Kris Bendix

I did a fresh Windows install. Seems to be fixed now. Still, have to do some file recovery and game installs for full tests, but Destiny 2 and Fallout 4 didn't have any issues. It did have the black screen crash soon after I installed Windows (was changing the volume when it happened). I suspect that windows grabbed available driver for GPU and used that. Because it had that device plug/unplug sound and screen flashed. Soon after the crash happened. Then I downloaded the newest driver that was released on 19.12.18. and it is ok now. So it could have been an unstable driver after all if they had an update on 19.12.

The thing is, it was only the HDD I cloned (with games and other random files). I have a separate SSD with the OS. Drivers should go on the SSD that I didn't clone. Maybe it was tangled with the HDD somehow? Used the Macrium Reflect to do the cloning. And yes, I took out the failing HDD. Another thing I remember now - When I did the initial driver update, the Radeon software usually offers to restart the system. It did, but when I clicked on it to do it, nothing happened. Waited for a moment and then restarted manually. Maybe it messed something up then. Fresh Windows install wouldn't hurt anyway since it has been a while I did a fresh install. Was thinking about it too. Will do it next time I will have more free time. Edit: The cloned drive is not causing it. Just tested the old drive I cloned from and the problem still exists. Was thinking that the fact that I also changed the new HDD from mbr to gpt could be causing some problems.

Hi. I don't know when exactly it started, but I only did two things. Cloned HDD to migrate from noisy and possibly dying drive and the next day I did a driver update for my RX 580 I recently got. Didn't run any games after HDD cloning, but it is unlikely that was the cause anyway. After the GPU driver update, I launched League of Legends and right there some weirdness started to happen. On the other monitor I had chrome with YouTube opened. The YouTube page suddenly crashed. Then I start having constant bug splats on LoL (not in-game yet). So I poke around and sometimes both monitors go black... sound still on. Force restart. Managed to get past the launcher in LoL and start loading the game. Mostly kept crashing while loading. One time managed to play a 'remade' game for a few minutes. Then worked fine. After that I couldn't get in another game again. Reinstalled game, still nothing. Clean reinstalled drivers for GPU, still crashing. Tried other games and all crashed before finished loading. One time in LoL and Superposition benchmark I caught some error about not being able to write memory or something. In short, very random crashing and black screens a few times. Started to worry that I bought a dying RX 580 after all. But then I tried to install an older driver and now I can launch all games. Can play a stable game of LoL as long as I don't click on the other monitor. Fallout 4 works fine until I go outside and then it crashes after a few seconds. Skyrim SE worked fine too but crashed when I tried to quick travel. I don't know what is going on. If the card was dying, then why the results improved after installing an older driver? The only other thing I was tinkering with was the MadVR for MPC-HC player because I wanted to play HDR movie on a normal monitor. The MadVR and the player does utilize GPU and something with DirectX even I guess. Still... seems unlikely... unless it messed up some registry thingy. Checked those too, because one time Radeon software had an error while installing the driver. AMD suggests checking the registry. Didn't find any problems there. Intel graphics worked fine too for LoL. But couldn't test two displays, because the motherboard doesn't have HDMI for the other monitor. Other than that for browsing and general work on PC everything works fine it seems. Sorry, kindof long, but the problem is all over the place.

Just in case, what FPS/score should I be looking for RX 580 4Gb? Superposition/Heaven.

GTX 970 was another option, but now I'm considering a FreeSync monitor... so... has to be AMD then. But used GTX 970 would cost about the same as far as I see now. Any benefits as far as the card health goes?

Hi. I can possibly get a Gigabyte RX580 oc Aorus (4Gb) for around $130. Guy offers to give it to me for 3 day test if I want. Said he bought it on Ebay. He himself probably wasn't a miner, but who knows what was the original seller on Ebay. How do you feel about it, and if I get it for testing, how to best test it and is it even possible to test it properly?

Ok, so the pricing on my local "eBay" equivalent seems to be right for 970s 100-150 Euro.

Hi. My R9 280X seems to have died. I can't afford to buy a new card, so I'm looking at getting a decent used one. GTX 970 seems to be a good upgrade. Looking at eBay and I see 970s even as low as $50(?). Is that legit? If not, what price range should I look at? I'm asking since I have no experience with eBay. The price is dropping as far as I've heard. But could it be that low?

Hm, that is interesting. I put the seemingly dead card in (to test) and in less than a minute (that I need to turn the PC on and off) the heat pipes of the card get quite warm. Is that normal for the card to heat up so fast? It doesn't even do any graphics work on the startup screen. I mean, it is AMD, maybe the heat killed it? Using the old GTX 550Ti for now. Otherwise couldn't use both displays on the Intel graphics. Neat little card. Served me well before and saves me again after years.

Any way to test the vram?

Hi. Having a problem here. R9 280X video card won't work. I'm getting the red glitches (pic below) on startup and after that, it goes black. The monitor backlight is on. Works in safe mode tho and no artifacts when in safe mode. Also worked on my old GTX 550Ti when I tried it, but had a bit of a problem setting up Nvidia drivers so I just took it out in case the PSU is damaging the cards. Now I'm using the Intel graphics and everything works fine it seems (with no video card in). A possible cause - My HDDs started to make vibration noise and had to do some work on the PC. Most likely I didn't plug the power cable in properly after working on it the first time and the PC crashed. Checked the cable and when I plugged it in it made a bit of a cracking/sparking noise. Turned it back on and it was fine for a week I think. Yesterday, while in a game, it crashed again, but now it got a weird gray line pattern all over the screen. Had that in games a few times. And once even while watching YouTube. Finally, it got this artifact in the pics after restarting. Yesterday I restarted and managed to turn it back on successfully. Even updated drivers just in case. But this morning no luck. When I turn on or off the PSU (with the switch that it has) it makes that cracking spark noise. I don't remember having it before on this or other PSUs. It also sometimes flickers my table lamp when I turn it on and once I heard sparking even from the outlet splitter. The hope is, that it is just the bad PSU and card is fine. After all, I got that red glitch and recovered after... so maybe PSU just doesn't deliver the voltage anymore and the card freaks out and refuses to work properly. Intel graphics are working (i5-4460), GTX 550Ti worked (without drivers and on low res) and R9 280X itself worked in Safe mode. Any ideas? Is there a way to test the PSU? I kinda needed GPU upgrade anyway and PSU is 550W so an upgrade there wouldn't hurt anyway. Just not the best timing now financially. But the GPUs are dropping in price I've heard. Any suggestions on that maybe? maybe I can get a decent GTX980 used or something. Almost anything used now would be an upgrade to R9 280X anyway.

I moved all more or less important files to the 1Tb drive. But the constant buzz is still there. The hickup is gone after I set the drive power setting to Never turn it off. Don't know how I missed that before, but when there are both drives working, it has that in and out of sync wave pattern when the buzz frequencies boost and cancel each other out. So both drives have the buzz. It is not crazy loud, but can clearly hear it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it possible for one drive to damage another one with vibrations? Anyway. Now the idea is to just use the 250 Gb drive as a backup drive for important folders. Just sync folders with some backup software - I have some FreeFileSync downloaded - any other suggestions? And when one of the drives dies, only then buy a new one, because who knows how long they can live otherwise. Would be nice not get rid of the vibrations tho. Any suggestions on how to dampen it? I have some low-end CoolerMaster case with those toolless drive mounts. By the way, whatever happened to those rubberized screw-holes for drive cages? I remember seeing them in PC cases.

Hi. I have two HDDs - 1Tb and 250 Gb. Started to have some suspicious noises and delays when working with file transfers. For instance, when downloading files through Chrome, it pauses... then has a buzzing noise from PC case and finally starts the download. My Chrome download folder is on the 250 Gb drive, so I removed it to test and yes, noises are gone. Pretty sure the drive is dying. After all, it is some older drive from past build I just threw in for added storage. Until I can buy a new drive, I would like to transfer it to the 1Tb drive, but in a way that the PC sees no difference. Otherwise, I would have to reinstall everything and re-add all of the paths to folders. The dying drive maybe has 180 Gb taken. 1 Tb one has more than 500 Gb free. Also, an easy transfer back to new drive once I get it would be nice.

Hi. I would like to create a small scale home cinema for a small room (pic should bet on the bottom). Without any overkills and on a budget. Worth saving on the resolution and going 720p or maybe 1080p doesn't' cost that much more? I really would like it to be wireless. And how about sound? Soundbar or speakers? Any suggestions for this setup? Can be used.

Yes, I am thinking about keeping the SSD at least. Just checked out some Alienware gaming laptops. Some are going for ~$500 on ebay. Don't know how the GTX750M is doing against R9280X tho.