PC Drivers & Software

[Rosetta]

I spent several months trying to solve a crashing issue with my RX 5700 XT.  I can now confirm after a few weeks of validation that the problem is fixed, so I thought I should share my experience here in case it helps others. 

Problem description: Green screen appeared on entire screen (single monitor) for a few seconds with no sound, then the PC automatically rebooted.  This occurred once at least every 3-4 days since I first built my PC.  It only ever occurred while in a game; never browsing the internet, watching videos, etc.  Sometimes it would occur a few hours into a gaming session, but most of the time, if the crash was going to occur, it would happen within 15-20 minutes of starting a game (even just sitting in the menu). 

Solution: I fixed the problem after 1) changing my Windows power plan from "High Performance" to "Balanced" and 2) updating my AMD chipset drivers from the April 2020 to the October 2020 version.  I am on the latest recommended AMD graphics drivers, 20.11.2. 

For the sake of good troubleshooting I ideally wouldn't have tried both of the above things at the same time, but oh well...

My build:

• CPU: Ryzen 5 3600X
• Motherboard: MSI B450 Gaming Pro Carbon AC
• GPU:  Gigabyte Radeon RX 5700 XT 8 GB GAMING OC
• PSU: Corsair RM 750W 80+ Gold Certified
• Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16
• Monitor: Acer GN246HL 24.0" 1920x1080 144 Hz 

**No manual overclocking.  I am slightly undervolting my GPU as suggested by several posts in these forums.** 

Failed attempts to fix before finding solution:

• Using DDU and installing older graphics drivers (tried 4 versions recommended in these forums)
• Undervolting GPU (still doing this)
• Uninstalling MSI Afterburner after learning that it was changing my power settings in games (have not re-installed since solving problem)
• Increasing Power Limit to the 50% max level (still doing this)
• Adjusted fan tuning to run sooner/faster when GPU exceeds 50 C (still doing this)

I'm convinced that changing the Power Plan did the trick, but I'm not overlooking the chipset driver update either.  After I updated them, there were a few new AMD power plans in the Windows power settings.  I still chose the Balanced (Recommended) Windows plan and not AMD's, but seeing this makes me think there may have been some issue with how my MOBO was interacting with my GPU before I updated the drivers.  

I hope this helps someone out there who was as upset as I was about my new PC being hardly playable due to bad software!

[CrsDany]

i tried to download and install amd chipset but it tells me installation failed. My motherboard is an AB350 GAMING 3 gigabyte 

PSU: 550w

CPU: 1600x

16gb RAM 

sometimes I happen to do even 20 minutes of game then if I start to strain the graphics the GPU fans start to go fast and give off more heat than usual and then have this **bleep** green screen

[benman2785]

download driver from:
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-AB350-Gaming-3-rev-1x/support#support-dl-driver

also update your Win10 to 20H2

[CrsDany]

Thank you soo much, maybe I need to up BIOS too? 

My PSU Is good for this VGA?

[MisfitLove]

I've got a very similar system (R53600 and 5700xt) and also had the green screen/reboot issue, and also haven't had reboots since undervolting, chipset update, and switching to balanced power. Are you still having any issues? I haven't experienced a reboot, but I've had one CTD with an driver error message since. 

Gonna try a mobo BIOs update and clean driver install to see if that helps things out. Glad I'm not rebooting anymore but I'm still trying to rule out potential PSU/GPU issues because the reboots I had were suspect.

[Rosetta]

Still no green screen reboots since my original post, everything is running completely smoothly.  But if you find out anything with what you're investigating, please let me know.  Thanks!

[rj2736]

I have found out something. After being forced against my will to "investigate" something that shouldn't be my problem in tyhe first place. I don't like paying a lot of money just to get a problem that I don't even want to have to investigate.

Anyway, the final result is that the RX 5700 XT is a piece of junk that won't work properly with *ANY* driver.

The AMD RX 5700 behaves like crap by design. No driver will ever get this buggy GPU working properly.

Ditch the RX 5700 GPU and never buy  AMD excrement again.

[colesdav]

RE: RX 5700 XT is a piece of junk that won't work properly with *ANY* driver.

Not true if you just want to use the card for gaming, which is pretty much all AMD support for their gaming GPUs. 
The RX5700XT gaming drivers were very bad for about 8 months after initial launch.
If you want to use the card with Blender GPU rendering or ROCm compute then that still has problems. 

I have a Powercolor Red Dragon RX5700XT and I used it in one PC build as the main GPU to test it out for last 4 months.
That GPU is a 2 slot (40 mm) short and wide version of the RX5700XT. 
I am not interested in > 2 slot GPUs. It just indicates bad design and too much power consumption to me.  

The RX5700XT has been working well for some time now. 
I am currently running Adrenalin 2020 21.3.2 drivers. 

The RX5700XT cost 1/2 the price of an Nvidia Palit RTX2080 GamingPro OC (another 2 slot 40mm GPU). 
It is slower in DX11 and DX12 and Vulkan and cannot do RayTracing. 

However the performance difference in DX11 and DX12 and Vulkan is not 50% worse than the Nvidia Palit RTX2080 GamingPro OC.

The Nvidia Palit RTX2080 GamingPro OC GPU is generally ~ 7-10% faster at 1080p/2K and maybe up to 17% faster than the PowerColor RX5700XT Red Dragon at 4K. 

If your focus is 1080p/2K non-raytraced gaming right now then the PowerColor RX5700XT Red Dragon seems the better buy to me since the gaming drivers seem stable enough at the moment. 
It depends what price you can get one for. 

I have had no major driver install or PC crashing problems with the Palit Nvidia RTX2080 GamingPro OC GPU.
User experience with the Nvidia GPU has been far better. 
Plug it in and it worked from ~ launch of that GPU. 

I think that the RX6000 series GPU from AMD are repeating the driver problems based on what I see.
Since the RayTracing performance is weak versus Nvidia and comparable to RTX 2000 series cards from Nvidia, you may as well wait until they are also EOL.
Maybe consider buying an RX6000 series GPU then then, if the drivers are stable enough.

Summary is, AMD bad drivers wrecked the reputation of the RX5700XT at and for ~ 8 months after launch.
The PowerColor and Sapphire versions of those GPU seem ok, now they are EOL and have been replaced with RX6000 series cards.
I would not trust any other AMD AIB GPU manufacturer at the moment though, including XFX - who used to be great.

[Covidus_Vaxxinus]

I'm censoring my rant because I can not be 100% sure that the green-screen problem with my RX 3600 is on AMD, hence this edit. Trustlevels atm: low.