The story i am about to tell you is beyond my imagination.. I never thought i'm gonna figure a way out of my problematic situation that i've been dealing with for the past 4 years or so when a good friend of my Upgraded his PC and game me this card saying that it has some "temperature" issues and that it was't "ok" to sell as a second hand part.
The Graphics Card i'm gonna to tell you this story about is the Asus Radeon R9 290 4GB DirectCU II OC (R9290-DC2OC-4GD5).
It all started when PUBG released ,around 2017-2018.. at that time the card was already pretty old so i thought maybe i could run the game on the Lowest settings and have some fun games with my mates.. so did some maintenance to the card and started downloading the game..
The game was literally UNPLAYABLE...(crashes, blackscreens, lag, bugs, loading terrain for over 2 minutes, single digit FPS)
I've never seen this happen before. And all this at 90°C.
Considering that older Nvidia cards that released at the same time with the R9 ran this game if not fine, then at least at a playable performance.
I thought to myself "well ok AMD had Driver Issues in the past, and the Graphics card is kinda old" and i was already planning on Upgrading anyways so i didn't bother much.
Little did i know, i had a letter coming my address.. a Conscription letter that was calling me to go to the army, since in the country i live in the "enlistment" is "mandatory".
Years have passed and i never got to upgrading, and i had to do something with all this Free time i got from the Pandemic anyway so i tried formatting my PC and giving it a new start, a new life.. since the system isn't running so bad after all, considering i have these specs:
- AMD FX-8320E
- ASRock > Fatal1ty 970 Performance
- Asus Radeon R9 290 4GB DirectCU II OC
- Samsung SSD 840 EVO 120GB
- Western Digital WD10EVDS 1TB 3.5"
- 8GB RAM 1600mhz + 8GB RAM 2400mhz (lol ikr)
- CORSAIR Hydro Series H75 AIO
But what i got myself into i could only imagine..
The fun Starts when After formatting the PC i figured the first thing to do is Download the Windows Updates and then i could start with the necessary Drivers.. In the meantime i figured i'd run some games from my HDD hard drive i have for Storage and Large games since the Windows System files Drive is the SSD.. Downloaded Steam and "OH LOOK, all the game files for PUBG are already on my HDD..well i guess i could Try running the game one more time on a clear System". I haven't even installed the drivers yet so i don't know what i was expecting.. BUT surprisingly enough the game ran so smooth i could barely believe it myself. I Immediately Downloaded HWmonitor and i couldn't believe my eyes. Playable Framerates, no lag, and all of this at 75°C max. I didn't have any idead what the heck was happening but something was off, i could tell.
Soon enough the Windows Update finished and now i had to Download the Drivers.
Afer installing sucessfully all the Motherboard Drivers, i proceeded to install the VGA drivers. I though to myself "well, i had probelms with Drivers downlaoded from the AMD directly" so i tried downloading the drivers Directly from the ASUS's graphics card support page website.
I imeddiately noticed that the Software was so old it was older than my sibiling and the most important is that it wasn't even able to run at 4K 60Hz like it did previously since my Display is a 4K TV (don't judge me i love my 60fps) so it was a no no.
Mission Failed.Abort.
Next Up, After running DDU of course, i tried installing the Latest AMD Drivers and Software Downloaded Directly from the Website by choosing the Graphics card, in my case the "R200 series" Drivers.
After Installing, I could run at 4K 60hz, but most importantly how did it perform ?
I ran PUBG once more hoping for the best AAAAAND its 90°C again with crazy delays and i even got stuck at the Loading screen, meanwhile the game has already started and even jumped from the plane and landed but still was stuck at the loading screen(not happening for the 1st time to me btw).
How the heck did it run for the first time without any problems, even though i had no Drivers?
THEN it hit me. I Was running on the automatic Windows Update Downloaded Drivers DUH
I check the Update History and what do i see?
"Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Display 26.20.12028.2"
Oh well if that's the way it has to be the ok..
So Uninstall the Divers with DDU once again (always in safe mode,don't forget about safety and protection kids) and then i let windows to Recognize the Graphics adapter and Re-Download once again this Display Driver Update.
And BOOM:
Everything is working Perfectly
4K 60Hz all the way
All games are running beautifully (Disclaimer:not tested on all games)
The temperatures are about 75°C under load
The Only Problem is that i have no Software for the settings.. but who needs a sorftware if you can't even run anything with it? so it doesn't bother me as much.
TODAY however (January 09, 2021), Windows decided to pull a fast one on me and Update the Advanced Micro Display Driver to a newer (version 27.20.1034.6) And magically my 4K 60Hz Turned into 4K 30Hz suddenly. So i manually unistalled my Drivers and Downloaded the Drivers i had Earlier from the Microsoft Controll Center.
So it wasn't the Graphics Cards' Fault. It wasn't "defective". It didn' run "Too Hot". It wasn't "too old to Run this game". It wasn't "A bad Grapics Card". It was all in the Drivers.. It was all sorfware and software compatibility.
I am posting this here so that if anyone is having similar Problems with mine, maybe this post will help you somehow.
