Radeon R9 290 only fully clocks after restart

snowysnowcones

snowysnowcones

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Apr 2, 2006
Messages
1,104
Hi all,
Has anyone had this problem before? My Radeon R9 290 doesn't like to fully clock until after a restart of the computer. Booting up a game my GPU will generally clock at between 500-700 MHz. Only after restarting my computer and booting up the same or a different game will the GPU run at or very close to its reference speed. See screen shots below.

Screen 1 - CS:GO before restart:
mCZvHnW.gif


Screen 2 - CS:GO immediately after restart:
8BZ5b0i.gif



As I mentioned, this has been happening for several months and I always keep my drivers up to date, so it isn't just one bad batch of drivers. I'm currently on the Radeon ReLive drivers.

Any help anyone can provide is greatly appreciated! :)
 
What windows version and how long since an install of that windows? For me, not this problem you are having, my last win10 install was corrupt. Took a few months to figure out it was win10, most of the issues were small so I didn't push for a solution. Decided to reinstall and lo and behold everything was perfect as it should have been. Also should have mentioned this was after getting a new Mobo so some of those issues/differences I thought were attributed to the Mobo. Thank god it was a windows install issue.
 
Perhaps the display driver has gone into failsafe after a problem crash, usually overclocking fail due to high heat or unstable settings.
Then it will run the card in a basic mode.

To fix it, use the Reset button on MSI Afterburner.
But ultimately, if this does help, you need to sort why the driver crashes in the first place because it will happen again.
 
and if that doesn't help id say try DDU and the new 16.12.2 whql driver. if you have AB installed make sure that all but the top box are ticked in settings.
 
Are your in game frame rates lower than they should be when the card clocks lower? Could be wattman down clocking the card if you're hitting the vsync limit.
 
Hi All,
Thanks for your responses thus far. Still haven't solved this problem. I have noticed that the only game I own that DOESN'T need a restart to fully clock is DOOM. This morning I tried 3 games, Planet Coaster, Enemy Territory:Quake Wars, and DOOM. Planet Coaster and ET:QW both had my GPU clocked 500-700MHz while DOOM was always clocked 980 - 1000MHz.

JustReason said:
What windows version and how long since an install of that windows? For me, not this problem you are having, my last win10 install was corrupt. Took a few months to figure out it was win10, most of the issues were small so I didn't push for a solution. Decided to reinstall and lo and behold everything was perfect as it should have been. Also should have mentioned this was after getting a new Mobo so some of those issues/differences I thought were attributed to the Mobo. Thank god it was a windows install issue.
Click to expand...
I have Windows 10, and the installation is nearly a couple years old at this point. I first noticed this issue happening in August and probably should have rolled back to a previous version of Windows then.

Nenu said:
Perhaps the display driver has gone into failsafe after a problem crash, usually overclocking fail due to high heat or unstable settings.
Then it will run the card in a basic mode.

To fix it, use the Reset button on MSI Afterburner.
But ultimately, if this does help, you need to sort why the driver crashes in the first place because it will happen again.
Click to expand...
My card is not overclocked (unless you count the factory OC) and I don't have Afterburner installed. Temperatures seem fine even when the clocking correctly at around 75degree C.


257Tony said:
Are your in game frame rates lower than they should be when the card clocks lower? Could be wattman down clocking the card if you're hitting the vsync limit.
Click to expand...
Yes, when the clocks are lower than they should my FPS is much lower then it should be. I'll take a look into wattman, but this issue has been going on longer than I think wattman has been a feature in AMD Drivers.
 
snowysnowcones You said that your Windows 10 install is a couple of years old? The Windows Anniversary Update completely F'd my install over and did the same for others. It will do the same if you try upgrading an older version of Win 10 to the Anniversary Update.

So the key to doing the upgrade is to download a version of Win 10 with the upgrade installed already. Get the Win 10 64 ISO direct from Microsoft here. I use the tool to make a USB boot drive or install it fresh from my HD. Afterwards all the things that MS broke with the Anniversary Update will be gone, and you should have a much happier time with your PC.
 
cageymaru said:
snowysnowcones You said that your Windows 10 install is a couple of years old? The Windows Anniversary Update completely F'd my install over and did the same for others. It will do the same if you try upgrading an older version of Win 10 to the Anniversary Update.

So the key to doing the upgrade is to download a version of Win 10 with the upgrade installed already. Get the Win 10 64 ISO direct from Microsoft here. I use the tool to make a USB boot drive or install it fresh from my HD. Afterwards all the things that MS broke with the Anniversary Update will be gone, and you should have a much happier time with your PC.
Click to expand...
I think he has win7.
 
cageymaru said:
snowysnowcones You said that your Windows 10 install is a couple of years old? The Windows Anniversary Update completely F'd my install over and did the same for others. It will do the same if you try upgrading an older version of Win 10 to the Anniversary Update.

So the key to doing the upgrade is to download a version of Win 10 with the upgrade installed already. Get the Win 10 64 ISO direct from Microsoft here. I use the tool to make a USB boot drive or install it fresh from my HD. Afterwards all the things that MS broke with the Anniversary Update will be gone, and you should have a much happier time with your PC.
Click to expand...

Interesting, thanks for the feedback. This seems probable as I first noticed this issue at Quakecon 2016, which happened to be only a few days after the Anniversary update. I'm going to continue to try and find a solution that doesn't require a re-installation.
 
In your AMD radeon settings, look under gaming / global settings and see if a power efficiency option exists. If it does, disable it and see if that helps your situation. If not, could try out the Clockblocker software and see if that helps. I used it for a while with my 390 before amd added the power efficiency toggle.
 
Just a note here the 16.12.2 drivers were doing wacky clocking on my rx460, but the 17.x.x drivers appeared to fixed the issues, not sure what the deal was. Granted it took like 3 attempts to get the upgrade to actually install ;). I did notice that the predefined voltage / clock speed states were not being honored maybe worth a shot.
 
So, fucking Windows 10 just forced a driver update on me, and now I have WattMan, which is overriding my Afterburner settings which I used to set fixed clocks... because the constant fluctuations cause a bunch of DPC latency issues.

Is there any way to remove this fucking horrible addition to the drivers? What the hell is wrong with AMD that they're forcing this shit on us? And it doesn't even have the option to set fixed clocks...
 
Nenu said:
Perhaps the display driver has gone into failsafe after a problem crash, usually overclocking fail due to high heat or unstable settings.
Then it will run the card in a basic mode.

To fix it, use the Reset button on MSI Afterburner.
But ultimately, if this does help, you need to sort why the driver crashes in the first place because it will happen again.
Click to expand...

This.
 
SolidSnake3035 said:
So, fucking Windows 10 just forced a driver update on me, and now I have WattMan, which is overriding my Afterburner settings which I used to set fixed clocks... because the constant fluctuations cause a bunch of DPC latency issues.

Is there any way to remove this fucking horrible addition to the drivers? What the hell is wrong with AMD that they're forcing this shit on us? And it doesn't even have the option to set fixed clocks...
Click to expand...
theres no way to get rid of wattman but afterburner is still working just fine for me along side wattman. just make sure you have tick the very bottom box in afterburner setting the "erase auto save" one.
 
Seriously, there's no way?

And yeah, "unofficial overclocking mode - without PowerPlay support" is what used to do the trick for me to lock exact clocks. Now none of it is working.

As a bonus, WattMan seems to be a barely-functioning piece of shit with no decent customization options.
 
do you have the newest AB I think its still 4.3 beta 14. if I remember right there were issues in earlier version of ab and it conflicting with wattman. that's why the new tick-box is there.

edit: yup no way to get rid of it unless you go waaaay back before it came out, its built into the driver now. I think that if you do a fresh driver install and never go to the global overdrive panel and accept the agreement it doesn't activate, but I'm not 100% on that. I just reloaded a system for a friend and only used wattman for the gpu oc and it is limited but seemed to work fine.
 
Maybe also try Sapphire Trixx? I had much better luck with that, on my 290X.
 
RazorWind said:
Maybe also try Sapphire Trixx? I had much better luck with that, on my 290X.
Click to expand...
Just tried it after a driver reinstall. It doesn't work... just kicks the GPU into some weird state where the memory clock goes down to 150 and everything gets scrambled.

I would just use WattMan, but there's no way to set it to stay at a specific clock, and the variations cause a ton of latency under load and crash out my USB audio and shit. If I could set it to toggle just between low clock and full clock without fluctuation, that would be fine.
I tried the Clockblocker software mentioned, but that only works if I want my GPU fully pegged constantly. I can't set it to just toggle between fixed low power and full load. Normally I had two different presets on Afterburner, and only kicked it on full when I was gonna load up a game.

The way Afterburner functions now is awful. It's able to lock in the clocks so it doesn't fluctuate, but only at 300MHz, no matter what I set it to. And if I try to set the memory clock to something other than 1400, it does the 150MHz bullshit. I used to do like 600/1400 normal and then 1100/1500 full, and it worked very well... but now I have no idea what to do. And yeah, it's the newest version, 4.3 non-beta. The new option is just about how it loads clocks on startup, not about overriding while running, which is what I need. Like I mentioned before, unofficial overclocking without PowerPlay support used to do that perfectly.

So am I completely fucked? I can't do anything that I need to do daily with this card while the clocks are fluctuating, and I really don't want to leave it on full blast constantly since I have this PC running for 12+ hours every day. Is the only option hoping for a new Afterburner update? Is there anything else I can do to fully override this stupid new bullshit and force it to function how I want it to, and how I always have? It's sickening that AMD would pull this shit and not allow an option to easily disable it like they always have in the past.
Are there any hackers out there who could tell me how to forcibly bypass this shit so Afterburner can do its thing?
 
I seem to be the only person in the world who doesn't mind doing this, but...

Maybe try a fresh Windows install? Pull out your OS drive and plug in a spare. Format and install Windows. Install drivers + Afterburner/Trixx/Whatever. Check if problem is fixed.

I know it's a pain reinstalling Windows, but frequently, when you have a problem like this, it's faster and easier to just do a clean slate install than spend hours and hours troubleshooting.
 
lol @ this thread. WattMan is completely optional and disabled by default. I don't know how you guys managed to fuck that one up.

Just run DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller, google it) and reinstall the newest drivers from scratch.

OP - are you running a frame limiter? If you have your FPS set to cap at 60 for example, you might not need full clock speeds to hit 60fps in games like Planet Coaster or ET:QW, so the video card would only run the necessary clock speeds to achieve 60fps.
 
Rizen said:
lol @ this thread. WattMan is completely optional and disabled by default. I don't know how you guys managed to fuck that one up.

Just run DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller, google it) and reinstall the newest drivers from scratch.
Click to expand...
Cool, well I tried that. Must not have fully cleaned everything for some reason. It went into safe mode and everything though... So what do you suggest? How can I fully strip all AMD drivers and settings(game profiles, etc.) without reformatting? Is there some trick to DDU that I'm missing? Some accompanying software for clearing settings/profiles/etc. that you didn't mention?

I don't know why the "Clean Install" option in the new driver package wouldn't take care of all of it in the first place. Maybe something's wrong?
 
you can block Win 10 from doing a driver update .. go here and dl the tool
To temporarily prevent the driver from being reinstalled until a new driver fix is available, a troubleshooter is available that provides a user interface to hide and show Windows updates and drivers for Windows 10.

The following troubleshooter is available for download from the Microsoft Download Center:

see https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...driver-update-from-reinstalling-in-windows-10

it still works for me as i like older Nvidia drivers for my GTX 960 ..(win 10 Pro ) and my old ass Creative SB live card

installed it on my lenovo laptop (with Win 10 Home edition ) also , to keep it from installing New AMD drivers and the sound drivers and win 10 network drivers that didn't work properly

also for video drivers .. i always used DDU if i had a vid card driver problem ,to get a clean install of the video drivers ..the AMD software sucks .. just my opinion...
 
Alright, well I tried again... Manually deleted the AMD stuff in the System32 DriverStore, ran DDU, restarted, ran it again just to be sure.
Fully uninstalled Afterburner, installed the newest driver package "non-whql-win10-64bit-radeon-software-crimson-relive-17.1.1-jan16.exe" and restarted... noticed it populated the game profiles again, not sure if it's supposed to do that or if that means there's leftover shit somewhere, but the WattMan tab shows the accept thing now so I guess that reset at least. Not sure how to tell if it's actually off without accepting/activating it though...
Anyway, then I fresh installed Afterburner, and it's doing the same bullshit where it locks the shit at 300MHz.
GPUclocksfucked2.png
GPUclocksfucked2-settings.png
Click to expand...
Those are basically the default settings, except I checked Disable ULPS and set "without PowerPlay support" like I used to. I also used to unlock voltage control and force constant voltage, but that doesn't seem to make a difference here either way.

What is wrong with this? Why isn't it working? What could possibly be causing it to lock the clocks like I want it to, but disregard the frequency I set it to? :mad:
 
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SolidSnake3035 said:
Alright, well I tried again... Manually deleted the AMD stuff in the System32 DriverStore, ran DDU, restarted, ran it again just to be sure.
Fully uninstalled Afterburner, installed the newest driver package "non-whql-win10-64bit-radeon-software-crimson-relive-17.1.1-jan16.exe" and restarted... noticed it populated the game profiles again, not sure if it's supposed to do that or if that means there's leftover shit somewhere, but the WattMan tab shows the accept thing now so I guess that reset at least. Not sure how to tell if it's actually off without accepting/activating it though...
Anyway, then I fresh installed Afterburner, and it's doing the same bullshit where it locks the shit at 300MHz.

Those are basically the default settings, except I checked Disable ULPS and set "without PowerPlay support" like I used to. I also used to unlock voltage control and force constant voltage, but that doesn't seem to make a difference here either way.

What is wrong with this? Why isn't it working? What could possibly be causing it to lock the clocks like I want it to, but disregard the frequency I set it to? :mad:
Click to expand...
First I am not sure but looking at GPU-Z for my XFX R9-290 I see a few things with yours that are different.

Your memory looks locked to 1400, mine drops to 150 and goes to 1350 every so often. And based on your memory load being no more than 0 at any point it shouldn't be holding 1400.

Also, not likely causing your issue, your 12V shows 11.88, like mine, but your seems to be fluctuating quite a bit, possible PSU issue.

Everything else seems in line with what I have.

You may have to strongly consider the Win10 re-install. Havent known Windows to cause GPU issues, as in I haven't ever seen anyone report it, but does seem quite plausible being CPU unstable OCs and behavior is quite frequently attributed to bad installs. I just recently experienced this and can attribute CPU OCing issues to said bad installs. My CPU would not reduce voltage even when the clock lowered. Just got a new MoBo so thought it was just some sensor issue, till I reinstalled Win10 and everything and I mean everything is near perfect as far as performance.
 
SolidSnake3035 said:
Alright, well I tried again... Manually deleted the AMD stuff in the System32 DriverStore, ran DDU, restarted, ran it again just to be sure.
Fully uninstalled Afterburner, installed the newest driver package "non-whql-win10-64bit-radeon-software-crimson-relive-17.1.1-jan16.exe" and restarted... noticed it populated the game profiles again, not sure if it's supposed to do that or if that means there's leftover shit somewhere, but the WattMan tab shows the accept thing now so I guess that reset at least. Not sure how to tell if it's actually off without accepting/activating it though...
Anyway, then I fresh installed Afterburner, and it's doing the same bullshit where it locks the shit at 300MHz.

Those are basically the default settings, except I checked Disable ULPS and set "without PowerPlay support" like I used to. I also used to unlock voltage control and force constant voltage, but that doesn't seem to make a difference here either way.

What is wrong with this? Why isn't it working? What could possibly be causing it to lock the clocks like I want it to, but disregard the frequency I set it to? :mad:
Click to expand...
So just to make sure, when you go into a game it doesn't clock up either?
 
Rizen said:
So just to make sure, when you go into a game it doesn't clock up either?
Click to expand...
Yeah, when I set Afterburner like in those shots, it locks everything like that. Nothing changes it, not games, not GPU-Z's render test thing, not Clockblocker. That allows it to run a stable desktop environment though, without dropping out my USB bandwidth from all the DPC latency shit that the standard constant fluctuations cause. (Which, by the way, is not unique to this install. I've had multiple fresh Windows installs behave exactly the same. It's just something to do with how these cards and drivers handle the dynamic clocks, which is to say, terribly.)
To be able to run a game, I now need to hit "Reset" on Afterburner which releases the core clock, and then activate Clockblocker to keep it fixed at full stock speed. (1030/1400)

I have no idea what could be causing it to lock it in at 300MHz like that. However, I just noticed something interesting...

When I set Afterburner to 700 core clock and apply, it shows the solid 300MHz on the sensors tab. On the Graphics Card tab it shows this:
GPUclocksfucked3.png
Click to expand...
700 MHz, just like I set it in Afterburner. But this isn't what it's actually running at. I know it's actually 300MHz because loading a game runs precisely like shit, where when I used to load up stuff at 600MHz it ran moderately well, although obviously not like when I had it at full. At 300 it's explicitly slower.
(Edit: I also noticed that when it's fixed, and running 300MHz, the Bus Interface never changes from 1.1 to 3.0 like it does when I have it "Reset" and open. I'm not sure if that's just a byproduct of it only running slowly, or if something else is keeping that locked as well...)

So... what the hell is going on here? Could it be that the BIOS on the GPU got ruined somehow? Is that even possible? I'm not sure if it's read-only or what...

I just can't imagine what could be causing it to act like this, other than something in the newer drivers fucking it up somehow.
 
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I have never had a single issue with my XFX R9-290.

Can you do another screeney of GPU-Z with gaming and 1030/1400. Like I noticed before, you have something weird going on when I saw your memory locked to 1400 with no load.
 
Hm. This is definitely a strange issue. I must admit I initially assumed user error, but now I'm really not sure what to suggest. I've had two 290Xs and a 290 and I never had problems with Afterburner or clock speeds.
 
Possibly bios bit flip or even a failed chip.
Its a shame you dont have a dual bios card (or do you? some early 290s did, I had one).
If you cant flip the bios switch to test, it might be worth blowing the bios again.

What is your exact card and when did you buy it?
Does it have a tiny toggle switch on the top?
 
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