PC Graphics

[Dreamsthinker]

Hi everyone,

This might be a topic you’re all tired of — black screens on AMD GPUs — but I’ve got something that seems a bit different.

I’m talking about the ASRock Radeon RX 7700 XT Steel Legend 12GB OC (RX7700XT SL 12GO) and black screens that only occur when overclocking the VRAM and only when the system is idle.

Overclocking and undervolting the GPU itself work perfectly fine. Performance in games and benchmarks is also solid.

By default, the memory runs at 2250 MHz (actual 2238). In games and benchmarks, it works stably at 2464 MHz (actual 2451) with Fast Timing enabled.

However, when I overclock the VRAM, I occasionally get black screens while on the desktop, particularly when using a browser. Only a PC restart helps in these cases. It happens most frequently in Google Chrome with hardware acceleration enabled. Even lowering the VRAM clock (e.g., to 2400 MHz) and disabling Fast Timing doesn’t resolve the issue.

It’s a strange paradox: the card draws nearly 300 W under load and stays stable, yet in 2D mode, it behaves erratically as soon as I touch the memory. What’s more puzzling is that the memory, when idle, runs at a much lower frequency than the default (which is expected) and still causes the system to crash.

Windows 11 23H2 and 24H2 with a clean install, Adrenalin 24.10.1 and 24.12.1 — no difference. No entries in the Windows logs (except complaints about an unexpected shutdown).

Can anyone explain this paradox? Is there anything I can do besides giving up on overclocking the memory?

UPDATE:

I’ve managed to find a workaround by using profiles in Adrenalin ('Tune Game Performance'). I keep the default global profile for GPU overclocking and apply the VRAM overclock only in game-specific profiles. When launching a game, Adrenalin automatically switches the VRAM mode.

However, this solution is neither 100% safe nor convenient. On rare occasions, I still encounter a black screen when activating or deactivating the game profile. That said, everything remains perfectly stable during gameplay.

To emphasize: under load, there are zero issues. The black screens only happen when the system is idle, and I attempt to overclock the VRAM.

PS I may have the wrong subsection. If so, please move it to the right place -__-

[Dreamsthinker]

Hello again, I have an update for you.

Disabling MPO (Multiplane Overlay) completely resolved the black screen issue in idle. However, now those same black screens occasionally occur in games, under load.

To the AMD team: if you're reading this, please focus on fixing MPO so it works properly in 2D mode. It already functions correctly in 3D, but the issues in 2D need to be addressed.

As a temporary workaround, is there any way to dynamically enable or disable MPO on the fly, without requiring a reboot? This would at least serve as a stopgap solution.

MPO disable:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Dwm]
"OverlayTestMode"=dword:00000005

MPO restore:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Dwm]
"OverlayTestMode"=-