Saphire R9 290 blackscreen?

jmflu

Distinguished
Jun 5, 2012
128
0
18,690
I am a noob to PC gaming this is my first computer so bear with me here

Just got one of these installed upon initial install (before drivers) the computer booted and ran fine. AFTER installing the latest AMD drivers, after reboot post-driver install it would auto go into a black screen that I would have to do a hard reboot to get rid of.

After googling, I went to the saphire website and downloaded driver 13.12c (I noticed it had mentioned blackscreening in the bug updates) - This allowed me to boot and I thought all was good.

I was able to run Diablo 3 fine for a bit. I installed some broadcast software to try out some twitch streaming, but when I ran the game with the software on I went right back into this black screen, so it isn't gone.

What can I do to pinpoint the problem? What other info can I provide to help you guys help me?

Any advice would be appreciated I spent a lot of money on this card and feel really discouraged it's acting funky.
 
Well you have not listed the specs of your system so it`s hard to pin down.
But as a rule of thumb what your talking about can normally happen after you have installed the actual video card drivers.
This is because the driver utilities the full function of the gpu.
Enables all the gpu features for use, power consumption goes up.


And there for the card requires more power.
So if the PSU is not up to the task of providing enough wattage and amps across the extra Pci-e power connector the card falls over, basically a black screen or a system freeze due to the lack of power from the PSU of the system.

Your best off checking what your psu can deliver in watts, and the amp rating of the 12v rails.
Then looking up the requirements in wattage and amps you card needs from the Psu to keep it stable. A 290 will require a lot of juice.

The power ratings of the card will always be listed at full operation, in watts and amps, so if your Psu comes no where near to outputting both you it`s most likely the cause when it come to running a game but fine sat at the desktop of windows.

Check out what I said. Hope it helps.


 

jmflu

Distinguished
Jun 5, 2012
128
0
18,690
Thank you for the reply.

My current PSU is "Antec EA650W - Green - 80+ Bronze"
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371044

I had asked on r/buildapc and they had told me that this should be enough. Could this be the issue?

Also, I ran Heaven Benchmark software and it didn't black screen. It actually hasn't black screened during gaming yet. Only the initial boot-black screen (which went away with different drivers) - and then the twitch software black screening but it seems like an obvious warning.

I've read that drivers could be the issue? But how do you know which version to even try?

Any other info I could give let me know