[SOLVED] AMD R9 390 NITRO --- black screen while installing drivers ?

May 23, 2021
4
0
10
Hello!
I recently got a problems with my graphics card.
A few months ago it gas crashing my whole pc in certain moments, like loading a new level on a game, and on specific games. (loading a new stage on DiRT 4 or DiRT2 would give instant crash, but never encountered the smallest glitch while playing Rocket League). I used to get even worse glitches, I eventually decided to disassemble my graphics card, and a lot of dust was it the way. I used canned air to blow the dust off, everything looked fine. I replaced the thermal paste with an Arctic MX-2. A few weeks after, It never glitched, and then it began to do it again.
I thought I might need to use some Isopropyl alcohol to clean in detail the whole board of the graphics card (Isopropyl alcohol bath). I put it in rice for 3 days, to make sure it absorbs any humidity from the board, then blew away the rice dust with canned air, and cleaned it once again with glasses wipes.
I put it back in my pc, and it worked fine with Microsoft basic adapter, but now, it gives black screen while I install the drivers. It did not do this before. If I restart my pc from the button after the crash wile installing drivers, it's still a black screen. The only way to see image back on the monitor is to boot in safe mode. I tried with a friend's AMD SAPHIRE RX570 to install drivers and play something, and it worked, meaning that my processor and motherboard are fine. I updated my BIOS, i updated my gpu's BIOS, and even reinstalled windows. Nothing worked. Before making sure that my graphics card is broken, I want to know if it's a possibility that my PSU has a problem (nJoy 750W). Could this be happening because of a faulty PSU? What else can I try to make this video card work?
I thank you so much for any help that you can give me!
 
Solution
When the GPU is running under generic VGA adapter driver, only basic VGA functionality (dumb frame buffer) is enabled and in this "mode", the CPU is responsible for drawing everything. There is practically no load on the GPU besides refreshing the monitor from memory.

When GPU drivers get installed, the GPU's higher-order functions (all of the GPU acceleration stuff) get activated and on a flaky PSU, the transient loads this generates can cause all sorts of issues from crashes to tripping all sorts of protections.

I would definitely start with trying a known decent-quality 650+W PSU.

Ralston18

Titan
Moderator
Try the GPU in another known working computer. Perhaps your friend's computer.

Determine if the problem follows the GPU.

And yes - a faulty or failing PSU is a possibility.

However, if other GPU's worked in your computer the PSU is less suspect. But you must consider the the power demands of each GPU. If the tested GPU required less power then the PSU may have been able to handle the load.

The higher wattage GPU may have needed more power than the PSU could actually provide.

If you have a multi-meter and know how to use it (or know someone who does) you can do some testing on the PSU.

https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-manually-test-a-power-supply-with-a-multimeter-2626158

Not a full test as the PSU is not under load. Any voltages out of tolerance would make the PSU suspect.
 
Njoy psy? You are lucky that power supply hasn't blown up and damaged anything yet. From what I understand njoy is known for making completely unsafe power supplies.

Even if the PSU is not the culprit for these GPU issues, I would STRONGLY advice replacement.

Would recommend testing the gpu in another computer, but it does sound like the card is failing.
 

InvalidError

Titan
Moderator
When the GPU is running under generic VGA adapter driver, only basic VGA functionality (dumb frame buffer) is enabled and in this "mode", the CPU is responsible for drawing everything. There is practically no load on the GPU besides refreshing the monitor from memory.

When GPU drivers get installed, the GPU's higher-order functions (all of the GPU acceleration stuff) get activated and on a flaky PSU, the transient loads this generates can cause all sorts of issues from crashes to tripping all sorts of protections.

I would definitely start with trying a known decent-quality 650+W PSU.
 
Solution
May 23, 2021
4
0
10
I tested my GPU in a friend's computer, and it didn't work. Is there any fix it could be done to the gpu? Is there any possibility that a faulty psu damaged the gpu? I disassembled the the backplate and the fans, leaving only the card itself to take a look and clean it. None of the capacitors seemed to look damaged, as in other videos i searched for on the internet.
 

InvalidError

Titan
Moderator
You'd have to connect an oscilloscope to the power planes and see what happens at the exact moment everything crashes. Since the freeze happens during device initialization, I would guess it may be something in the VRM that cannot cope with the GPU core being under load such as a blown VRM phase.