Drivers & Software

[Gymbully]

Has anyone, of late, experienced a totally blacked out screen and display, after installing the latest drivers and Adrenaline software for the 6900xt (21.6.2)?

I've tried everything from, reinstalling Windows 10 on a separate disk, switching out PSUs, reseating the GPU in the PCI slot and trying the card in a different computer. All attempted solutions result in the same black screen, no display output. 

There is display output during POST and when booting in safe mode as well as booting into a Linux distro, but that's simply because the drivers for the 6900xt aren't signed and loaded at those times. It is only after reinstalling the driver and Adrenalin software, after performing a DDU in safe mode, do I experience the totally blacked out display/no display issues. Exactly when the message bar in the software installation reads, "screen may flicker and go blank".

The only problem is, the screen does flicker, go blank and never returns. Even after a reboot.

I have read where others have been experiencing this with the 6800xt, too, yet with older drivers.

PS: I got this card 2 days ago and it ran well until I was playing Batman Arkham Knight and saw a lot of graphical debris and artifacting, after a few hours of gameplay. I tested other games and the same debris, artifacting and distortions occurred. I thought it might have been my HDMI cord, but that turned out to not be the case.

Something is definitely wrong with this driver release and something needs to be done about it, asap. Nonetheless, any and all recommendations are welcome in rectifying my issue.

I hope AMD has a solution for this, because I'm about to RMA.

[Gymbully]

Spoiler

So, I have a Dark Hero with BIOS version 3501 and have since updated to 3601; reinstalled the drivers for the 6900xt and still nothing. 

In Linux Mint, I installed both the drivers and it did the same thing — the screen went blank with no display. 

If anyone out there has any idea, please help?

[Skrybe]

Have you tried installing an older driver instead? Maybe try completely uninstalling the AMD radeon software in Windows Safe mode then install 21.5.2 and see if you have the same problem?

But to be honest, the Graphical artifacting sounds more like a hardware problem. I've only seen that when a video card was literally dying. In some cases underclocking the GPU and/or RAM kept the card working. If you can get the PC to stop black-screening check the video card temps and make sure they're not super high. You can try adjusting the video card fan to run more aggressively to keep it cool as well.

If either of those solutions fixes the artifacting then I'd suggest there is a problem with the hardware. It *should* run stock out of the box without underclocking or boosting the fan speeds so I'd be sending it back for a replacement.

[Gymbully]

Thank you for taking the time to read and respond. Yes, I DDU'd several times and have tried everything possible under the sun. The temps are and have been just fine; I even pulled my RAM sticks out and reseated them. I tried a different PSU, adjusted the Core Isolation settings as mentioned in the change log, yet nothing. One thing I haven't attempted, yet, is installing/messing with DX11 and DX12, to see if it produces any positive results. However, it is notable that the screen only goes blank when the driver is installing and flickers. It never comes back, which may suggest that it is outputting a resolution that is unfavorable to my displays. Yet, ALL ports in back of the GPU — HDMI and DP — do not work when this occurs. 

I will be calling AMD today to set up an RMA, if nothing else works. 

If you have any other suggestions, I would appreciate them. Thank you very much again. 

[Gymbully]

Yes, I have. I even went back to the first driver that was released when the card first came out. Ican't even install the drivers necessary to even test check the temps, because Adrenaline won't even install. Yet, I will check the temps when t is outputting the low resolution and get back to you on that.

I hate to say it, but AMD is horrendous. I've never experienced this with Nvidia and I have a GTX980 and a 1080Ti of which both work flawlessly, still to this day. Never again, with AMD. NEVER AGAIN!

[Skrybe]

You shouldn't make decisions based on one product. Especially when AMD have suggested you RMA it for another one. Every company and every product has a certain amount of failures hardware wise. If they try to help resolve the problem and/or replace a faulty product with a working one that should count for something.

Hell, I had a GTX680 that failed within a month. So nVidia aren't immune either. I switched that to a HD7970 that I used for ages.

[Gymbully]

I understand where you're coming from. I'm just really frustrated at this point and had high expectations from AMD going in.

Aside from that, I have a major break-through. The card works on Linux. Ubuntu to be exact. I managed to install the necessary drivers with no problems. Hardware/video acceleration is functioning well with sound from HDMI port. I will be testing the DP and USB C video outputs soon. I thought I should share this with you guys and I will keep yous posted.

For the time being, I can game on Ubuntu. Now to install hardware monitoring software.

[Gymbully]

Here's a quick and final update on my predicament with this card:

It works in Linux.

I got a new 6900xt. I popped it in and it works flawlessly.
AMD has sent me a lemon.

[Skrybe]

@GymbullyI understand the frustration. It sucks getting a brand new card that doesn't work, heck getting anything that doesn't work isn't fun. The main thing is whether the vendor is willing to help and how quickly they sort it out. Be nice if they had some sort of more robust testing before the card ships, but maybe it was a fault that needed hours of load to trigger.

It's weird that you managed to get the card running in Linux but not Windows. But maybe it's a driver difference and windows creates more strain on the card or something.

Was the new 6900 from AMD or did you source a new one to test?

[Gymbully]

The new card I tried is from directly from AMD, yes. Works better than the other. So far, I have experienced a few reboots, of which I followed a few recommendations and the results have been for the better (I think)(so far, so good).

AMD has agreed to send out a new card. We will see how that goes. I think they know it was faulty or one that was previously RMA'd.

[rannyjoy39]

I have an RX 6900XT connected to an Aorus Elite MB and a 5950X CPU. I'm using a custom EK water loop (including GPU).

Everything is working great, I have very low temperatures and the GPU performs well.

However, upon boot, I can occasionally come across a problem whereby the system will boot, but the screen will go black after a minute or so and only a reboot will fix it. The system stays on as I can hear windows in the background. This can happen once, or multiple times in a row. Sometimes changing DP port will help, sometimes it won't. When fixed, I will get an notification to say Wattman has recovered from an error.

[hrpuffnstuff]

Can you try another DP cable or port?  Sometimes mine will blink black for just a few seconds at the lock screen during boot and then I can enter my pin and it doesn't happen again.

[Gymbully]

Spoiler

Spoiler

I will, when my order gets here from Amazon. I also tried the USB C to HDMI cable and it doesn't work. I'm using a DP to HDMI-female adapter, by the way. Not DP to HDMI male or DP to DP. I'm also using my TV (LG C1). I've tested it on an Insignia 1080p TV. Still, nothing. 

Thanks for your advice. I'll continue testing. 

[Skrybe]

Good thinking on the team viewer idea.

It really does sound like you've got a faulty card. In my experience video cards only get artifacts from heat or failing hardware (usually vram on the card). And typically it'll either fail almost immediately (manufacturing fault) or after several years (wear and tear).

This is a pretty good article on graphical artifacts and their causes;

http://www.playtool.com/pages/artifacts/artifacts.html

If you can get an RMA it sounds like the way to go.

[Gymbully]

Yeah, the driver error code is 43, which I am totally clueless about. Anyway. I'm totally through with this. I am just awaiting a call from AMD's RMA department to send their piece of **bleep** back.

In the mean time, anyone with recommendations and solutions, I am open to them, still.

[Gymbully]

I installed TeamViewer which helped greatly! I was able to see what was going on after driver installation. So, the driver isn't installing, neither is Adrenaline. In Device Manager, the driver appears with an exclamation mark. Nothing works to rectify this, besides DDU, which removes everything and takes me back to square one. I've tried installing the driver only, no go. I installed older drivers; still a no go.

I called AMD and they encouraged me to RMA, because I may have a faulty unit. 

In the mean time, I'll continue to troubleshoot and see what I can turn up.