Graphics Card/Driver Crashing AMD Radeon R9 290

[buntonn]

Hi I am having some trouble with my graphics card or driver crashing on a new PC when trying to play World of Warcraft, It will only last anything between 5-15 minutes.

I have been only using Mac's for a long time so really don't know about the various tools etc out there to assist. So far I have downloaded TechPowerUp GPU-Z to monitor the temperature, when I am using the computer for work etc the temp sits around 44oC. Once I start the game this quickly climbs to the 90's.

When the crash occurs both monitor go black and then I see the message on them saying monitor going to sleep. The PC remains on in either two states. One that it sounds normal and the game sound is still playing, the other state is that fans in the PC spin up really fast and loud and I have to hold the power button to shut the PC down.

In the AMD CCC, I have tried with the std setting and pulling the target cpu temp down from 95 to 90 and increasing the max fan speed to 50. This didn't seem to make much difference.

The driver packing version I am using is 13.251-131206a-166389C-ATI

I put all my PC spec into the fields when I joined this forum, so hope it's easy to find as you ma need to know this. I know this card is way overkill for World of Warcraft so don't really understand why this is happening. Also in WOW I tried changing from Direct X 11 to 9 and pulled down the graphics spec, but it made no difference. All I can really say is with the temp of the graphics CPU, I expected the fan on the GC to be running faster/noisier.

I hope I have given enough information here and look forward to any advice/help anyone can provide.

Thank you

Nick

 

[badger906]

dont worry about the temperature in this instance as the r9's are designed to run that hot and will run that hot for the life of the card.

is that the latest version of the drive youve downloaded or the bundled cd version. sorry I cant check as im on my phone.
if it is try the latest beta version, these sometimes have a few bug fixes.

also what power supply are you using? as its missing from your list. most r9's require 500w psu minimum and some brands state upto 600w.

a cheap higher wattage psu cant always deliver reliable wattages and or actually go as high as they state.

 

[Erick Aguilar]

You should always use the latest WHQL drivers, they are available as a sticky on this same sub-forum. Beta drivers are also available, such as the new 14.1 beta with mantle, but I would recommend you skip that one for now.

Also as mentioned before, the type of PSU you have is also needed, 500w or even 600w seems wrong for a card that is so power hungry, specially if it's any 500-600w PSU, what brand is yours?

 

[buntonn]

Hi, thank you for your two replies.

When I get a chance later I will look inside the case and get the details on the PSU, however what I know is its a gaming 750W PSU so as long as it's not a rubbish one we should be ok there.

I spoke with support at Novatech who supplied the PC earlier and they asked me to try a few games that are free, the first they asked me to try was Rift, I downloaded this and as part of the setup, it installed a DirectX v9 setup. During ten minutes I had in this game, I was monitoring a GPU temp of circa 87oC, but more importantly the GPU fan speed was up around the 43%, I never had the fans over 20% in WOW even when in the 90+oC. I will give the game a try later and get the details of the PSU and see how it performs in WOW.

Does the DirectX 9 install sound good? I thought Direct X was an integral part of the OS? Maybe I had v11 and thats why it downloaded 9? In WOW I changed it yesterday from DirectX 11 to DirectX 9 in the options screen.

I'll look at the driver again too in relation to the latest production WHQL one on the sticky you mention.

Thanks again for your posts so far.

Regards
Nick

 

[badger906]

direct x is basically lots of programs bundled together to make a broad spectrum of things work.

older games come with installers for various versions of dx as part of the installation process. and if the game is old, it will seek and ask you to install a specific version such as 9c. 11 is the newest and not many games impliment it. however in this instance I highly doubt its related.

WOW isnt a graphically intensive game so wont cause the gpu get as power hungry.

again temperatures should be ignored for this card as they are designed to run at 95c. its hot yes, but not to be worried about for this particular card

 

[buntonn]

Hi I have just taken a look at the PSU in my PC, I have attached an image which gives all the spec. Hope this helps.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9vizoszin3yvjgm/2014-02-03%2019.38.42.jpg

Thanks

Nick

 

[paulpicks21]

I don't think the gpu should be getting that hot playing a game such as wow, the game must be working the gpu pretty hard to reach that temp.

Is vsync turned on in the game? If it isn't then the gpu will be pushing out crazy frame rates when it doesn't need to. I would check that setting and make sure vsync is turned on.

Let us know if it makes any difference.

Paul.

 

[madcratebuilder]

In the AMD CCC, I have tried with the std setting and pulling the target cpu temp down from 95 to 90 and increasing the max fan speed to 50. This didn't seem to make much difference.

Set max fan to 100%. These run hot but you are way to hot for what you are doing. Mine can reach 81-83C after hours of 100% load. The game you have shouldn't push it over 55-60C. Reset the fans. It's possible you have defective TIM on the gpu to heatsink.

 

[buntonn]

I have tried using MSI Afterburner, I can now keep the temp around 60-70 easy, the load on the GPU seeps too high at times for a game like WOW tbh, but it continues to crash the graphics in WOW, Rift and another game I downloaded but is very stable when using for work.

I did also try switching on as it was off in WOW, but this didn't make too much difference either.

Therefore I have no option but to return the PC as I am sure it's a faulty graphics card now. I'll keep you posted and thank you for your help on this.

 

[Solarstarshines]

I have tried using MSI Afterburner, I can now keep the temp around 60-70 easy, the load on the GPU seeps too high at times for a game like WOW tbh, but it continues to crash the graphics in WOW, Rift and another game I downloaded but is very stable when using for work.

I did also try switching on as it was off in WOW, but this didn't make too much difference either.

Therefore I have no option but to return the PC as I am sure it's a faulty graphics card now. I'll keep you posted and thank you for your help on this.

Hello Mate it's the Driver doing it to you i had to take one of my cards out of crossfire the Drivers are just terrible right now your best bet is to swap that card for a GTX 770 SC or Ti SC ed much better

 

[madcratebuilder]

OP, roll your driver version back to 12.xx. I have xfire issues with the 13.xx drivers, must be cockroaches.