PC Graphics

[wootings]

So I've seen a number of threads about various cases where the screen will go black, or the machine just locks up, with various different Radeon cards.  I wanted to post this specific case and the things that I've gone through trying to get it sorted out, and see if anyone has any solid explanations or remedies.

Brand-new computer - ThreadRipper 1950x (with a giant liquid cooling system), 32Gb RAM, 1Tb M.2 drive, Gold-Certified 1000w PSU, blah blah - and a Radeon RX Vega 64 8Gb by PowerColor.

The machine went together fine and worked fine for a couple weeks.  Then once in a while, the screen would go black and the monitor would report no signal.  The machine would still be running...you could still hear the game audio for example...but the screen would be getting no signal.  This was with a brand-new 4k monitor via DP.  For troubleshooting purposes, I tried HDMI instead of DP, and also a 1080p monitor via HDMI.  Same problems.  And the monitors displayed no issues with other PCs.

The problem seems to be able to occur pretty much any time - once in a while while playing DDO, but it seems to be a sure bet playing Fallout 4 for some reason, and particularly when doing a loading screen or whatever in-between areas.  It'll just go black there, and that'll be that.  The machine is *not* locking up, or going to sleep, or anything like that.  The video card simply stops sending a signal to the monitor.

Tried every software solution under the sun - all manners of different settings in Radeon Settings, uninstalling and reinstalling drivers, etc.  Nothing worked.  So I RMAd the card - and while it was gone, used an RX 480 from a known-good system.  The card was in the RMA process for nearly a month - during this time, the PC was *flawless* with the RX 480 in it.  Absolutely.  Flawless.

When I got the replacement card from PowerColor, I verified that it was a different card - it was, they hadn't sent me back the same one.  Different serial number.  I popped it into the machine, and lo and behold, it ran perfectly!

For several days.  Then it started doing it again.  So now I'm going through a DDU on the drivers, try the latest beta, etc.  But seriously...what the hell?

There are no problems with connectors.  No issues with RAM seating.  No overheating problems.  No stability issues otherwise.  It clearly is not an issue with any components in the PC other than the video card, since replacing it with the RX 480 results in 100% dependability.  Is it something actually with the Vega card, physically...like, something sort of burns out after a week?  Is it something in the Vega driver?  What?

In all honesty, I'd be tempted to try to buy a different Vega 64 card entirely - but naturally you can't get them, because of the crypto miners (wish that "market" would hurry up and just crash already) - at the moment I see exactly one Vega 64 available anywhere I can think of, and they're asking $1,200 for it - twice what the original card cost.  But even then I have to wonder if the issue would re-appear.  Sure, I can try to RMA with PowerColor again - probably will - but the pattern seems to be that everything is OK for a little while, then goes to hell.  I don't want to be stuck in a repeating loop of using a Vega 64 for a week or two at a time, then sending it back in for a replacement.

So...anyone have any thoughts?  Anyone from AMD care to comment?

[wootings]

...for the record, after DDU and installing latest driver, fiddling with all appropriate bits, same thing.

So I guess I'll RMA the card again?  How much of my life am I going to spend RMAing this card?

[moose]

Hey mate just read your post and I had the exact same problem with the XFX Radeon RX 580 GTS XXX Edition 8GB

My blackouts happened as soon as I got the card but only in games. I tried every combination to get it to work but nothing helped. Eventually I sent the card back for RMA and the company said they could not replicate the problem. HDR and 3D didn't work either. They weren't going to refund but I persisted it was the card at fault not my pc and they finally gave my money back. I then bought the Vega 64 and my screen blackouts went away. (I'm sorry you got that problem with such an expensive card) I think they have just had some bad batches of cards. I'd be sending it back for a refund. Did you try HDR games and movies with the Vega 64?

[wootings]

Unfortunately I didn't understand what was going on until after my return period - so at this point, all I can do is RMA.  I don't know that I have any HDR stuff...and don't do any VR either.

[moose]

I'd be sending it back. No one can help with my HDR problem not even their expert technicians. I'll be selling my Vega and sticking with Nvidia which works

[beatle]

My Vega 64 Liquid blackouts started with the 03/02/2018 update. Card just turns itself off LED activity strip on the card has no active LED's, all off, screens go black. PC hard reset is the only option.

[kroven]

Hello,

I've recently switched from a Firepro w9100 to a VEGA FE Liquid Cooled card and encountered similar problems. The system would crash to a black screen sometimes with some artifacting. I even ended up RMAing my card with AMD. I was even able to get the original card to crash not in a game but 3D resources were still being used with battle net client. With the new card I hadn't experienced crashes outside of games but like you not long after i started experiencing crashes in games.I run two monitors on my setup and was able to stabilize my system after turning off my monitor that was not being used while gaming. I tried this thanks to running into another post on these forums where another person was crashing with a multi monitor setup. They were able to determine that card was fluctuating between idle speeds and high usage speeds. The dual monitor setup seemed to worsen this because the card saw the top monitor as just idling while the bottom one was playing a game. The final solution for me was to switch my drivers from the professional drivers to the gaming drivers so i could access the wattman settings. With this i basically force the card to always run near or at max settings. I have been able to successfully play games with both monitors on and no crashes so far.

[bluntelk]

So it seems that I have a similar issue. Black screen and 100% fan on the vega64 - do you get the 100% fan too? (this is on a 2k@60z monitor via hdmi)

I also had a strange issue a few weeks back where the DisplayPort would not detect the monitor at all. i.e. it tried to get the EDID via DP and failed under both Linux and Windows

[beatle]

No change in fan speed, card just silently turns off, lights included. I

run 2x 4K@120 via DP. My problem seems, fingers crossed, to have gone with

the latest update 18.2.1. Only time will tell.

[bluntelk]

I am glad your problem has been resolved!

[beatle]

I may have been a little premature in thinking my Vega problem had been

solved.

Now instead of just turning itself off it decides to go flat out, the LED

activity strip jumps from it's usual 1 to the max, giving me a small but

very potent heater to keep the A/C honest, then the screens go grey and

then - a hard reset.

Still living in hope.

This is my first AMD PC and quite possibly the last. I have been using

Intel PC's for 25+ years mostly with NVIDIA cards, basically ever since the

AMIGA died.

[bluntelk]

Oh No!,

Silly questions (kind of a long shot)

1. You have 2 separate power cables to the card yes?
2. Are they both on different rails (if your PSU is configured like that)

I had the 100% load thing the other day, I think that could be a driver issue though (pretty sure I was undervolting too far and the game crashed, but the driver was still submitting its workload to the GPU) Only had that happen once though. I was able to fire up a game and play before mine crashed.

To be fair to the Threadripper - it's probably just the Vega dying in bad ways (which is something I am pretty sure mine is too). I borrowed an R9 390X and was able to game very nicely without any system instability.

[beatle]

yes, both on different rails. My problem seems to be in hiatus, fingers

crossed, no 100% load or black out for a few days. Maybe the new driver

needed to settle in

[bluntelk]

Let's hope it was a buggy driver that was causing your problems!

One thing I have noticed is that my Monitor behaves badly on DisplayPort sometimes and requires a power cycle (power off at the wall, wait 20 seconds) before coming good on DisplayPort again.

The amdgpu driver under Linux would report a bad EDID read when hot plugging my monitor and would not light up. If the blank screen happens again - it *could* be a monitor/DisplayPort problem

[auyer]

I started heaving the same issue with my Air Stock Vega 64 this week.
I can confirm that the PC is still running, but no video signal as output.

[bluntelk]

I ended up sending mine back from RMA.

I was able to run games at less intensive power levels (so setting a 60fps cap, low power mode and low graphics settings and lower screen resolutions). So I think my issue was some bad power handling somewhere.