AMD RX 480 Causing PC Freeze. Should I RMA?

PCfreezeguy

Commendable
Oct 12, 2016
23
0
1,510
Hi Tom's Hardware!

I have a strange (and persistent!) issue with my launch day Sapphire AMD RX 480 8gb graphics card. I have been struggling with this issue since I built my rig (late June 2016) and have finally narrowed it down to the GPU.

Originally, my entire computer would freeze randomly while not playing games. Things like the caps lock key wouldn't work (indicator light couldn't be toggled), the monitor would display the last frame and any sound which would be playing would buzz/stutter. The only solution was to hard-reboot my PC from the power button.

After using DDU utility to clean reinstall graphics drivers, the issue seemed to be resolved however the freezes would now occur when gaming. Installing the drivers WITHOUT AMD Radeon settings (crimson) seemed to make the freezes less frequent; every time I had the settings installed, freezes would occur on the desktop and while gaming, making my PC barely usable. Wattman (part of Radeon Settings) would also be unresponsive sometimes if I tried to access it. Without Radeon settings, the PC would still be usable but would still eventually freeze.

My build is as follows:

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H170M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
Memory: Kingston FURY 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory
Storage: Corsair Force LE 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive )
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon RX 480 8GB Video Card
Case: Cooler Master N200 MicroATX Mini Tower Case
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24F1ST DVD/CD Writer
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit

My Mobo BIOS version is F6 released 2016/03/22, Gigabyte has since released 2 new BIOS versions however I don't know if they will help, I don't want to flash until I know for sure, let me know if flashing is a good idea!

One user reported undervolting the card through Wattman settings might help. I will post links to similar issues below

Here is a link to a thread where someone had a very similar problem with the same quasi-fix (however they ended up getting a new card)
https://www.reddit.com/r/AMDHelp/comments/4zh5mw/possible_fix_for_rx_480_freezing_crashing/

Another similar issue
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/4zcvad/pc_freezes_with_new_rx480/

All over AMD threads
https://community.amd.com/thread/204557

So, should I RMA this card? Is it something else about my PC that is causing this issue? (I doubt it). Any help or suggestions will be much appreciated!
 

zesun

Distinguished
Jul 11, 2015
172
6
18,765
It sure sounds like the graphics card. Do you have the possibility to try it out in another computer?

And do you ever get BSOD or is it only freezing?

I would personally rma it, if i HAD to under volt it for it to work correctly.
 

PCfreezeguy

Commendable
Oct 12, 2016
23
0
1,510


Hi zesun, thanks for the response!

Unfortunately I can't really try it out in another computer but I will remove it at some point to get the part info for the RMA request and just verify everything runs OK with just the CPU graphics.

I have never gotten BSOD, only the complete freeze-up with monitor displaying the last frame. All case fans/cpu fan/graphics card fan all keep spinning.

I have not tried the undervolt fix yet since installing Radeon settings seems to make the issue much worse (kinda weird side note, the last time I installed Radeon settings I was playing CS:GO and the integrated steam FPS counter was reading like 230fps when it usually reads 60... then it froze up)

So basically all these symptoms made me figure it was a defective card... hopefully its something an RMA can fix, I've never gone through the process with a video card before
 

PCfreezeguy

Commendable
Oct 12, 2016
23
0
1,510


I did the RMA (the process was very smooth through Sapphire and their affiliate company) but it did not solve my issue. It is a really strange one and I still can't figure it out, I think it may be related to the relationship between my PSU, mobo and CPU, which should all be perfectly compatible but may be experiencing some unique issue. New drivers for GPU and mobo including chipset and BIOS haven't seemed to help and this is my first build so I can't exactly do a lot of hardware testing. Real head scratcher this one and very discouraging
 

kleb_

Prominent
Mar 13, 2017
15
0
510


Hey man, IDK if this will help you but it works for me since yesterday.
I had the exact same issue with you and i refuse to think it was the RX480 because it was new and i cant RMA (since im in another country)

Somehow my pc freezed while playing videos (youtube or local) or even listening music or discord voice chat but not while playing (at least not a lot, just like a few times), i had lots of gaming sessions without freeze but went to youtube aand bam!

My solution was setting the cooler fan speed on a higher speed than default. I have a Cooler Hyper N520 and one of the fans was connected to the CPU_FAN and the other in the CHA_FAN1. Thing is, the chasis fan was setted to run at 600rpm while normal and when the cpu got a high temp he was supposed to go to full speed (manual board config) and i was messing with the asus ai suite 3 and setted the cha_fan to the same as the cpu_fan

I hope this helps, for me it have been working since yesterday with no more freezes, listening to music, watching videos, gaming, etc

 

PCfreezeguy

Commendable
Oct 12, 2016
23
0
1,510


Hey, are you talking about the CPU fan, or the GPU fan? I have a stock intel fan on my CPU and I think it runs at about 900-1100rpm by default. I have played with GPU fan settings in Wattman a bit as well but don't think it helps. I can try to mess with CPU fan settings but I don't think it's a heat issue, I don't overclock anything. Thanks for the reply!
 

kleb_

Prominent
Mar 13, 2017
15
0
510


Hey
The RX480 fans doesnt spin while not gaming so, i think there's no issue there, its how it works.
I'm talking about the cpu fan, i have a coolermaster hyper212. it came with a split 3 pin cable for both of his fans to be connected to the CPU_FAN as usual, thing is both of my fans stopped working and i had to get some generic fans with almost the same Voltage and RPM, but i got a 3 pins fan and a 4 pin fan, so i did conect the 3 pin on the cpu_fan and the other one in the cha_fan.
With the AI SUITE i figured it that the CPU_FAN was spinning normally at 2360rpm while the cha_fan was in 600rpm
what i did was set the normal speed of the cha_fan around 2400rpm and that solved the thing

I'm also not doing overclocking on my cpu
IDK if a stock fan would be good for your current settings but its better to have something different than a stock fan for the processor, and for gaming, rendering or high cpu usage

I also though my freeses wasnt for overheating, i had my cpu monitored with cpuz and coretemp, and i was seeing everything normal

check my post, read the main thing with the updates
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3358095/random-freezes-cpu-burnt.html

check this
http://imgur.com/a/JcRXL

also, if your mobo have an utility like the asus ai suite 3 i recommend use it, is not hard

LMK if anything