My R9 290 killed my seasonic X650 PSU

Eyesthetics · May 19, 2015

so 2 days ago i was playing CS GO, and then all of a sudden, without any prior symptoms the screen went black, it was freezing as pressings all the buttons didn;t do anything. So i hit the reset switch and it was booting just fine until the windows "signing in" screen, the pc suddenly turned itself off, all the fans the led turned themselves off, then i tried turning it on again but there was no reaction whatsoever, no signs of life. my immediate reaction was to make sure that all the power cables are firmly plugged in, but to no avail..then i replugged all the psu cables, still no result..

and then i thought maybe just maybe its the graphics card, i took it off my gpu, replugged all the psu cables, and to my surprise it still wouldn't boot, no signs whatseover no beep no nothing like theres no power

and then i took my PSU, my graphics card and my ram to my friend's house to try them to find the faulty component, and turns out its the psu that just died, my friend's pc wouldn't turn on at all (same as my pc) as soon as he tried using his PSU it worked normally, so in conclusion, my PSU just RIP.

actually, the black screen problem has been showing up since i bought the gpu, the gpu is a reference R9 290 from powercolor, i bought it used for 215 bucks off craigslist, it was working fine until 2 days later, my pc monitor would turned black in the middle of a gaming session, usually far cry 4 or cs go, at that time my psu was corsair cx600m, people told me that it was my psu not good enough not the gpu, but they told me to rma it first as it could be a faulty psu, so i sent it in to corsair and once the new cx600m arrifved, the problem persist, then i sold the cx600m and went ahead and bought the seasonix X650 because people told me that its a really solid PSU with a 10/10 score on jonnyguru, so i bought one, and as expected, the monitor wstill turned black once in a while when playing cs go or far cry 4, so i rma it again, seasonic sent the new X650, and not even a day went by, the PSU already died, smh..

could it be that the gpu is faulty since i bought it second hand ? but it doesn't show any artifacts, oh yeah and also, when the monitor turned black, sometimes the pc recovered and a "AMD Display driver stopped responding and has recovered" text on the bottom right corner shows up, not every time..

the problem occurs more often with CS GO, far cry 4 very rarely crashed

my pc specs :

Intel core i5 4690k (4.6Ghz 1.3V)
Corsair H100i
2x4gb 1600mhz Corsair Vengeance
PowerColor R9 290 (reference)
Asrock H81m-hds mobo

what the hell is wrong with my pc

Zerk2012 · May 19, 2015

The absolute first thing to do is undo you CPU overclock. You can pull the battery out for about 30 seconds and it will set your BIOS back to default.
The next thing to do is download a differant driver version for the video card, then delete your old driver and install the new one.
Usally when the driver fails and recovers it's because of a corrupt driver.

Dunlop0078 · May 19, 2015

Well i think its safe to say its not the psu if you went through 2 cx600's and 2 x650's. Have you tried reinstalling the drivers yet? There could be a problem with them if they are crashing. It could also certainly be a bad gpu, im not sure how much faith i would put into a used power color reference 290.

Dunlop0078 · May 19, 2015

And your saying it totally killed a brand new seasonic x650? Idk what would cause that something weird is going on. Do you have dirty power in your area or something?

Quixit · May 19, 2015

Definitely drop the overclock and test it out. 4.6Ghz is fairly high for a 4690k and Haswell chips have a history of degraded overclocks after only somewhat short periods of time. The first thing you do when testing anything is reset everything to stock clocks.

Check the airflow in your case too, it might not be that great, which can cause overheating. This is particularly a problem in hot weather, which we're starting to get into now.

Eyesthetics · May 19, 2015

I already tried clearing the CMOS, turning off the OC. all to no avail.

Calculatron · May 19, 2015

^
+ what everyone else said.

You are using an entry-level motherboard, and putting a pretty serious overclock on the processor. Even though Haswell chips include their VRM on the die, they motherboard still has to handle some of the load - and that motherboard is not built for any of that nonsense. To help with troubleshooting, you go back to stock settings.

Secondly, with a reference R9 290, despite the blower-style cooler, you have to be mindful of the environment it is in. If they ambient temperatures are high, that is only going to make the thermal issues for the board. It could very well be that the card, with either the GPU core or the VRM, is getting close to overheating and it is tripping a failsafe to prevent damage.

TL;DR - Go back to stock settings, and try improving airflow to your GPU.

Eyesthetics · May 19, 2015

Yes, it killed a 2 hour old brand new seasonic X650, just got home from rma ing the old X650.. As soon as finished putting the pc back together i fired up cs go, not even am hour later r it died, i don't even know how to explain this to seasonic.

I tried resintallimg the driver, problem still persists

Eyesthetics · May 19, 2015

The gpu temps are normal, never exceed 95c (which is safe as per amd)

Eyesthetics · May 19, 2015

My pc is in an air conditioned room with the case side panel taken off

Calculatron · May 19, 2015

Eyesthetics :

Is this the Core temperature, or the temperature of the VRMs as well?

Eyesthetics · May 19, 2015

Mobo vrm or gpu? Gpu vrm temps : 85c

Calculatron · May 19, 2015

That's definitely on the hot side, but within acceptable parameters.

Have you reduced your CPU overclock?

Eyesthetics · May 19, 2015

I have

Calculatron · May 19, 2015

Since you bought the GPU used, I am more willing to blame that over the PSU. (Probably was used in a bitcoin mining rig; who knows what horrors its seen.) 650 watts should be enough to fuel the rig, although you'll be pushing it fairly hard. While part of me wants to say to try more wattage, I have a feeling that the end result will be just the same.

Do you have a friend would would be willing to test the GPU in their rig, and see what results they have? If the GPU works fine and without issue, then there is definitely something wrong elsewhere. If the GPU works fine, then I think what Dunlop0078 said is on the right track - perhaps you have dirty power in the area. Because, seriously, four dead PSUs is bollocks.

Eyesthetics · May 19, 2015

My friend's psu is even worse, corsair cx500

Calculatron · May 19, 2015

Then insufficient data is present to provide assessment.

Eyesthetics · May 19, 2015

What "data" do u want?

Sig2525 · May 19, 2015

i think your mobo is dying - and about the driver crashes too, make sure to re install new drivers (use DDU if you must to uninstall previous drivers).

Calculatron · May 19, 2015

Rather than trying a higher wattage PSU, or throwing your GPU into another rig, another alternative could be to test another GPU in your rig. If you have issues with the swapped GPU, then it is probably something in your rig - whether it is hardware, or power-related, still will yet to be determined. But at least you know that your R9 290 isn't a POS.

pjstar30 · May 19, 2015

Maybe try a different brand PSU. They might be a high tier PSU but no PSUs are 100% perfect and Seasonic could have had a faulty batch of components and you've just been unlucky enough to get a unit with a faulty component each time.

It's too bad these companies don't do "recalls" like auto manufacturers and other companies do when they find out they've been putting something faulty in their product.... assuming that's what it is.

Eyesthetics · May 19, 2015

Well I've gone through 4 psus, and all of them failed, so it's most certainly not the PSU, and my pc worked just fine with my friend's 970

Eyesthetics · May 19, 2015

Just that it baffles me a graphics card can kill a beefy PSU, in most cases it's the other way around.

PNS Rider · May 19, 2015

Most R9 290/290X will require minimum of 750W PSU. You may want to read your GPU requirement in the manual.
My Asus R9 290 won't even boot with Thermaltake/CoolerMaster 600W PSU, but runs fine once I replace the PSU with Seasonic X750.

pjstar30 · May 19, 2015

Eyesthetics :

Agreed. I somehow get the feeling that there's some detail we're missing here that may not have been mentioned that's probably a contributing factor to the issues.

My R9 290 killed my seasonic X650 PSU

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