Explain how this works (R9 290 Black Screen Fix)

the card draws like 300w whereas dual six pin delivers only 150+75 from mobo which is 225w. Because your card is starved for energy your computer crashes

that i dunno hmm weird, what power supply you have?

maybe the rails aren't loading correctly, it has like 4 rails

so i figured out the best way to fix this and theres a couple of things that you should do if you get this problem with the r9 290s. 1 do not rma your card theres no point your going to get the same card with the same problem until amd gets there act together. 2 make sure that your card is getting enuff power. do not use a cord that has a 6 and a 8 pin in the same line thats not enough power. 3 this is the main problem. your vram threshold is 85C but your card can get up to 95C so you black screen. one way to fix this problem is down clock your Vram and yes i know it sucks but it works. i have mine clocked at 1000hz or what ever and normally its like 1250 or so. that's a big difference but it really helps. 4 and last speed your fan up. the max right now it will go with the latest drivers is 45% i believe but i have mine set to 65% all the time and my card sits at 55 all the time now. doing all of these things i do not black screen! i just recorded me playing call of duty ghosts on ultra at 60fps constant so even with that down clock there's no lag so don't worry over it. until amd fixes this or tells everyone who bought this card that they screwed up nothing is going to change. hope this helps!

I've had this exact problem and think I've found the fix with my tri-x r9 290. Download msi afterburner. Dropped memory clock slightly to 1250. I also upped core voltage by 25 and forced constant voltage in settings. I WAS getting black screens within 10 mins from internet browsing and gaming. Also if you have one of those cables with 8 pin on one side and two 8 pin 6 pin on the other side, swap it out so you have two cables running from the power supply. Try all this and let me know

GUY HOW IT'S END ?

Got a 290 sapphire edition and having constant black screens especially in kerbal space program. I have tried adding to cable to the psu directly and underclocking the memory to 1250 but no luck. Currently running a psu with 900 watts. I even tried overvolting it and nothing. This sucks.

I did the mso afterburner. Set core voltage +25，fans to 50 % minimum. Did the wirr also, i would get the black screeb in arma after mins every time, now tho it runs great and temp is never above 75 c

I updated this post too many times so I decided to write it from start after testing the AMD OMEGA Catalyst driver. I have spent about 3 weeks on this problem as I am an owner of an r9 290 that I can’t rma and I am too tired to do so. I have managed to make the black screens disappear 1 week now, which never happened with any other driver version and any possible set of tweaks.
In general I will say that thις problem isn’t related to PSUs or older PCI-E version slots or gpu temperatures directly or gpu memory speeds directly. As I read at some forums, even with many tweaks even ROM changes, the problem persisted even though at less frequent appearances . It is definitely, for some users, a hardware fault and a reason to RMA your card if you can. If you can’t anymore or you got bored RMAing or you just plain cant then read this post and try to implement all the tweaks I gathered the last 3 weeks of my effort.
Keep in mind that, at least for me, with Omega driver you just need the tick on "force contant voltage" on msi afterburner and adding some voltage on System Agent voltage at motherboard BIOS. With just those two tweaks I haven’t seen a crash all day now, even at games that were crashing the least often every 2 hours.
First of all, do the proper thing and clean your system of previous AMD drivers before installing Omega driver

Now for the tweaks
1) At bios, make sure you add some voltage to System Agent Voltage. A 1.055 is the max I would suggest, I am at 1.005, keep in mind that every motherboard is different in terms of sensitivity at voltage tweaking.
2) Uninstall your amd radeon drivers
Ι had issues properly uninstalling 14.9 and every driver i installed afterwards was installing with some report logs and ! marks.
Download Display Driver Uninstaller (or DDU) 13.4.1.0 and extract it in a folder
Boot to safe mode (various ways to do that, that differ from OS to OS google it)
Go to device manager, find your gpu, uninstall it and tick also the "uninstall all associated drivers" or smth like that
Run DDU and select AMD then uninstall and restart pc, you can also select to delete the c:\amd folder
it should reboot to normal mode, check device manager, should have as display controller a "microsoft basic display adapter" or smth like that.
install your Omega amd driver. Although i was avoiding AMD Gaming Evolved software, some games optimized by it, seem to have become 100% stable! So I know, strange but whatever works right?
reboot


3) Install, Start MSI afterburner
1) Settings - > Force constant voltage ticked
2) Settings-> Unlock Voltage Control ticked (MSI )
3) Custom Fan settings, I prefer setups like 30% fan speed up to 60Celsius, then 100% at 80% Celsius and adjust it depending your room temps, as long as you never see 75+ Celsius. I do that because I believe that graphic cards that their temperature changes never go over 20-30 celsius last longer. Extremely true on laptop graphic chips..A Simple contraction expansion rule really.
4) Make 2 profiles (3rd is optional but it proves something is weird and not related to memory speeds 100% )
1st Profile similar to the one MrToast72 suggested : Core Voltage +25, Core Clock 875, Memory Clock 950, Power limit +5%, let's call it Safety profile (if you still get some black screens take power limit to -10%, it worked for some!)
2nd Profile, the average profile (that proves that the other settings in bios , drivers are helping) Core Clock Default, Memory Clock Default, core voltage 30, power limit 10%, let's call it Default profile
3rd Profile (and what proves memories could be not at fault but a controller or something like that on the gpu or an unstable auto-voltage rule somewhere)
Core Voltage +40, Power Limit +20, Core Clock 1000!, Memory Clock 1300! Yes an overclock profile even for my VTX3D r9 290 x-edition V2,

That’s it! Hope your black screen errors have minimized or even disappeared.

I have gathered a lot of information around the web for this frustrating problem, in case you wanna test more.
For some users disabling adobe flash acceleration in browsers helped
For some others, installing only the drivers of the gpu and not the whole catalyst packet helped
Overclocked CPUs were affecting negatively the whole effort
Some others said that older PCI-E versions were affecting it negatively
Some others blamed the PSUs but I have a 1000watt 80% psu and have it.
Some others blamed the memory of the gpu. Although I can’t confirm otherwise, the overclocking profile should be crashing continuously if that was the case.

UPDATE 11 April 2015
After more and more and more tinkering i have concluded that something doesn't always work and overheats without apparent reason. In the end the most stable of all setups (1 game freeze every week max!) is by having
a core clock of 825, memory clock of 875, Core Voltage -19mV !! and power limit -15%!!!!
This setup is extremely stable even at dragon age inquisition and all very heavy games (Which seem to be more stable even at overclocking settings! compared to world of warcraft...)

Update 20 May 2015.
At some points, once every few days, even when PC was idle or just desktop work, the graphic card fans would go crazy 100% speed, with VRM1&2 and GPU CORE temps being ok (40-50Celsius). This made me think that there is definitely something not working ok as a component on this graphic card, that will give a red alert temperature wise and fans will go crazy just to help. Also mentioning that after 1-2 minutes of 100% fan speed gpu would crash, with black screen. I have tried extending the intervals in registry of windows checking if the graphic driver works or not . Except that i found the time to add Geils Enhancement R9 290/x kit. There was no difference on the VRM heatsinks from stock to geils but what was different was the thermal pad quality (of course..). The only difference i see is that VRM temp at idle is like 15celsius less but when you push the card in games VRM1 and 2 Temps are almost identical after a while (makes sense). There were 12 days (i keep calendar for the crashes) straight of heavy GPU use (from adobe premiere pro cc mercury engine, to video converting and gaming) without any strange incident, then things started to happen again on a one crash/black screen every week. (My pc is like 18 hours on per day or even 2-3 days straight). So i can't say that what the other poster said , about geil enhancement kit works as a charm, is true but there is obvious temp difference on the GPU VRMs and i did see over a week of no crashes. What i believe is happening is that the VRM heatsinks are of the same quality as of the manufacturer's ones but what changes is the quality of the thermal paste/pad/sticker helping the heat transfer easier to the heatsinks. After all in my gpu the geil vrm heatsinks are smaller in size and slightly lighter, i think they are of the same material.
Also, i implemented my fan settings that i was using on my ATI HD5870 card. The settings were set fan speed to be really low up to 65celsius, and then increasing steadily to 100% fan speed at 80celsius. This made the card slightly more warm at idle but the idle temperature to the high cap temperature is way less and perhaps this also helps with the simple rule "expansion contraction". Meaning that if a component on the card is behaving erraticaly due to changes of temperature being to harsh, perhaps if it is hotter all the time might mean that it won't crash if you just add 20celsius up, down from 40..)
The end result as i speak is 4 days no crash, with mantle enabled games going on (Battlefield 4, PvZ garden warfare) , world of warcraft , dragon age inquisition, World of tanks (its stable only if i remove post processing), Robocraft, a full clear on wolfenstein old blood, and some hours of gpu stress test from msi kombustor.
I want to add that Unity engine games (like wasteland 2 ?) are pretty buggy? or very unstable on my R9 290, i don't know why, they create a crash, the monitor display seems to tear (like on heavy no vsync visuals) and then crashes, havent found a solution for that on any setting.

--- UPDATE windows 10 x64 15.7.1 AMD drivers---
I upgraded my windows 81 to windows 10 but didn't realize that the 15.7.1 drivers i had were of windows 81, so after a DDU uninstall and then installing the windows 10 x64 15.7.1 driver guess what happened. As a rule of thumb i reset msi afterburner settings before an amd driver uninstall and a new amd driver install. After the whole process i forgot my R9 290 at default settings (+0 power, +0 core, 975 / 1250) and i was playing for few days without incidents.
Then one afternoon my daughter told me that while she was playing Garden Warfare PvZ she had a sudden black screen but the game didn't crash afterwards. I checked and realized my gpu was at default settings , and started playing wow on heavy graphic or lots of pupulated areas to see what will happen. Few minutes later on demanding gpu areas, i had a crash. However it was just for 2-3 seconds, the driver recovered and the game kept playing!

Something with windows 10 and the new driver makes the black screen temporary, the driver recovers without the game freezing or dieing. I have not tested many games, Garden Warfare for example is a 50-50 situation, WoW always recovers, same with need for speed rivals and most wanted.

I now play on my safemode gpu settings (-20% core clock, memory clocks, power limit and -19mV voltage) and i have no crash for days, even though i did stress the card with crashing games like WoW on heavy areas, need for speed most wanted and some others.

So keep that in mind if you get your windows 10 and the new amd driver. Test the games with default gpu settings on msi afterburner, if the crashes are temporary and games recover without them freezing/crashing report it here

UPDATE 05 March
I found the arctic cooling accelero extreme iv and i made a small customization and added the arctic cooling kit too(didnt use screw at one side and used a tightener) . There is a link in here somewhere how to do it, i have done it similar. Also, updated the drivers to the lastet from amd 1-2 days ago.
After this the heat on the gpu, rams and vrms are like super low. going just 60-65 at overclocked!!! (1075gpu 1375vram) and the black screens are as often as one every 10 days, actually i posted tonight after the first black screen in 10 days.
It happened at overclocked profile in unreal tournament 4 prealpha which i playtest.
The problem didn't disappear, but as i already said, every bit helps to reduce how often it appears. It is definitely a problem on a chip and it is affected by temperature but the temperature is not the culprit.

Update 28th March
With the new beta amd driver update (Crimson Edition 16.3.1 Hotfix AND 16.3.2 just yesterday will keep informing for that), the accelero extreme iv, the accelero vrm kit, (i promise to add a picture in few days where i plan to clean the PC again from fiber dust etc) and the following settings i have gotten no black screens on all games. I dont know if this has fixed the problem but it sure doesnt show.
Core Voltage -12mV
Power limit 0
Core clock and Memory clock default

Also suprisingly a 10% overclock on my gpu and gpu ram is also super stable, no crashes yet.
Core Voltage +25
Power Limit +20%
Core Clock 1073MHz
Memory Clock 1375MHz
I tested on varius games non stop, managed to take a screenshot while playing need for speed most wanted with 4x Antialiasing at 1920x1200 max details. I have 2 monitors so its easy for you to see the data and the game loaded

I think this effort of 1.5 year is covered and complete with partial if not complete success. As i said, you can spend some money and a very specialized electronic engineer can find out what vrm or ram has some failure and fix it..or do this
http://i67.tinypic.com/rvk8kx.jpg

[RESOLVED]

Im sure there are way too many variables to apply to every system but I recently had this problem and it was driving me crazy; it seemed that the more time I spent trying to fix it - the more I HAD to fix it otherwise loose all the time I invested so here is my experience:

I buddy gave me a XFX R9 290 which was the nicest card I had so I was really excited to get it installed and when I installed it I got a Black screen almost immediately. When I touched the card I could feel it was way too hot so I knew I had an overheating issue of some sort so I started with my troubleshooting.

My first line of attack was power so I ensured I had a good clean power source and while that appeared to buy me a little more time before the black screen, it still returned. Then I tried to remove the heat sink and cleaned it up and applied fresh (good quality) thermal paste but that didnt help either. I purchased a liquid cooler and the Kraken G10 adapter and then the card would run for a longer period of time but would still blackscreen at times (ran about 180/190 degrees). I could feel the radiator was actually hot to the touch so this was the first indication that I was generating far too much heat. RMA is not an option for me as the card was given to me so I ordered the 'GELID Solutions CL-R9290-01-A R9 290 Series VRM Cooling Enhancement Kit Compatible to AMD R9 290/290X' and when I received it I had to take off the OEM frame which sits on all the RAM/VRAM chips. At first I was a little concerned that the GELID solution only included 3 heat sinks so many of the RAM chips are not in contact with anything but as soon as I installed it all of my problems went away. The card was running at 180/190 F with a water cooler on the GPU but as soon as I installed the GELID solution it started operating at 110F under full load with a mild overclock.

I have to assume that the OEM frame that sits on all the RAM/VRAM was overheating the other chips because I doubt that GELID solution would drop my temps by 50%.

Anyway, if you have a nice card like this and are having the blackscreen problems, I highly recommend the GELID solution (and the optional watercooled GPU setup) for the R9's since it is so inexpensive but my fix did not involve downclocking at all and now that the card runs so cool I can start playing with the overclocking.

..Hope it helps someone. I was 10min from throwing the card in the trash and am so grateful I didnt as it peforms flawlessly now.

Good luck.

Hi, I just want to say that I'm using 14.501.1003-141120a-178000C drivers and I also had black screen issues. I did use the MSI afterburner to set the fan speed at 85% and I've stoped using Muzila Firefox web browser. Full day already and I didn't have any random black screens. I'm not 100% sure but I think there is some sort of conflict bitween the video card and the Firefox web browser. Oh and I forget to say my video card is PowerColor R9 290 PCS+. I hope I've been of some help.

Most probably the hardware acceleration inside mozila firefox option or the hardware acceleration of flash is interfering with your card.

Well the black sreen acured again. But at last I found a way to fix it. Take a photo of the 3 stickers on the back of the video card and send it to(my case PowerColor) and they will send you a vbios update. After all it was vbios problem.

I also contacted them about the BIOS update and it fixed my blackscreen issues for my R9 290 aswell.

I found a fix for me(atleast no black screen for 3 days)

Install the newest AMD drivers recommended for your card, WITHOUT CCC(Catalyst Control Center), Install and use MSI afterburner instead, clock the card down a little.

Hope this can help anyone else who hasent found a solution. Its not ideal, but im guessing my motherboard and other components are just not powerful enough too fully utilize this card.(R9 290)

I have the same problem with the R9 290 Tri X OC, which of them did you use?

core clock of 825, memory clock of 875, Core Voltage -19mV !! and power limit -15% .. i still got black screen when my pc will be running for 2 days without shutting it off ..

Ok thanks, it worked!

core clock of 825, memory clock of 875, Core Voltage -19mV !! and power limit -15% .. i still got black screen when my pc will be running for 2 days without shutting it off ..

Click to expand...

That doesn't seem bad m8, for 2 days without shutting off..as i said if you can't rma thats a good ratio for problematic card. It is getting pretty hot now here in Greece, i was afraid that this would affect negatively my whole effort but it seems everything is fine still.

Also had the same problem with black screening - I have an ASUS R9 290X.
I tried many different things, my pc only stopped black screening when I completely un-installed every bit of ASUS & AMD software from my system.
I then used two separate VGA Power leads from my power supply for the 6 & 8 pin power connections, re-installed the AMD Catalyst Control Centre(driver, not the suite), installed ASUS GPU Tweak and set the following settings - GPU Core Clock 1050, Memory Clock 1200, Core Voltage 0100mv, Power Limit 1%.
My system now appears completely stable, I have been playing GTA5 on ultra high settings for 3 nights for around 4-5 hrs & all temperatures on the card and my PC CPU are really cool.
However, I think most of the steps in the solutions above are red herrings, I think that as long as you install the correct drivers, the only thing that really solves the issue is playing around with the GPU Core Clock settings.

Unfortunately your case doesn't reflect to all others with the r9 290/x problems. That's because sometimes there is a real hardware semioperating. For example in my case and some others the problem is around some VRMs overheating or just having a bad thermal paste or semisticky thermal glue between the vrms and the tiny cheapass heatsinks of them.

Some others, where i seem to also belong to, have a more faulty VRM who require huge experimentation to reduce the black screens as much as possible. All this if you can't rma your card..

I wonder if i could take my card to a specialist electronic engineer and discover which vrm has issue but that costs as much as buying a used r9 290 in few months.