GPU Causes PC to Crash

aloysiusloh69 · November 21, 2018

My 2.5 year old PC started crashing in games a week ago, and it only crashes when there is increased load on the GPU (Instant crash when running Furmark, Unigine Heaven, 3D Mark). The screen goes black but the computer remains running and I have to force shut down the PC.
I have an R9 390X and a 650w PSU so it is unlikely that it is a power supply issue. I also know that it isn’t a problem with temps because I used HWinfo and saw that the temperature of the gpu was around 60 degrees celcius when it crashed. I ran memtest86+ with 6 passes and Prime95 for 6 hours with no errors so RAM and CPU is working.
I have removed the graphics card from the PC and it has not crashed in games such as Fortnite and Dota 2 using Intel integrated graphics. With the graphics card, opening a game can cause the crash.
I also brought my graphics card to my friend's house and installed it into his pc and ran Unigine Heaven and Furmark and it did not crash. On my PC, it would crash instantly when I started running. I originally thought that it had to be something else in my PC that was having issues but I brought his graphics card (R9 390) home and tried Unigine Heaven, Furmark and 3D Mark and it did not crash as well. So my graphics card doesn't work on my PC but works on his PC and his graphics card works on my PC.
How do I go about determining what the problem is with my graphics card (bad vram, etc.) and whether or not it can be fixed without buying a new one? Thanks.

Specs:
i5-6600
Sapphire Radeon R9 390X
Asus H170-pro
2x4gb kingston 2133Mhz
Samsung 850 evo SSD
Seagate barracuda 7.2k RPM
Coolermaster G650M PSU

sky_shark_101 · November 21, 2018

I would try using DDU to uninstall all your drivers and do a fresh install first as it could be something that has gone awry in the drivers. Particularly as it works in your friends system.

Failing that I would try reflashing the BIOS of the card but be aware that this can brick your card but also can fix the problem. If you are going to do this I would recommend a lot of reading up beforehand. Having said that this could be the hail mary that prevents you buying another card.

You may also want to try it with another power supply if you can because it could be that your power supply is on its way out. As even though you have enough for the demand it maybe that there are variations in the current which is causing your system to crash.

Edited November 21, 2018 by sky_shark_101
More info

aloysiusloh69 · November 23, 2018

On 11/21/2018 at 10:52 PM, sky_shark_101 said:

I would try using DDU to uninstall all your drivers and do a fresh install first as it could be something that has gone awry in the drivers. Particularly as it works in your friends system.

Failing that I would try reflashing the BIOS of the card but be aware that this can brick your card but also can fix the problem. If you are going to do this I would recommend a lot of reading up beforehand. Having said that this could be the hail mary that prevents you buying another card.

You may also want to try it with another power supply if you can because it could be that your power supply is on its way out. As even though you have enough for the demand it maybe that there are variations in the current which is causing your system to crash.

I have tried to reinstall the drivers and that did nothing. I then tried to flash the BIOS of the card but it said that the version I was trying to flash was already installed on my graphics card. I used the latest one from techpowerup. It was compiled in 2015. Is there a place where I can find a more recent one or is that the latest one? If so, I think I would have to buy a new graphics card. Thanks.