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CF 290x / Certain Games Locking Up

S

SlipperyPete

Gawd
Joined
Jul 30, 2004
Messages
541
I can run 3dMark and play CS:GO without problems but Crysis 3 always freezes up (on Welcome to the Jungle level), and occasionally BF4 freezes up as well. If I disable Crossfire the games do not freeze. Also CF being enabled causes random stuttering in CS:GO.

When this happens I cannot reset the system, I have to power down then restart. Restarting causes windows to say there are problems and it tries to autofix.

System is in my sig, I have a huge 180mm Silverstone fan blowing on the cards from the side panel, and I allowed the fans to spin to 100% with target GPU temp at 80 to eliminate chance of overheating.

Not expecting a solution really just looking for ideas, don't have the time to troubleshoot like I used to. Thanks!
 
I would set your target temp to 70 or 75 just to make sure there not getting to hot. My cards are set for a max temp of 75. They can get loud but makes me feel better I'm not nuking them.. have you tried running msi after burner and disabling the power save on the cards? The uplp I think its listed as. I'm not at home to look at the moment. That helped a lot in games for me with shuttering.
 
Well I just set both cards' fans to 100% in MSI Afterburner and cranked the 180mm side panel fan all the way up and was able to play Crysis 3 with no freezing. This tells me it is definitely a temperature issue.

I just read somewhere that the 290x's have to both be in "Uber" mode (physical switch on the card) in crossfire mode. I never knew this, and have no idea what mine are set at. This sounds like it may be the issue as the switch controls the fan profiles.
 
Switched the cards to "Uber" mode and Crysis 3 froze again. Don't want to have to play with all fans at 100%, pc sounds like a vacuum cleaner.
 
Yeah, the reference 290/X alone in single mode is obscenely loud (I know from experience!), two of them keeping cool would be unbearable I'd imagine :(. They're really not the best pick for air cooling even with custom cooled models as those still throttle in some cases and throw out tons of heat, in my opinion, but at minimum I'd exchange for those.

Your three best options would be:

1.) Switch to custom cooled 290X cards.
2.) Use kraken g10 brackets w/ an AIO unit and a VRM heatsink kit like the Gelid IcyVision to keep the cards cool & quiet (expensive).
3.) Return them outright and go for GTX 970 SLI (similar speed, but cool/quiet, albeit a tad pricier than the 290X).
 
you can also upgrade the thermal material on the cards. my reference 290xs sport mx-4 and fuji poly extreme, allowing them to operate with occasional throttling on quiet with 1 expansion slot space between them. with a 140mm side fan blowing 50+ cfm directly at the cards i enjoy no throttling. on uber i can get a 50mhz oc on the core and memory of both cards. this is the cheapest solution you have available to you.
 
If it's heat, than would downclocking + undervolting be an acceptable workaround?
 
I really doubt it's heat. I have two 290X Sapphire cards in CFX and the top card will run at 94C a lot of the time but I have zero stability issues.

Have you run Prime95 and Memtest to rule out stability issues that might lie elsewhere in your system? I would do that first, always better safe than sorry. I chased system crash issues once for a month that I swore were related to my GPUs and it turned out I had a bad stick of RAM. Oops.

Beyond that, what drivers are you using?
 
So I tested the cards individually and played some Crysis 3 to test. One card is fine, I played for almost a half hour...the other black screens within 10 minutes of playing (usually under 5 minutes) unless the fan is pegged at 100% (blow dryer mode).

I guess in CF the video output just freezes, and with the one faulty card the problem manifests as a black screen.

Funny thing is after the black screen I can turn on and off numlock for a little while (eventually the system locks up though).

I took the casing off the faulty card and blew out what little dust there was in there, thinking there might be some kind of major clog, but there was not serious dust accumulation. Last night I left Crysis 3 running on this card while I was out with the fan at 100% and it was fine for over two hours; but with stock fan settings it black screens. I am going to RMA this card.

BTW I also uninstalled all drivers and ran AMD Driver Cleaner, then reinstalled the latest non-beta drivers (omega drivers) from the AMD website. I also tried the "Force Constant Voltage" in MSI Afterburner with no luck.
 
Sounds like you have a faulty card. It happens. Exchange it and see how it goes. I know that the reference cards have a bad rep because of heat and noise, but I can honestly say my performance is stout and I don't have any issues with drivers with these cards. CFX works great for me.
 
I sent the card in for RMA, and I just realized they may send back an "AIB" cooler (what does that stand for anyway)? Although my case has excellent cooling, I'm worried about dumping all of that heat inside of the case, especially with the other 290x right there.

Is anybody else running 290x in crossfire with the "AIB" cooler(s)?
 
I am running 2 290x's crossfired, with 2 reference cards. I initially switched out the thermal paste on the stock coolers and got wonderful results. I would sometimes get the hair dryer like sound out of them and decided to upgrade the coolers to the Icy Gelid v2's which made the whole situation awesome.

Point of the story, you could probably get a little more out of you existing reference card with a simple disassemble, clean and re-paste (mx4 seams to work best). The other thing of note at least for me in my rosewill thor v2, was that with the custom coolers the cards like to be spread out more to get better cooling performance. So if you get one of these your best bet would be to put it in the top pcie slot and then the ref one lower as to avoid heat buildup.

Hope this helps out.
 
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