Powercolor PCS+ 290x in Crossfire BSOD at 3840 X 2160 or 2160p (motherboard or video cards)

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My specs are at the bottom, however here is more detailed.


  • Windows 7 latest drivers
    3860X2160 or 2160p @ 60Hz with Displayport 1.2
    Panasonic 58AX800
    MSI Z87-G45 Gaming
    Lucidlogix MVP unninstalled
    AVG uninstalled
    14.7 Catalyst
    MSI Afterburner running with no OC
    Build is 2 months old but I just started to use it at 2160p last week after receiving TV

Like indicated in the title, I cannot isolate the fault by myself. When I am running some game with Crossfire enabled, the game crash severely and I am facing lockup artifact and a BSOD sometime when windows can recover enough. I even suspect system to not run in CF at all because single card run the same as two when Crossfire is disabled. The reason why I strongly suspect the motherboard also.


    1. System is not OC, however I have a dog chip which cannot pass 4.2GHz with 1.25V and overheat easily.

    2. System have been test with 14.4, 14.7 and even on powercolor drivers with same result. DDU have been used in all occasion so it is clean drivers install in all cases.

    3. Each PCIE slots have been tested individually with no difference.

    4. Each cards have been tested individually and are working perfectly alone, but crash in Crossfire.

    5. Tried different PCIE PLL options, SB and LC with same results.

    6. Problem doesn't exist at 1080p.

    7. Games culprit crashing in mere minutes or seconds, Crysis 2 and The Witcher 2 so far. Will update the list with time.

    8. Memory tested through memtest86 came back negative, memory is fine so far.

    9. BSOD was experienced when installing or unninstalling video drivers when a card was in the bottom PCIE slot at 4x. It doesn't happen when the two cards are in the top PCIE slots.


I will post pictures, video and blue page information in the next post.
 
Video Crysis 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjEuGxfY7zs&feature=youtu.be


Video The Witcher 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GiaSvKHjrg&feature=youtu.be


Pictures

txN9OZ.jpg


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Just Tried Batman Arkham Origin, Bioshock 2, Far Cry 3 and Watch Dogs. They all working fine with good FPS.

I am beginning to suspect really bad GAME drivers at 4k since that resolution was not existing when these games were released.
 
I found something while dealing with MSI Afterburner.

New cards in Crossfire are running into ULPS mode. It's like one card running at 0MHz at idle. The problem with that is... instability when you are starting highly demanding games. Sometimes, the second card was not starting at all. I deactivated the ULPS and now The Witcher 2 and Crysis 2 are running like they should.

It could be the multiple drivers cleanup and reinstallation, or the ULPS deactivation.

Anyway, glad it is over.
 
n.b. The Witcher 2 Depth of Field Cinematic + Cutscene make the game pass from 60+ FPS to 3-4FPS. It's buggy at higher UHD.

Big update here...

For the Witcher 2, it is the game code. Yes, Depth of Field is doing the same thing even with Nvidia cards, so problem solved.
 
Major update here... for the Powercolor PCS+ 290x

You need to contact Powercolor for a BIOS update with these cards. Their initial BIOS is bad and can provoke bad performances, especially in CF, and instability issues like BSOD.

So far so good. I will update this thread if I continue experiencing BSOD even after the BIOS update.

 
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