[SOLVED] Is my GPU messed up, or is it something else?

PvEdominator

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Jan 30, 2014
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Hello everyone! I'm having a rather odd issue with my GPU, (RX 580) and don't know how to go about it. For a while now, i've been having some issues. If i had chrome open and a decent amount of tabs, and tried to run world of warcraft, (specifically TBC), which is a very easy to run game even at max for even a crappy gpu. WoW would crash and say I didn't have enough memory. I'd have to exit chrome and it'd start right up. Before all this happened I never had these issues, it just came out of no where and never went away. It was random if it'd run and not have issues with chrome open, or i'd be mid game after playing for hours and then it'd crash. Or it would just not open because it crashed. Fast forward to about a week ago, my PC just went to a black screen, both my monitors went black, and had no signal. Weird part is I could still interact with video if i clicked play/pause. Just no input. Restarted my PC and it'd be fine, but soon after it'd do the same thing. Then my second monitor went black but my main was fine. It genuinely didn't have signal to the second one as it said I didn't have a second monitor. No amount of restarting would fix it. I decided to uninstall my drivers (which were old) and update with new ones. When the driver was wiped and I restarted, my entire PC was rendering frame by frame which took a long as time to do anything, but after drivers installed it went back to normal. Though when i went on netflix, i saw typical symptoms of a dying gpu (lines with green colors, black colors you know the usual). I've had a few die on me so I know what to expect. Woke up in the morning and the lines were gone and haven't seen them since. The same thing happened, both monitors went black, could still interact, and restart it's fine. Then the second monitor went out again with no signal. Had to uninstall the new drivers, and update to the beta drivers. Which once again fixed it. Now my performance is terrible. If i play wow, or even the new yugioh game master duel, and chrome with just 1 tab of netflix, the video will lag extremely bad, like frame by frame rendering. If I alt-tab back to netflix, everything is fine and smooth, but the game that i put out of focus goes to lagging. It's back and forth, if somethings out of focus it lags. According to radeon, if i have my game open and video is playing my gpu is using 0%. My frames in wow went from 200-300+ to about 120, and master duel is just all over the place for a basic card game, let alone a video running, netflix or youtube. I'm not sure whats going on and even booted in safe mode and it does the same thing. Is my windows corrupted by chance? I mean from all my dying gpu's it wouldn't recognize the card or just wouldn't boot, but this card is still recognized, boots and can play games. I'm at a loss, sorry for the long wall of text, had to go into detail for the full story. Thank you everyone for your help! (PC specs : 17 10700k, ASrock z490 Extreme4, RX 580, 600w PSU. Nothing is overclocked or was overclocked.)
 
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The BR series still isn't very good, but it's probably better, at least somewhat, than the B series units. Even so, I've seen a few of these cause a lot of the same types of problems as the B series BUT in this case I'd probably lean towards it being something else.

First I'd make sure you have the most up to date stable motherboard BIOS version installed. If not, then I'd update.

In fact, doing ALL of what is relevant below is probably a really good idea. If none of it helps, then I'd say it's probably at least moderately likely that your RX580 is trying to be on it's way out.


If there are any steps listed here that you have not already done, it would be advisable to do so if for no other reason than to be able to say you've...
Huh?

I think you meant PSU or power supply. However, this tells us practically nothing about the most important component in the whole build. Please list your EXACT power supply model AND how long that unit has been in service especially if it's been in use through more than one build.
Haha yeah my bad. Anyways I was thinking of my old PSU, I actually got a new one less than a year ago, Its the EVGA bronze BR 700w. So not in use for very long, and only been in this one build.
 
The BR series still isn't very good, but it's probably better, at least somewhat, than the B series units. Even so, I've seen a few of these cause a lot of the same types of problems as the B series BUT in this case I'd probably lean towards it being something else.

First I'd make sure you have the most up to date stable motherboard BIOS version installed. If not, then I'd update.

In fact, doing ALL of what is relevant below is probably a really good idea. If none of it helps, then I'd say it's probably at least moderately likely that your RX580 is trying to be on it's way out.


If there are any steps listed here that you have not already done, it would be advisable to do so if for no other reason than to be able to say you've already done it and eliminate that possibility.



First,

Make sure your system has the MOST recent BIOS version installed. If it does not, then update. This solves a high number of issues even in cases where the release that is newer than yours makes no mention of improving graphics card or other hardware compatibility. They do not list every change they have made when they post a new BIOS release. In cases where you DO already have the latest BIOS version, simply resetting the BIOS as follows has a fairly high percentage chance of effecting a positive change in some cases so it is ALWAYS worth TRYING, at the very least.


BIOS Hard Reset procedure

Power off the unit, switch the PSU off and unplug the PSU cord from either the wall or the power supply.

Remove the motherboard CMOS battery for about three to five minutes. In some cases it may be necessary to remove the graphics card to access the CMOS battery.

During that five minutes while the CMOS battery is out of the motherboard, press the power button on the case, continuously, for 15-30 seconds, in order to deplete any residual charge that might be present in the CMOS circuit. After the five minutes is up, reinstall the CMOS battery making sure to insert it with the correct side up just as it came out.

If you had to remove the graphics card you can now reinstall it, but remember to reconnect your power cables if there were any attached to it as well as your display cable.

Now, plug the power supply cable back in, switch the PSU back on and power up the system. It should display the POST screen and the options to enter CMOS/BIOS setup. Enter the bios setup program and reconfigure the boot settings for either the Windows boot manager or for legacy systems, the drive your OS is installed on if necessary.

Save settings and exit. If the system will POST and boot then you can move forward from there including going back into the bios and configuring any other custom settings you may need to configure such as Memory XMP, A-XMP or D.O.C.P profile settings, custom fan profile settings or other specific settings you may have previously had configured that were wiped out by resetting the CMOS.

In some cases it may be necessary when you go into the BIOS after a reset, to load the Optimal default or Default values and then save settings, to actually get the hardware tables to reset in the boot manager.

It is probably also worth mentioning that for anything that might require an attempt to DO a hard reset in the first place, IF the problem is related to a lack of video signal, it is a GOOD IDEA to try a different type of display as many systems will not work properly for some reason with displayport configurations. It is worth trying HDMI if you are having no display or lack of visual ability to enter the BIOS, or no signal messages.

Trying a different monitor as well, if possible, is also a good idea if there is a lack of display. It happens.


Second,

Go to the product page for your motherboard or exact laptop model on the device manufacturer's website. Download and install the latest driver versions for the chipset, storage controllers, audio and network adapters. Do not skip installing a newer driver just because you think it is not relevant to the problem you are having. The drivers for one device can often affect ALL other devices and a questionable driver release can cause instability in the OS itself. They don't release new drivers just for fun. If there is a new driver release for a component, there is a good reason for it. The same goes for BIOS updates. When it comes to the chipset drivers, if your motherboard manufacturer lists a chipset driver that is newer than what the chipset developer (Intel or AMD, for our purposes) lists, then use that one. If Intel (Or AMD) shows a chipset driver version that is newer than what is available from the motherboard product page, then use that one. Always use the newest chipset driver that you can get and always use ONLY the chipset drivers available from either the motherboard manufacturer, AMD or Intel.


IF you have other hardware installed or attached to the system that are not a part of the systems covered by the motherboard drivers, then go to the support page for THAT component and check to see if there are newer drivers available for that as well. If there are, install them.


Third,

Make sure your memory is running at the correct advertised speed in the BIOS. This may require that you set the memory to run at the XMP profile settings. Also, make sure you have the memory installed in the correct slots and that they are running in dual channel which you can check by installing CPU-Z and checking the Memory and SPD tabs. For all modern motherboards that are dual channel memory architectures, from the last ten years at least, if you have two sticks installed they should be in the A2 (Called DDR4_1 on some boards) or B2 (Called DDR4_2 on some boards) which are ALWAYS the SECOND and FOURTH slots over from the CPU socket, counting TOWARDS the edge of the motherboard EXCEPT on boards that only have two memory slots total. In that case, if you have two modules it's not rocket science, but if you have only one, then install it in the A1 or DDR4_1 slot.



Fourth (And often tied for most important along with an up-to-date motherboard BIOS),

A clean install of the graphics card drivers. Regardless of whether you "already installed the newest drivers" for your graphics card or not, it is OFTEN a good idea to do a CLEAN install of the graphics card drivers. Just installing over the old drivers OR trying to use what Nvidia and AMD consider a clean install is not good enough and does not usually give the same result as using the Display Driver Uninstaller utility. This has a very high success rate and is always worth a shot.


If you have had both Nvidia and AMD cards installed at any point on that operating system then you will want to run the DDU twice. Once for the old card drivers (ie, Nvidia or AMD) and again for the currently installed graphics card drivers (ie, AMD or Nvidia). So if you had an Nvidia card at some point in the past, run it first for Nvidia and then after that is complete, run it again for AMD if you currently have an AMD card installed.


Graphics card driver CLEAN install guide using the Wagnard tools DDU



And lAnd last, but not least, if you have never done a CLEAN install of Windows, or have upgraded from an older version to Windows 10, or have been through several spring or fall major Windows updates (OR if you have installed ANY, EVEN REMOTELY QUESTIONABLE SOFTWARE, ESPECIALLY ANYTHING THAT'S BEEN PIRATED), it might be a very good idea to consider doing a clean install of Windows (AND THEN NOT PUT THAT QUESTIONABLE OR PIRATED SOFTWARE BACK ON) if none of these other solutions has helped. IF you are using a Windows installation from a previous system and you didn't do a clean install of Windows after building the new system, then it's 99.99% likely that you NEED to do a CLEAN install before trying any other solutions.


How to do a CLEAN installation of Windows 10, the RIGHT way
 
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