ASUS r9 290 problems: distorted visuals, occasional pc restart

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agcanada007

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May 25, 2015
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Hi all. I recently bought an asus r9 290 direct cu II OC from amazon to replace my dual amd radeon hd 5800 in my Alienware Area 51 pc(2010). After receiving and installing it, along with drivers, I have been having problems with distorted visuals (artifacting?) and having a few random restarts (usually only when gaming but restarted on me once while on firefox). I have tried removing and reinstalling drivers several times but so far nothing has fixed the issue. I've tried the newest amd drivers (not beta), the drivers that came on the cd with the card, and i've tried the 13.25 WHQL drivers that some people said helped them, but to no avail. I've also noticed that sometimes my display will freeze and go black for a moment, then it will come back with a message of something to the effect of "Drivers have stopped working and have recovered" in the lower right corner of the desktop (can't remember exact wording of the message).

I would definitely appreciate any help anyone can offer, because i'm running out of ideas. I'm only somewhat tech-savvy, by no means a hardware expert. If you need more information about my system specs please ask. I would provide my mobo and psu information but I don't know it and am not sure how to check.

One more thing; I can actually get my card to run games fine (at least for awhile) by going to the control panel and disabling/enabling my display adapter. It isn't a permanent fix as the problem tends to re-emerge after awhile but for some reason this seems to help and allows me to actually get some gaming in.
 
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laviniuc

laviniuc

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Nov 29, 2013
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underclock the card a bit and remove any cpu overclock. it could be a psu issue. (where it can't power the card properly). if this is the case, underclokcing will make it work. it's not a permanent solution but it could do till you get a psu upgrade.
 
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agcanada007

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May 25, 2015
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Thanks for the replies thus far, here's a quick update:

I tried installing the latest beta drivers and even used that guru3d uninstall tool, but that didn't help. Then I tried adjusting the power limit and gpu clock settings in CCC and it seems to have helped. I increased the power limit to 50% (as high as it goes) and left the gpu clock settings at 0%. I am still getting some glitchiness (mostly when going into and coming out of games) but the artifacting has stopped, hopefully for good. I've been able to do some gaming for several hours uninterrupted by glitches or restarts. Been playing Witcher 3 on Ultra for a few hours straight til the game froze on me.

As far as I can tell, it seems to be a power issue. I'm not quite ready to label this as "solved" just yet though. Do you think I should spend the money on a new psu? If so, what should I look for in a new one?

I've also noticed that according to CCC, the card's temp is around 66-70 C. Is that normal? Seems quite high to me.
 
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agcanada007

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May 25, 2015
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Looking into this actually made me realize something...

I went to look on the Dell support website to find an update for my Bios (there is one) and saw there that if you do a fresh install of windows, there are a number of other drivers that you're supposed to reinstall. About a month ago I did a fresh install of Windows7 on a new hard drive and did not install most of these drivers. Apparently you're supposed to do it in a certain order so as to avoid problems. I have a feeling that this may be contributing to (or perhaps the entire cause of) my problems. I would like to try this before buying and installing a new psu, but i really don't like the idea of having to reinstall my games and whatnot yet again, but if i must i will.

I wish I had more time to work on this problem but I only have time to tackle it bit by bit, especially on weekdays. Hopefully sometime this week, or maybe this weekend, I can finally get this thing officially solved.

Again, thanks for the replies thus far, it's been very helpful :)
 
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agcanada007

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May 25, 2015
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It's a Dell, Model: H1100EF-00.

Also, after formatting my hard drive and reinstalling windows 7 and the drivers from dell, the problem still persists. Looks like I'll be getting a new psu (unless someone has any other suggestions...)
 
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mattenthehat

mattenthehat

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Jun 16, 2012
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That is an 1100W power supply, which should be enough to power 3 or 4 R9 290s, so it seems unlikely that it can't supply enough power to just one. It is possible that it is aging and can't supply as much power as it once did, or just failing entirely, but it seems unlikely that this would happen exactly when you swapped to a new GPU (especially considering one R9 290 should use less power than the two 5800 series cards). I'm thinking you may just have a faulty card, which while it would be a bummer, would also probably be a free fix on warranty.

[strike]Looking up that PSU, I'm not finding any detailed info on how much power is on each rail, and if they are bridgeable. The power supply should have a label that looks something like this one, could you try to find it and post a picture?[/strike]

Edit: I was able to find a picture of the label here, and I think I see your problem. You have 6 separate 12V rails, each one rated for 18A. Not sure what your background is so apologies if this seems obvious, but to find the power supplied by each rail, we multiply its voltage by its current, so 12V * 18A gives us 216W. According to Asus, your card can use up to 300W, well above the 216 supplied by a single rail of your PSU. Modern power supplies can (usually) bridge rails so that you can effectively pull power from all of the rails on a single cable, but since yours is on the older side, I'm thinking it may not be able to do that. Are you currently using both the 6-pin and 8-pin power plugs for your GPU on the same cable from the PSU? If so, they are on the same rail. I would suggest using separate cables for the 6-pin and 8-pin connectors on your GPU, which should put them on separate 12V rails from your power supply. Hopefully, your card won't pull more than 216W from either of the two connectors, and will run stably.
 
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agcanada007

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May 25, 2015
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Interesting stuff, and definitely not obvious to me as I know next to nothing about psu's, haha.

I think they are on the same cable but i could be wrong. I know the card came with an adapter that I believe is 6-pin and 8-pin, which i had to use b/c my psu's cable was 6 and 6. Maybe I have something plugged in not quite right?

When I wake up tomorrow I will take a good look at it before I turn my computer on, maybe see if I can switch some plugs around and see if it helps.
 
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