- Mar 11, 2019
- 5
- 1
- 10
Hi everyone,
After years of hearing about black screen issues with AMD cards, I finally experienced the issue myself when moving my AMD gpu over to a new Intel-based system. After a great deal of frustration and some serious in-depth research here are the things i tried first before fixing the problem myself. I knew in my heart that there was nothing wrong with the card, or any of the other pc components and I am so glad I finally found a fix for my situation. I feel like this information will help a LOT of people who are facing this issue and banging their head knowing there isn't anything wrong with their equipment, and yet it just keeps crashing.
Beginning: I set up a new system with an Intel processor on Windows 7, which I still prefer. While I was using the computer in 2D / desktop, it would randomly freeze or I'd get a black screen (sometimes with just the cursor). No blue screen, just the computer would take a dump and I'd have to restart. It would say the display driver crashed and restarted, or Wattman failed and reset. In 3D, that is when playing games I rarely experienced crashes and only when the game when idle. There are literally hundreds of threads about this issue on multiple forums, and I read all of them trying to find the cure. My girlfriend found it highly amusing that I'd go "ok I think it's finally fixed, now I can game." Then I'd be back at it reinstalling everything and replacing components.
Things I tried that everyone else tried too:
Thing that fixed it:
- I read a post from an old veteran PC tech guy in one of the black screen threads that was completely ignored by everyone. He said "make sure to follow the order of driver installation. Start with the basics, then move on to the addons, then to the peripherals. Act like you're doing incremental upgrades." So I pulled the 8 pins from my gpu, plugged in a VGA cable from the mobo's integrated graphics to my monitor. Booted up, used DDU to uninstall the AMD drivers completely. Restarted, googled the full Intel integrated graphics drivers package link for my processor and installed them. Restarted, checked Windows Update (in Win 10 now) and it automatically updated the intel gpu driver. Then I shut down, plugged the 8 pins back into the GPU, switched back over to the GPU video output, booted up and installed AMD's drivers. It's been a month now with no black screens.
Conclusion:
Although you might not think that you need the integrated drivers installed, you do. Somehow at some level the computer references the device in your processor and it screws everything up. I assume a whole lot of people just skip the integrated graphics installation and get this black screen issue at some point.
After years of hearing about black screen issues with AMD cards, I finally experienced the issue myself when moving my AMD gpu over to a new Intel-based system. After a great deal of frustration and some serious in-depth research here are the things i tried first before fixing the problem myself. I knew in my heart that there was nothing wrong with the card, or any of the other pc components and I am so glad I finally found a fix for my situation. I feel like this information will help a LOT of people who are facing this issue and banging their head knowing there isn't anything wrong with their equipment, and yet it just keeps crashing.
Beginning: I set up a new system with an Intel processor on Windows 7, which I still prefer. While I was using the computer in 2D / desktop, it would randomly freeze or I'd get a black screen (sometimes with just the cursor). No blue screen, just the computer would take a dump and I'd have to restart. It would say the display driver crashed and restarted, or Wattman failed and reset. In 3D, that is when playing games I rarely experienced crashes and only when the game when idle. There are literally hundreds of threads about this issue on multiple forums, and I read all of them trying to find the cure. My girlfriend found it highly amusing that I'd go "ok I think it's finally fixed, now I can game." Then I'd be back at it reinstalling everything and replacing components.
Things I tried that everyone else tried too:
- DDU cleaning in Safe Mode, installed every AMD driver version imaginable, legacy and brand new. 17.x drivers were more stable, but they still crashed. Problem not solved.
- Reinstalled Windows 7. Started from various drivers from old to new. Problem not solved.
- Adjusting TDR times in the registry, because the cause of the issue was the gpu not communicating with the OS fast enough and so Windows would restart the driver eventually. Helped, but still crashed.
- Skipped AMD software, only installed the driver. Some people with black screens blame buggy AMD software. Didn't do a thing.
- Moved to Windows 10. This time, I thought, for sure this will fix it. "Screw Windows 10 bloated nonsense, I don't care anymore, I just want this system to work." Excitedly installed Steam and... it crashed. To Windows 10's credit, it was a big improvement. The display driver would properly reset and I didn't have to restart. But still, when using Chrome or just in the desktop, the screen would flicker black and then things would sort of reset.
- Switched between BIOS and UEFI. Nothing. Stuck with UEFI.
- Used MSI Afterburner to boost voltages, undervolt, lower or raise memory speeds, underclock gpu. Adjusted fan curves, turned off ULPS. Didn't do anything really.
Thing that fixed it:
- I read a post from an old veteran PC tech guy in one of the black screen threads that was completely ignored by everyone. He said "make sure to follow the order of driver installation. Start with the basics, then move on to the addons, then to the peripherals. Act like you're doing incremental upgrades." So I pulled the 8 pins from my gpu, plugged in a VGA cable from the mobo's integrated graphics to my monitor. Booted up, used DDU to uninstall the AMD drivers completely. Restarted, googled the full Intel integrated graphics drivers package link for my processor and installed them. Restarted, checked Windows Update (in Win 10 now) and it automatically updated the intel gpu driver. Then I shut down, plugged the 8 pins back into the GPU, switched back over to the GPU video output, booted up and installed AMD's drivers. It's been a month now with no black screens.
Conclusion:
Although you might not think that you need the integrated drivers installed, you do. Somehow at some level the computer references the device in your processor and it screws everything up. I assume a whole lot of people just skip the integrated graphics installation and get this black screen issue at some point.
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