i have no dout what so ever that they do. anyhow why is it people are not asking the question to "Why the R9 290/290X has to have a voltage tweak from the default in the first place ?" i accept it needs a voltage tweek, but why does it not work at default voltage with default gpu 1000mhz and ram 1250mhz settings ? like it was designed to work with? is because the design is flawed?, purly down to poor components ?, poor drivers? also is there any wieght behind this black screen issue to warrent AMD to explain what the root cause truely is?
Wasn't it because it's not only a voltage issue, but now voltage, clocks and temperature combined and bound in a way that easily reduced all of them, even if it wouldn't be needed (under load)?
if that is the case, in your opinion would you class that as an hardware issue, bad design, poor components or something else ? edit : I only ask because im truly interested in other peoples takes on the question why it needs the tweak and why it's not working at AMD's design voltages. or does anyone know if AMD has give a reason why it needs the tweaked voltage over ther own ref voltage design.
The more I read into this problem the more I started to think it is either related to the vBIOS Windows interaction UEFI mode (where Windows communicates with the UEFI vBIOS) Or a driver issue causing the problem. Since the Sapphire R9 290/x tri-x and vapor tri x both have dual BIOSes I would recommend any one who has those cards and having black screen issues trying out the non UEFI vBIOS and see if it is a possible fix. And try downgrading the driver if you are using the latest driver.
well it does appear that it not totally just an voltage issue for you I know you have latest bios update etc, so maybe your getting closer to the problem ? maybe it is just poor driver optimization ? although if it really is just down to drivers then howmuch longer will AMD need to fix it?
I also I'm thinking that it is some kind of UEFI Vbios issue as well because when I was using the UEFI Vbios I was getting black screens. Now since I switched to the legacy Vbios I am not getting any issues at the present time. I am hoping that by using the legacy VBios Is the workaround fix that I am looking for.
Well here is something interesting. I am thinking that my black screen issues are being caused by my USB video adapter an not by the card. I may have a lot more testing in front of me to make sure that this is indeed the problem.
ahhh, so could there be a chance its some other software conflict causing the problem? maybe another software is causing conflicts with card that no ones looked into yet? although there are so many hardware and software configs that other people with there pc set ups, it feels mission impossible to isolate what bit of software maybe causing it ..... maybe its to do with windows its self ? lol I don't know anymore head spinning lol ???????????
That is what I am hoping. I am testing that theory out. I had issues with USB devices before with my previous rig plus my previous Power Supply being in a weaken state my previous rig wouldn't get past POST and it would keep loosing its video signal and get it back and then it would get it back again. It would keep repeating the same over and over in a infinite loop. But in this case I don't think it is my Power Supply because I got a quality one.
hmmm interesting theory, i'll have to try bare min build, you know only keep devices connected that need to be connected to run the PC, to behonest I never tried that lol first thing I will try when the cards are returned is min build, I will give the cards one more shot at keeping them stable although if after a week I still have no fix for my issue I will have no option but to turn to Nvidia for my hardware.
Well I do have something for you to try out since you run 2 cards in Crossfire. Is disabling ULPS (Ultra Low Power state) http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-1904869/disable-ulps-amd-crossfire-setups.html
yea to be honest i have two pc's and one has an APU A10-6800K because i like to test and play around i bought an r7 250 ddr5 1 gig i noticed when in dual gfx mode that the r7 250 even when in idle the gpu was at 100% i verified this with amd monitor, so i used to disable ulps in that system that would fix the issue of the r7 250 in dual gfx mode from being stuck at 100% with my i7-4770 system when i check the gpu's in crossfire when pc is idle both gpu's are at 0% so i dout it would help my multi monitor black screen issue but im kicking myself now for not trying it out? i thought it was just an issue that was linked to AMD Chipsets and not Intel ? I've been into pc's for at least 14 years as hobby to start then end working, building PC's for local charity ect, i have a fair bit knowledge with computers but far from knowing it all, i only know the facts with the hardware i have worked with over the 14 years, kind of build ya own knowledge system lol although theres is so much info from other users that is handy and as you can imagine a forum with loads of people with all there different knowledge put in one place makes for one massive knowledge based system, hence me turning up on this forum, although i have been told off twice now so from now on i must behave, heeh i just have a funny sence of humour sometimes which i have to keep contained on this forum .. im a bit of a joker but not in a nasty way, just no joking around on this forum huh i get told off lol...
Well I am starting to think that something is physically wrong with the card but I have to run my rig off of the igpu to further verify that. Because I have gotten 3 more black screens today. I am starting to run out of ideas on what else to try. I'm not sure that RMAing the card would do me any good or not. I am just afraid if I do RMA the card and they send me a replacement and it does the same thing I am back to square one here. Also what is weird about this that I have Hynix RAM on my card. While the others have the one that starts with E.Also I have on more thing left to try which is using a 2nd power cable from the Power Supply instead of one.
if your psu has multi rails i think AMD advise it has to have a min of 21A per rail, my PSU has one big fat rail of 72amps if i remember rightly, i tested 1 of the cards in my A10-6800k system, but it has multi rails of only 18Amps per rail, the card would crash but in a different way with motherboard at post saying surge detected so i assume 18amps per rail was not enough, it would not make any difference if i used the other cable, as like i say no matter what cables i use still only 18amps per rail .. i still tried anyway but was same result. sozz about edits lol keep being interrupted by my drunk landlord lol ....
then i fear this will not help you sorry but still try it. as 71a on one rail is more than enough using the second pice power lead probs will not help you in this case but please test it. im thinking now if its not drivers AMD has an hardware issue somewhere along the lines... i test 1 card the same on my corsair rm850 but i knew it would make no difference again still didn't stop me from testing it again made no diff in my case...
I just been thinking for reasons why AMD has/might not of responded to the black screen issue ... take in mind this is just a theory. being an ex crypto miner, somethings just clicked, I know for a 100% fact a lot of R9 290X's got sucked up by Miners world wide, now some of them have massive farms of R9 290/290X's tens of thousands of pounds worth of hardware invested in crypo farms, anyhow, how many professional crypto miners compared to gamers have more than 1 R9 290X 100% of them obviously. some investers have loads of them and I mean loads, anyway more to my theory, when you use these R9 290X's for mining 99% of the time you will never come across this issue, because of how the gfx card is being used, im guessing, so lets just say that the miners have the most amount of these R9 290/290X's, (out of the normal gaming world) number crunching away, no worrys for them then. they have no issues to report, so the black screen issue could be a whole lot bigger than anyone really knows. just a theory though. im saying this because if this black screen issue was that bad then AMD would be forced to respond, but if most of the R 290/290X's that have been bought ended up in crypto farms that don't get the black screen issue because its being used for crypto mining, then that could explain why AMD have kept quite. Again this is all theory.
Yeah I agree because when I had my card plugged in from time to time my at POST I would get no video and then when I had my 2nd monitor it would load the Igpu on the 2nd monitor and have nothing displayed on my primary monitor. When I had my 560 ti card I used separate PCI-e power cables. This is what gave me my idea. Right now I am testing to make sure it is the graphics card and nothing else such as the motherboard etc by using the Igpu. Makes sense to me. There were a lot of bitcoin miners at the time hence the huge increase in prices for top tier cards as well as the mid range cards at the time of the craze. Also this makes me wonder if any users of the r9 295 x2 cards are having any black screen issues? If push comes to shove I may invest in a Nvidia GPU because I have never had any problems with them in the the cards that I have had in the past.
put it this way I will eat my hat if your pc blacks screens when using your igpu I say that because I know it wont lol
