PC Graphics

[d69xx]

System specs:

Windows 7

990x 1366 socket

24 GB RAM

1300 watt PSU

2 1080 Ti cards

Previously had an RX 480

No overclocking, 100% stable before installing the Frontier GPU

GPUs are water cooled, all temps read fine

I recently got a used Frontier card to use for distributed computing.  It has not been stable under compute load, in particular the BOINC MilkyWay@Home project.  It will hang, usually in a few minutes but sometimes after a few hours.  I've only gotten one blue screen so far, it said the driver was stuck in an infinite loop.  If there's any audio playing at the time it will play normally until the end.  When it crashes, Windows doesn't see the card unless I power the system down.  Applications running on the 1080 Tis are completely stable.

I've installed almost every driver released in the last year.  I've used both the DDU and AMD removal tools before installing new drivers.  I have noticed that the Wattman controls do not show at all, except for 18.q4.1 which does show the fan controls.  OverdriveNTtool shows the P states and voltage as well as fan speed, but does not let me change anything.  I get a message ErrorCode -8 ADL_ERR_NOT_SUPPORTED - Function not supported by the driver.  Afterburner acts the same way, I can change values but they don't hold.

My question is whether I have a faulty card or there is a driver problem with my rig, maybe because of Windows 7, having Nvidia cards installed, or both.  I have a full water loop in the rig and don't want to do more extensive testing if the card is bad.

Thank you.

[bigjoe11a]

Try putting the video card in another pc and see if the PC loads. If it does use a util to run a burn and stress test on the video card. If any test fails. it's a bad video card. Send it back. (Don't buy used video cards) all your getting is someone else's headache. Make sure your using updated drivers. All so upgrade to Windows 10 Pro. Contact Frontier support and ask.

[d69xx]

Thanks for the response.  I've tried every Pro series driver listed under downloads, as well as some of the Adrenaline drivers.  Windows 10 is not an option right now.  Putting the card in a different system is not a good option right now.  The card is water cooled and I don't have the original air cooler.  I may try setting up a Linux boot disc, I was told the card worked fine under Ubuntu. 

I had to dig to find how to contact official support.  I have a ticket in now.  A percentage rating of "bad card" versus "odd driver problem" would be good enough for me to decide how to proceed.  This is my first experience with a high-end AMD card and I know the Frontier is a little quirky.

[hardcoregames_]

d69xx wrote:

Thanks for the response.  I've tried every Pro series driver listed under downloads, as well as some of the Adrenaline drivers.  Windows 10 is not an option right now.  Putting the card in a different system is not a good option right now.  The card is water cooled and I don't have the original air cooler.  I may try setting up a Linux boot disc, I was told the card worked fine under Ubuntu. 

I had to dig to find how to contact official support.  I have a ticket in now.  A percentage rating of "bad card" versus "odd driver problem" would be good enough for me to decide how to proceed.  This is my first experience with a high-end AMD card and I know the Frontier is a little quirky.

I guess BIONC does not like Windows 10?

[d69xx]

hardcoregames™ wrote:

I guess BIONC does not like Windows 10?

BOINC itself is fine with Windows 10, however Win 10 has a bad habit of installing graphics drivers that don't work for compute purposes.  There have been many reports on various BOINC projects of Win 10 installing new drivers even though users had taken steps to keep that from happening.  I also have some privacy concerns about Win 10, but mainly am not really interested in upgrading a system that's working perfectly well except for this Vega problem.  I'd probably still be using XP if I could get drivers for it.  I am considering getting a cheap SSD and putting either Win 10 or some version of Linux on it to troubleshoot further.

[hardcoregames_]

I have also seen lots of issues with driers on windows update, ended up sending a RX 470 back as it was code 43 persistently

I have a lot of disks to test windows with and a USB stick with windows for clean installs

[d69xx]

I had to put this on hold for quite awhile but finally got it resolved.  I took the block off and cleaned it and the PCB.  I didn't see anything super obvious but there must have been some dirt or corrosion causing the problem, because now it's working just fine.  It's in a different system than the original though so I guess it's still possible there's some problem with the original setup.  That original machine has been 100% stable since my first post though.

I also found that the Pro drivers this card uses only give you control over the fan speed.  You need the gaming drivers for the full Wattman clock speed and voltage controls and that only works for this card in Win10.

[hardcoregames_]

d69xx wrote:

I had to put this on hold for quite awhile but finally got it resolved.  I took the block off and cleaned it and the PCB.  I didn't see anything super obvious but there must have been some dirt or corrosion causing the problem, because now it's working just fine.  It's in a different system than the original though so I guess it's still possible there's some problem with the original setup.  That original machine has been 100% stable since my first post though.

I also found that the Pro drivers this card uses only give you control over the fan speed.  You need the gaming drivers for the full Wattman clock speed and voltage controls and that only works for this card in Win10.

All I use is a custom fan that is more aggressive then the OEM profile. After having hardware failures I am very cautious and tend to have fans maxed to be sure hardware is safe.

[d69xx]

On my air cooled cards I have always used an aggressive curve along with power and temp limits so the noise doesn't get unbearable.  Since this card is water cooled the fan control doesn't really matter.    It makes sense the Pro driver doesn't let you control anything else, I doubt anyone using cards in a pro environment wants to lower clocks or voltage.  Like mining, that saves some power use in BOINC and costs very little performance.  AMD cards in particular tend to have default voltage set higher than is needed.  Another benefit is the card will run cooler so if it's air cooled you don't have to run the fan as loud.

[hardcoregames_]

My front chassis intake fan is hard coded to 100% in the BIOS to intake cooler air from the outside. This has the effect of material improvement in chassis temperatures compared to the default.

Curios that rear exhaust fans are not as effective at cooling as front intake fans. Still exhaust fans are useful to if nothing else, help the front fan with better general air flow.