R9 290 on older chipsets

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lostinms

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I have a Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H with a AMD Phenonm II x4 975.

I upgrade my ageing graphics card which is a XFX 5830 to a XFX Black Edition Double Dissipation R9-290A-EDBD.

I had an issue when I first upgrade to the 5830 with the first motherboard I had which had a PCIE 1.0 slot. The motherboard wouldn't run the card properly which seem to be a Bios issue not card issue and I couldn't get ECS to do a bios fix for the motherboard to run it so I had to replace the motherboard with the one above.

Now with games demanding higher graphics cards I feel it is time to upgrade once again. I am what you would call a budget gamer as family first my hobby second or even last.

I realize this when I bought Wolfenstein: The New Order and I could see Graphic issue while playing on my 5830. Yes 5830 can play it even thou it does not meet the Minimum spec for the game.

I purchase the above card from Newegg for $284.99 when it was onsale after Christmas with money I got for Christmas. I is back on Sale now for $289.99 on Newegg just in case any would like to know.

I also purchase a Cosair GS800 to go with it so I would have plenty of power as the power supply I had was only a 700w power supply.

It booted up and worked fine for about an hour and half. I was able to play WoW during that time, but when I went to play Wolfenstein it kinda freaked out. The splash screen that plays before getting in the game was very Grainy and did not look like it did on my 5830. Then bam BSOD(Black Screen of Death) happen. I did as anyone would do I hit the power button to turn off pc and turn it back on. The thing is the card never came back to life. The fans was turning and the neat XFX symbol was lit on the card but it did not show the boot screen. I sat there a few secs then I heard over my headphones sitting on my desk the windows boot up sound which mean the pc booted but the card never woke up.

I then pulled the card reinsert it and hook up the other PCIE power connectors and still a No-Go. So I reinsert my 5830 and it booted. The only thing I could figure is the card was bad. Lucky I was still with in the 30 day window so I RMA it back to Newegg and I am hoping the new card if they send me one works.

So I just want to make sure there is no issues between newer cards and older chipsets cause I really can't afford a new motherboard and new memory cause my old motherboard uses DDR2 not DDR3. I read one article and they always say the most expensive thing that needs to be in a gamer's pc is the Graphics card.
 
I have seen motherboards that have to be hard set in the bios for a lower pci speed if the card somehow wasn't capable. Very rare though. I've, however, never seen any problems with a newer card with an older chipset. If you are utilizing PCI-E 2.0 x16 I don't think it should matter anyway. Your CPU is probably going to be your bottleneck before anything else. I have that same motherboard in a secondary PC with a newer gen graphics card and I don't have an issue, so it was probably just the card.
 
I am not really worry about FPS too much as long as they are decent like 40fps and above. 30 is playable too for me. I use to play CS on a dial up connection if that tells you anything. Not a hard core game like alot of folks on here. Just casual. Like the " Oh Pretty" type person.
 
I would be quite suprised if the 785G coudn't handle a 290. It has a full 2.0 PCI-E x16 lane, and some extra. In fact, quite a few AMD chipsets / boards still come with only PCI-E 2.0.
 
To get my 290 to work, I had to update my bios on a msi p45 mobo. Works fine now after another issue with a corrupted windows install. Windows 8.1 should give you a fps boost if you are able to get it cheap. My wife is a student so upgrading didn't cost much.
 
Theoretically the PSU should not be a problem, but it honestly sounds like a power issue. The GS800 is not one of Corsair's better units. Just to rule it out, I would try a different one. A good quality 650w is more than enough for a single 290.
 
bigsnyder said:
Theoretically the PSU should not be a problem, but it honestly sounds like a power issue. The GS800 is not one of Corsair's better units. Just to rule it out, I would try a different one. A good quality 650w is more than enough for a single 290.
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Checking those 12V amps always helps :D
 
bigsnyder said:
Theoretically the PSU should not be a problem, but it honestly sounds like a power issue. The GS800 is not one of Corsair's better units. Just to rule it out, I would try a different one. A good quality 650w is more than enough for a single 290.
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Actually I have that GS800 and it got great reviews for power supply. I am running an OC 8350 and a XFX R9-290 with no issues at all. So I am sure it can run a Phenom with no issue at all. The GS800 was near 92%in the 400-600W range, which he should be at the 400W level.
 
Yes I always update the bios to the latest one which is the last one that Gigabyte release for my motherboard back in 2012.

My card has made it to California so now I am waiting on hearing from Newegg to see if it was defiantly bad.
 
durquavian said:
Actually I have that GS800 and it got great reviews for power supply. I am running an OC 8350 and a XFX R9-290 with no issues at all. So I am sure it can run a Phenom with no issue at all. The GS800 was near 92%in the 400-600W range, which he should be at the 400W level.
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Good to hear, but his particular unit may have an issue with the 12v rail. Still worth swapping out just to be sure.
 
Use HWiNFO and check the 12V numbers. It should range between 11.8~12.2V If it gets lower then yes you will have issues.
 
may just have been a bad card...xfx customer service is awesome...there hardware doesn't have the greatest rep and they usually have to make up for it with service
 
If I am reading this right it says the 12v, voltage is 12.112 volts.

Also Newegg had received my card back and has approved a replacement. Hopefully they will shipped from their warehouse in Memphis so it can get here quicker.
 
did you check the 12V after some full load tests? On HWiNFO it lists the minimums, that is what you are looking for.
 
Yes I was doing some gaming and it was the same voltage across. even easytune 6 that Gigabyte has is reporting the same thing except it says it is at 12.110 volts
 
Well got my replacement card and so far all is ok I am guessing that the last r9 was bad. Gotta love QA doing their job.
 
Well that didn't take long it runs fine in 3d but for some reason it is locking up my PC that I have to hit the rest button in order to reboot it.
 
Just a update the answer is no some older chipsets the R9 290/290x is not compatible. I have to get a new motherboard and of course memory since my old motherboard uses ddr2.

After taking my graphics card and my powersupply and put it in my daughters PC which is alot newer than mine. The r9 290 work with out a hitch. No Freezing, No Black screen. Her chipset on her mother board is amd 970 and on my was amd 785g so I was able to rule it out what the issues.

I really hate having to do Trial and Error since these Cards have been out for a while and you would think there would be more post about compatibility issue even if they are a small percentage.
 
You had DDR2 in a 785? I have DDR3 in a 760GM. I would attempt to put my 290 in that for curiosity but would take too much work. Although I cant see the issue unless it performance issue with your CPU/RAM feeding the 290. I have a 7770 in the 760 right now and it has no issues at all.

If you haven't tried yet, reinstall windows.
 
I'm having almost the same problem as OP with my XFX 290. I'm running a AMD PII x6 1090T on 880 chipset, wondering if this chipset is too old.
 
durquavian said:
You had DDR2 in a 785? I have DDR3 in a 760GM. I would attempt to put my 290 in that for curiosity but would take too much work. Although I cant see the issue unless it performance issue with your CPU/RAM feeding the 290. I have a 7770 in the 760 right now and it has no issues at all.

If you haven't tried yet, reinstall windows.
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The motherboard I had there was 2 versions of it. The Version I have only uses ddr2. The other version uses ddr3.

I had the ddr2 memory from a previous board that had a 1.0 PCIEx16 slot and I had to get a new motherboard with a PCIE 2.0 slot in order to use my XFX 5830.
 
Dmac122383 said:
I'm having almost the same problem as OP with my XFX 290. I'm running a AMD PII x6 1090T on 880 chipset, wondering if this chipset is too old.
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From what have been reading there are some with the 800 series chipset that are having the same issues. But it is not wildly know.
 
bigsnyder said:
Have you tried swapping PSU yet just to be sure?
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what I did I took my Powersupply which is a Cosair gs800 out of my PC and put it in my daughter's pc then I put the r9 290 in my daughter's PC. Boot it up, install drivers and bam everything work fine. Was able to watch a 45 min Video with not hard lockups. Put everything back in my PC and 2 mins in to watching a video it would hard lock. I would have push the reset button to reboot the PC. 3d games was the same way. It is possible it a bios update could fix it but seeing how the motherboard is about 4 years old.

In case I didn't post the model of the mother board.

Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3266#dl
 
It might just be a bios problem with the board. I tried my R9 290x in my daughters old computer in her room and that is 955 on a biostar TA790GX 128M with ddr 2 memory. I tried Skyrim, Metro Last Light Redux, and Battlefield 4. The fps was close to my fps except for Battlefield 4, and it was with in 12 fps. I am running FX8350 on a Asrock 990fx Extreme 4 motherboard.
 
or windows corruption. A lot of weird stuff happens when windows get corrupted. I couldn't FSB OC: Trust me... WEIRD.
 
lostinms said:
From what have been reading there are some with the 800 series chipset that are having the same issues. But it is not wildly know.
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I put the 290 into my Z77 Intel board and havent had a problem yet, and I've been running tons of benchmarks and overclocked the card to 1110/1480.

This gave me a reason to upgrade to a Z97 and 4790K Devil's Canyon.
 
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