R9 290 Black Screen Crash

[ApolloEleven]

Hello,

 

I heard of this issue where R9 290/X GPU would crash the computer and requires a hard reboot. I have this Sapphire R9 290 Vapor-X for many months now and there was not a single issue until today. Yesterday it was all fine, no crashes. Now today I get black screen crash on desktop and web browsing (e.g. YouTube and Twitch), I haven't tried playing any games yet but if it already crashes without gaming I bet it would crash while gaming.

 

Apparently there is various fixes to this such as getting a better power supply. I am still using the AMD Omega driver 14.12. Would updating the drivers would fix this? Because it was fine for 8 months until today.

 

These forums listed below also has the same problems as me.

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2033153/explain-works-290-black-screen-fix.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2000967/290-black-screening.html

http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1246823

 

They were just web browsing and then it just crashes.

Mine crashes every 5-10mins so you can imagine me typing this post really fast now.

 

EDIT: Yes its a BLACK screen crash, it just outputs to black and the sound plays some distortion loop, it doesn't freeze whatever it was displaying, just black.

[ApolloEleven]

I read that 14.12 has reintroduced lockups from 14.9. I guess I will have to update the drivers. I will report what happens after.

[Zyphron]

PC Automatically reboots after this? 

this leads me to Believe its Driver Related: desktop and web browsing (e.g. YouTube and Twitch), 
driver issue Most Likely Particularly when you are in Desktop. 980/970's were Encountering this as well. and rolling back and waiting for the next update seemed to work for most 

[Zyphron]

also on a side note. PSU issues usually show up just after heat soak. at the point when you are drawing too much power and the PSU is either Dropping voltage (causing a hard shutdown and reboot) or a thermal overload where the unit wont fire back up until its cooled down

these are clear indications that's PSU is being pushed too hard. 

[ApolloEleven]

PC Automatically reboots after this? 

this leads me to Believe its Driver Related: desktop and web browsing (e.g. YouTube and Twitch), 

driver issue Most Likely Particularly when you are in Desktop. 980/970's were Encountering this as well. and rolling back and waiting for the next update seemed to work for most 

Hello,

The PC does NOT automatically reboots, I have to manually reboot it on the black screen crash.

 

also on a side note. PSU issues usually show up just after heat soak. at the point when you are drawing too much power and the PSU is either Dropping voltage (causing a hard shutdown and reboot) or a thermal overload where the unit wont fire back up until its cooled down

these are clear indications that's PSU is being pushed too hard. 

I was only using the PC for only 15mins this morning until it does its first black screen crash. I now been using it for 20mins after I made this thread without updating drivers or doing anything so no crashes so far. But before I made this forum thread it crashed three times and hasn't crashed so far after I made this post.

 

It must just be an anomaly. I will investigate further.

[Zulkkis]

Well, try reinstalling the drivers, safe mode and stuff. Just purge them out and reinstall whatever you'd like, then test.

 

I have to say that I am not completely convinced of the stability of these cards. I have an R9 290 and it is giving me black screens, but mine is different in that it gives them under heavy 3D-load. Attempting to reduce temps helps, but it doesn't remove them, only decreases the frequency of the crashes. I cannot test the system of mine with another power supply, but my other GPU that is kind of there but not quite in terms of power draw manages just fine.

 

At one point I had issues with booting into windows (black screen directly), as I changed some power saving setting in afterburner. Managing to get myself into safe mode and sweeping the drivers and starting from a clean slate fixed that, but no the instability.

 

I just think that they are very complex cards and there is a higher chance of getting a dud and it is all a lottery. My case is kind of iffy because I bought an used GPU that had some warranty, I have to now fight back (warranty is tied to the product not the owner, at least legally) and hope that I don't end up with a paperweight. And they kind of became more obvious as time passed by, I originally tested the card with Heaven + FireStrike. Had some crashing in Tomb Raider but since it was the only software I used at that point which did that, I chose not to care. Mistake, since it appears elsewhere too, even in relatively lightweight use, it just gets more common the heavier you stress it.

 

I'm rolling back to my old GTX 580 for the summer if this doesn't get sorted out... it has become a big nuisance. From what I've seen on the internet, it is just very common, some people claim to have found fixes, but I believe most of them are temporary - since the crashing, at least for me, is generally random, and the frequency has increased over time or under heavy load.

[ApolloEleven]

-snip-

The odd thing about my R9 290 is that it is only happening TODAY. It was fine for the past 8 months with the same driver and it decided on this very day to screw with me.

Maybe it is just my crappy PSU - Thermaltake 600W Litepower - is about to give up, though I do not think a FX-8350 + R9 290 will consume more than 300W in a normal web browsing session and my PSU would have been acting strangely beforehand if that's the case.

 

And since your post my R9 290 has not crashed since so here's hoping that will be the last.

[SkilledRebuilds]

In two years I've had to rma 9 290s.

Mostly the Wf3 models too.

All on diff sys builds.

No other gpu has given me such grief.

[ApolloEleven]

UPDATE: Ok for the last 60mins I have not encountered a black screen crash since. So it must be gone now.

[ApolloEleven]

Ok a week later it has came back. It now blacks screen crashes at desktop and while playing Battlefield: Bad Company 2. The computer is still powered on, loses signal to monitors instantly so its a black screen and the audio outputs "bit-8-like" distortion noise loop from whatever it was last sampllng (gunshot, footsteps, etc).

 

EDIT: And in order to reboot I have to turn off the power switch from the wall and wait 10secs and turn it back on again. Or else if I just reboot the computer without draining the power out it will boot with a black screen with both of my monitor saying "no signal". I suspect a faulty PSU.