PC keeps restarting with new graphics card Please Help Me!

[HapaxHog]

Hi so my new R9 290 GPU and cx750 Corsair PSU arrived yesterday and I installed them and then booted the PC up and installed the GPU drivers and rebooted and everything seemed fine but then the screen goes black and the PC restarts randomly, games or no, I checked the wiring thoroughly and reseated the RAM but it still happens and I have no idea why and I'm very worried because I don't have the money to potentially replace anything else my specs are:
Phenom x4 960
R9 290 DCII
Corsair CX750
8GB RAM
Asus M5A78L-M/USB3

Any help would be hugely appreciated, as I just blew all my available money and now my PC won't work.

 

[brispuss]

Confirm that the video card is seated properly!

Make sure all power cables properly inserted into the motherboard and into the video card.

Try another video card (at hand or borrow one). Alternatively try the integrated graphics instead, or try the R9-290 video card in another computer.

Try another PSU (at hand or borrow one). Alternatively try the Corsair CX750 in another computer; but as brought to my attention, there may be some risk of component damage in the event the CX750 is seriously faulty.

 

[HapaxHog]

Confirm that the video card is seated properly!

Make sure all power cables properly inserted into the motherboard and into the video card.

Try another video card (at hand or borrow one). Alternatively try the integrated graphics instead, or try the R9-290 video card in another computer.

Try another PSU (at hand or borrow one). Alternatively try the Corsair CX750 in another computer; but as brought to my attention, there may be some risk of component damage in the event the CX750 is seriously faulty.

Hey
I had previously checked all power cables were securely and correctly in place, so I put in a spare, albeit very lightweight GPU I had (Radeon HD 6570), as of then the crashing no longer occurs, so I doubt it's an issue with my RAM or something.

Do you know what this means in regards to my R9 290? (btw it's specifically the Asus OC DirectCU II edition)

The only other PSUs I have available are 500W, so I don't know if that would be optimal for testing the GPU, but I could potentially borrow another 750W from a friend.

Thank you for your advice so far, please do let me know if you have any idea what I should do next.

EDIT: I should add that I discovered from my friend who helped me assemble the PC that a screw actually fell into the PSU whilst he was helping install it. I've turned off the PC and removed the PSU and will work on removing the screw tomorrow. I don't know if that could be the culprit for the reboots, I'm unsure if a screw affect the PC rebooting only under heavy load.

 

[brispuss]

Confirm that the video card is seated properly!

Make sure all power cables properly inserted into the motherboard and into the video card.

Try another video card (at hand or borrow one). Alternatively try the integrated graphics instead, or try the R9-290 video card in another computer.

Try another PSU (at hand or borrow one). Alternatively try the Corsair CX750 in another computer; but as brought to my attention, there may be some risk of component damage in the event the CX750 is seriously faulty.

Hey
I had previously checked all power cables were securely and correctly in place, so I put in a spare, albeit very lightweight GPU I had (Radeon HD 6570), as of then the crashing no longer occurs, so I doubt it's an issue with my RAM or something.

Do you know what this means in regards to my R9 290? (btw it's specifically the Asus OC DirectCU II edition)

The only other PSUs I have available are 500W, so I don't know if that would be optimal for testing the GPU, but I could potentially borrow one from a friend.

Thank you for your advice so far, please do let me know if you have any idea what I should do next.

With the HD6750 installed there were no further crashes/restarts occurring suggests that the R9-290 may be faulty. But then again the CX750 PSU may be (partly) faulty and may be unable to supply the load with the R9-290 video card installed.

It is suggested that the R9-290 video card be tried in another computer to confirm that it is faulty. And if the R9-290 causes issues while running in the other computer, then this card is faulty and should be RMA'd.

If by chance this card does NOT appear to be faulty (doesn't cause crashing ect) while running in the other computer, then this suggests the CX750 PSU may be faulty.

Your system with the R9-290 installed only requires about 360W, so for testing purposes your 500W PSU should have plenty of capacity to power your system. The only concern being whether there are enough PCIe connectors available to power the R9-290 (it requires one 8 pin and one 6 pin). If your 500W PSU doesn't have these required PCIe connectors, then borrow a PSU that has them both.

With the test PSU and the R9-290 video card installed in your system, this should confirm that the CX750 is (partly) faulty as your system should run without issues. If not, then we'll look at other options.

 

[King Kevain]

Confirm that the video card is seated properly!

Make sure all power cables properly inserted into the motherboard and into the video card.

Try another video card (at hand or borrow one). Alternatively try the integrated graphics instead, or try the R9-290 video card in another computer.

Try another PSU (at hand or borrow one). Alternatively try the Corsair CX750 in another computer; but as brought to my attention, there may be some risk of component damage in the event the CX750 is seriously faulty.

Hey
I had previously checked all power cables were securely and correctly in place, so I put in a spare, albeit very lightweight GPU I had (Radeon HD 6570), as of then the crashing no longer occurs, so I doubt it's an issue with my RAM or something.

Do you know what this means in regards to my R9 290? (btw it's specifically the Asus OC DirectCU II edition)

The only other PSUs I have available are 500W, so I don't know if that would be optimal for testing the GPU, but I could potentially borrow another 750W from a friend.

Thank you for your advice so far, please do let me know if you have any idea what I should do next.

EDIT: I should add that I discovered from my friend who helped me assemble the PC that a screw actually fell into the PSU whilst he was helping install it. I've turned off the PC and removed the PSU and will work on removing the screw tomorrow. I don't know if that could be the culprit for the reboots, I'm unsure if a screw affect the PC rebooting only under heavy load.

Hang on, so you dropped a metal screw into the PSU and didn't think that this could effect anything? Remove it before you do anything else, then inspect it carefully for any burn or arc marks. There's a good chance the screw was shorting something...but maybe you got lucky.

Secondly, that MOBO is quite old (around late June/July 2012) - put your original GFX card back in (as that seems stable) and then update the BIOS and the Chipset drivers to the latest available to ensure the MOBO can support the GFX card. The R9 290 was first released early 2014, so there's likely a compatibility issue there as well..

 

[HapaxHog]

Confirm that the video card is seated properly!

Make sure all power cables properly inserted into the motherboard and into the video card.

Try another video card (at hand or borrow one). Alternatively try the integrated graphics instead, or try the R9-290 video card in another computer.

Try another PSU (at hand or borrow one). Alternatively try the Corsair CX750 in another computer; but as brought to my attention, there may be some risk of component damage in the event the CX750 is seriously faulty.

Hey
I had previously checked all power cables were securely and correctly in place, so I put in a spare, albeit very lightweight GPU I had (Radeon HD 6570), as of then the crashing no longer occurs, so I doubt it's an issue with my RAM or something.

Do you know what this means in regards to my R9 290? (btw it's specifically the Asus OC DirectCU II edition)

The only other PSUs I have available are 500W, so I don't know if that would be optimal for testing the GPU, but I could potentially borrow one from a friend.

Thank you for your advice so far, please do let me know if you have any idea what I should do next.

With the HD6750 installed there were no further crashes/restarts occurring suggests that the R9-290 may be faulty. But then again the CX750 PSU may be (partly) faulty and may be unable to supply the load with the R9-290 video card installed.

It is suggested that the R9-290 video card be tried in another computer to confirm that it is faulty. And if the R9-290 causes issues while running in the other computer, then this card is faulty and should be RMA'd.

If by chance this card does NOT appear to be faulty (doesn't cause crashing ect) while running in the other computer, then this suggests the CX750 PSU may be faulty.

Your system with the R9-290 installed only requires about 360W, so for testing purposes your 500W PSU should have plenty of capacity to power your system. The only concern being whether there are enough PCIe connectors available to power the R9-290 (it requires one 8 pin and one 6 pin). If your 500W PSU doesn't have these required PCIe connectors, then borrow a PSU that has them both.

With the test PSU and the R9-290 video card installed in your system, this should confirm that the CX750 is (partly) faulty as your system should run without issues. If not, then we'll look at other options.

I will try the 500W PSU to see if that it works with that.

I recorded my R9 290 with GPU-Z when it was idle, and found that the memory clock randomly spiked to maximum, and GPU Load also randomly spiked up to 70%.

I have the log from the recording if you care to take a looksie.

 

[HapaxHog]

Confirm that the video card is seated properly!

Make sure all power cables properly inserted into the motherboard and into the video card.

Try another video card (at hand or borrow one). Alternatively try the integrated graphics instead, or try the R9-290 video card in another computer.

Try another PSU (at hand or borrow one). Alternatively try the Corsair CX750 in another computer; but as brought to my attention, there may be some risk of component damage in the event the CX750 is seriously faulty.

Hey
I had previously checked all power cables were securely and correctly in place, so I put in a spare, albeit very lightweight GPU I had (Radeon HD 6570), as of then the crashing no longer occurs, so I doubt it's an issue with my RAM or something.

Do you know what this means in regards to my R9 290? (btw it's specifically the Asus OC DirectCU II edition)

The only other PSUs I have available are 500W, so I don't know if that would be optimal for testing the GPU, but I could potentially borrow another 750W from a friend.

Thank you for your advice so far, please do let me know if you have any idea what I should do next.

EDIT: I should add that I discovered from my friend who helped me assemble the PC that a screw actually fell into the PSU whilst he was helping install it. I've turned off the PC and removed the PSU and will work on removing the screw tomorrow. I don't know if that could be the culprit for the reboots, I'm unsure if a screw affect the PC rebooting only under heavy load.

Hang on, so you dropped a metal screw into the PSU and didn't think that this could effect anything? Remove it before you do anything else, then inspect it carefully for any burn or arc marks. There's a good chance the screw was shorting something...but maybe you got lucky.

Secondly, that MOBO is quite old (around late June/July 2012) - put your original GFX card back in (as that seems stable) and then update the BIOS and the Chipset drivers to the latest available to ensure the MOBO can support the GFX card. The R9 290 was first released early 2014, so there's likely a compatibility issue there as well..

Hang on a second, as I said in my post, I had no idea there was a screw in the PSU as I wasn't the one who dropped it in there in the first place. I know better than to leave a piece of metal somewhere inside an active PSU, and as I also said in my post, as soon as I was alerted to that fact, I removed the PSU.

I know that the screw could potentially do some serious damage, but I think it may not be the problem.

My motherboard is updated to the latest BIOS and has all the latest drivers and chipset installed, and I reset before installing my new GPU, so I don't think it's the cause of the issue.

Thank you for the advice, I will do as you suggested and check the PSU for damage.

 

[King Kevain]

AMD cards are known for this spiking, but mostly when gaming, not idling - note the voltage, Fan RPM and Temps are all stable and consistent so no clues there.

Searching the web and forums - seems this is common
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2140084/290-graphics-card-asus-m5a78l-usb3-motherboard.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2424500/amd-290-crashing-asus-m5a78l-usb-motherboard.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2309609/asus-m5a78l-usb3-run-radeon-290.html
http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f299/bsod-after-gpu-upgrade-838010.html

Most other solutions seem to be purchasing and installing a better quality PSU, but no confirmation this fixes it - you can't have this many people with the same or similar issue and think that the 2 hardware items work good together so it's going to be compatibility.


This solution seemed to work well - maybe give it a go - http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20140401234413862&board_id=1&model=M5A78L-M%2FUSB3&page=1&SLanguage=en-us - there's a reason the BIOS allows you to change the settings from Auto to a manual setting, it's just that over the years people have become afraid to do so. But believe me, it can make a very big difference if there are literally years between manufacturing dates of components. On paper they look like they should work together, the reality is, the MOBO may not be able to sense the exact requirements of newer devices plugged in to them, so you have to do it for them.

Hope this works for you mate.

 

[HapaxHog]

AMD cards are known for this spiking, but mostly when gaming, not idling - note the voltage, Fan RPM and Temps are all stable and consistent so no clues there.

Searching the web and forums - seems this is common
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2140084/290-graphics-card-asus-m5a78l-usb3-motherboard.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2424500/amd-290-crashing-asus-m5a78l-usb-motherboard.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2309609/asus-m5a78l-usb3-run-radeon-290.html
http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f299/bsod-after-gpu-upgrade-838010.html

Most other solutions seem to be purchasing and installing a better quality PSU, but no confirmation this fixes it - you can't have this many people with the same or similar issue and think that the 2 hardware items work good together so it's going to be compatibility.


This solution seemed to work well - maybe give it a go - http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20140401234413862&board_id=1&model=M5A78L-M%2FUSB3&page=1&SLanguage=en-us - there's a reason the BIOS allows you to change the settings from Auto to a manual setting, it's just that over the years people have become afraid to do so. But believe me, it can make a very big difference if there are literally years between manufacturing dates of components. On paper they look like they should work together, the reality is, the MOBO may not be able to sense the exact requirements of newer devices plugged in to them, so you have to do it for them.

Hope this works for you mate.

If my GPU isn't DOA I'll let you know if the solution you posted helped, and pass it on to anyone else I see with similar problems.

Very much appreciate the info

 

[HapaxHog]

AMD cards are known for this spiking, but mostly when gaming, not idling - note the voltage, Fan RPM and Temps are all stable and consistent so no clues there.

Searching the web and forums - seems this is common
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2140084/290-graphics-card-asus-m5a78l-usb3-motherboard.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2424500/amd-290-crashing-asus-m5a78l-usb-motherboard.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2309609/asus-m5a78l-usb3-run-radeon-290.html
http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f299/bsod-after-gpu-upgrade-838010.html

Most other solutions seem to be purchasing and installing a better quality PSU, but no confirmation this fixes it - you can't have this many people with the same or similar issue and think that the 2 hardware items work good together so it's going to be compatibility.


This solution seemed to work well - maybe give it a go - http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20140401234413862&board_id=1&model=M5A78L-M%2FUSB3&page=1&SLanguage=en-us - there's a reason the BIOS allows you to change the settings from Auto to a manual setting, it's just that over the years people have become afraid to do so. But believe me, it can make a very big difference if there are literally years between manufacturing dates of components. On paper they look like they should work together, the reality is, the MOBO may not be able to sense the exact requirements of newer devices plugged in to them, so you have to do it for them.

Hope this works for you mate.

Hey I changed the settings in BIOS, and the crash/rebooting became a lot less frequent, hours apart.

I decided to update the GPU BIOS to the latest version from the ASUS website, then cleared my drivers with DDU and reinstalled them.

Now, instead of crashing and rebooting, the drivers crashes but then recovers, which is some progress, but still an issue as gaming in this condition is out of the question.

I don't know what this means, I'm happy that the cold reboots have stopped but I'm still concerned.

Using GPU-Z I can see that the memory clock still jumps up to max but the GPU load is much steadier.

Is it possible that changing the BIOS settings as suggested in the solution you linked back to Auto would have any effect?

I'm aware it's potentially an issue with either the PSU or GPU itself but I've tested the PSU in another machine and it was fine, and seeing as their's been a relative improvement in the performance of the GPU (no more reboots) I would like to

a) Rule out driver/software issues before moving on to the hardware

b) Find out why the reboots have stopped and if there's a possible solution to the crash/recovering.

I've tested the card for a short while in game, the temperature is fine, never going above 41°C and it performed fine, right up until the crash and recovery.

Thanks again for your post and I'd really appreciate any further input you might have.

 

[brispuss]

It is possible there may be driver conflict/corruption?

Suggest uninstalling video card drivers.
Boot into safe mode.
Using this utility thoroughly remove all traces of drivers.
Boot in to normal mode.
Install latest drivers.
Reboot as required.

 

[King Kevain]

AMD cards are known for this spiking, but mostly when gaming, not idling - note the voltage, Fan RPM and Temps are all stable and consistent so no clues there.

Searching the web and forums - seems this is common
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2140084/290-graphics-card-asus-m5a78l-usb3-motherboard.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2424500/amd-290-crashing-asus-m5a78l-usb-motherboard.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2309609/asus-m5a78l-usb3-run-radeon-290.html
http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f299/bsod-after-gpu-upgrade-838010.html

Most other solutions seem to be purchasing and installing a better quality PSU, but no confirmation this fixes it - you can't have this many people with the same or similar issue and think that the 2 hardware items work good together so it's going to be compatibility.


This solution seemed to work well - maybe give it a go - http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20140401234413862&board_id=1&model=M5A78L-M%2FUSB3&page=1&SLanguage=en-us - there's a reason the BIOS allows you to change the settings from Auto to a manual setting, it's just that over the years people have become afraid to do so. But believe me, it can make a very big difference if there are literally years between manufacturing dates of components. On paper they look like they should work together, the reality is, the MOBO may not be able to sense the exact requirements of newer devices plugged in to them, so you have to do it for them.

Hope this works for you mate.

Hey I changed the settings in BIOS, and the crash/rebooting became a lot less frequent, hours apart.

I decided to update the GPU BIOS to the latest version from the ASUS website, then cleared my drivers with DDU and reinstalled them.

Now, instead of crashing and rebooting, the drivers crashes but then recovers, which is some progress, but still an issue as gaming in this condition is out of the question.

I don't know what this means, I'm happy that the cold reboots have stopped but I'm still concerned.

Using GPU-Z I can see that the memory clock still jumps up to max but the GPU load is much steadier.

Is it possible that changing the BIOS settings as suggested in the solution you linked back to Auto would have any effect?

I'm aware it's potentially an issue with either the PSU or GPU itself but I've tested the PSU in another machine and it was fine, and seeing as their's been a relative improvement in the performance of the GPU (no more reboots) I would like to

a) Rule out driver/software issues before moving on to the hardware

b) Find out why the reboots have stopped and if there's a possible solution to the crash/recovering.

I've tested the card for a short while in game, the temperature is fine, never going above 41°C and it performed fine, right up until the crash and recovery.

Thanks again for your post and I'd really appreciate any further input you might have.

Yes, this is now the Catalyst drivers falling over - this happened a fair bit on my old system that has a 6960 in it and is pretty easy (if a little time consuming to fix). A clean install of Catalyst Control Centre should fix this but you also need to install and update the .NET Framework before you install the GFX drivers and Catayst.

Follow these steps here and she'll be apples - http://www.tweakguides.com/ATICAT_1.html - clean install instructions on page 3

I'm glad the manual BIOS fix stopped the crashing, maybe after you get Catalyst sorted, you could try switching it back to Auto and see what happens (or if it's stable, just stop fiddling with it ha ha )

Good Luck!

 

[HapaxHog]

AMD cards are known for this spiking, but mostly when gaming, not idling - note the voltage, Fan RPM and Temps are all stable and consistent so no clues there.

Searching the web and forums - seems this is common
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2140084/290-graphics-card-asus-m5a78l-usb3-motherboard.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2424500/amd-290-crashing-asus-m5a78l-usb-motherboard.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2309609/asus-m5a78l-usb3-run-radeon-290.html
http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f299/bsod-after-gpu-upgrade-838010.html

Most other solutions seem to be purchasing and installing a better quality PSU, but no confirmation this fixes it - you can't have this many people with the same or similar issue and think that the 2 hardware items work good together so it's going to be compatibility.


This solution seemed to work well - maybe give it a go - http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20140401234413862&board_id=1&model=M5A78L-M%2FUSB3&page=1&SLanguage=en-us - there's a reason the BIOS allows you to change the settings from Auto to a manual setting, it's just that over the years people have become afraid to do so. But believe me, it can make a very big difference if there are literally years between manufacturing dates of components. On paper they look like they should work together, the reality is, the MOBO may not be able to sense the exact requirements of newer devices plugged in to them, so you have to do it for them.

Hope this works for you mate.

Hey I changed the settings in BIOS, and the crash/rebooting became a lot less frequent, hours apart.

I decided to update the GPU BIOS to the latest version from the ASUS website, then cleared my drivers with DDU and reinstalled them.

Now, instead of crashing and rebooting, the drivers crashes but then recovers, which is some progress, but still an issue as gaming in this condition is out of the question.

I don't know what this means, I'm happy that the cold reboots have stopped but I'm still concerned.

Using GPU-Z I can see that the memory clock still jumps up to max but the GPU load is much steadier.

Is it possible that changing the BIOS settings as suggested in the solution you linked back to Auto would have any effect?

I'm aware it's potentially an issue with either the PSU or GPU itself but I've tested the PSU in another machine and it was fine, and seeing as their's been a relative improvement in the performance of the GPU (no more reboots) I would like to

a) Rule out driver/software issues before moving on to the hardware

b) Find out why the reboots have stopped and if there's a possible solution to the crash/recovering.

I've tested the card for a short while in game, the temperature is fine, never going above 41°C and it performed fine, right up until the crash and recovery.

Thanks again for your post and I'd really appreciate any further input you might have.

Yes, this is now the Catalyst drivers falling over - this happened a fair bit on my old system that has a 6960 in it and is pretty easy (if a little time consuming to fix). A clean install of Catalyst Control Centre should fix this but you also need to install and update the .NET Framework before you install the GFX drivers and Catayst.

Follow these steps here and she'll be apples - http://www.tweakguides.com/ATICAT_1.html - clean install instructions on page 3

I'm glad the manual BIOS fix stopped the crashing, maybe after you get Catalyst sorted, you could try switching it back to Auto and see what happens (or if it's stable, just stop fiddling with it ha ha )

Good Luck!

Bad news, I'm afraid

I changed my new 750W Corsair PSU for my old 500W (again Corsair, perhaps Corsair really are awful at making power supplies) and the crashing stopped completely.

I was unsure, but for 11 hours the machine ran absolutely perfect, heavy stress and no.

Then it crashed, similarly to how it had originally, a freeze accompanied with audio loop and hard reboot. I wondered if potentially the BIOS settings I had altered were the cause (I did NOT check up on this, which I definitely should have, but I was quite heartbroken that it had crashed again and am very, very tired from troubleshooting and the ups and downs of inconsistent hardware failure) so I reset the options to Auto and when the PC booted back up, it almost instantaneously crashed, this time accompanied by an ominous pink graphical error ribbon across part of the screen.

Because of this I reset the BIOS in case there was an error with the old 500W PSU, changed the settings back in the BIOS, and added increased the PCI clock to 130 just in case, and I also unplugged one of my 3 chassis fans, as I'm unsure of the power draw that is currently being asked of the 500W. I also now using DVI-D cable instead of HDMI to connect the GPU to a monitor, just because I had one available, but I'm too afraid to actually do much other than turn on the system and monitor it with HWMonitor, the last time I saw graphical glitches such as the one I saw my previous GPU was dying, with the same 500W PSU being involved at the time.

So, I'm fairly sure that the motherboard is the main root of the problems, but it seems that either one of or both of my 1-year-old/brand new PSUs are faulty, OR my GPU is faulty, but I can't determine that until I take it to a friends and test it there.

If you've any ideas on what might be occurring, keeping in mind the system (and specifically GPU) ran fine for at least 10 hours under stress, please let me know.

Soon after posting this I'll box my GPU up in it's anti-static packaging and head off to test it in a friend's rig which surpasses all the requirements.

Unfortunate that I had to meet your positivity with this crap, but what can you do. Next time I post hopefully I'll be able to confirm if it's a GPU issue, and the sticky conundrum of whether the 750W PSU is faulty, but the 500W isn't enough for the rig, or neither are an issue, but I think it may be my Asus motherboard that's the root of all evil.

Hopefully will have some useful news soon


EDIT: It may not be incredibly accurate, but using Cooler Master's power supply calculator web app, it puts my system at 567W minimum, I think I have done something incredibly stupid by playing games in max settings with this current config :/.

 

[Leon Ynema]

put back your 750 psu and do this i Made 2 changes >Changed PCIe bus settings from Auto to 110>Chipset Overvolt from Auto to 1.3. and no more restarts

 

[King Kevain]

Ahh...wish I had your system in front of me! PSU shouldn't be causing a crash, 750W should be fine - Leon Ynema settings should stabilise it again.
The audio loop n crash is the GPU failing still - you say it was at load - is your GPU overheating then? Download a copy of GPU-Z and run it stressed again, make sure it's recording the temps. Post them here and see what the GFX card is doing - my 6960 used to cook all the time if you didn't have the settings just right. If it's cooking, you may just need to get a side fan directly over the GFX if your case has a mount for it - also you should look at installing a small pizeo speaker on to the Motherboard - if the MOBO is failing it will be beeping an error code at you, but with no speaker, you wont hear it. its a 5c part and I really don't understand why MOBO's don't ship with them as they are so important for identifying MOBO failures - http://www.aliexpress.com/item/F04794-30pcs-Desktop-Pc-Computer-Mainboard-Motherboard-Case-Internal-Speaker-Connector-Plug/783947973.html


Alternately - is rolling the local servo out of the question? - suggest using your current PC as the brick to throw through the window - get away clean and get yourself a nice new system jokes

 

[Leon Ynema]

So the problems was that once catalyst drivers were installed the computer would randomly restart, or it would tell me that my Graphics drivers stopped working and were restarted. The starts were not during heavy us but random. So you could be opening a browser, or event viewer, but you might be able to run a stress test on the GPU/CPU for a while. And all my temps were just fine and cool.
At first I changed most components. I got a new PSU, then changed the GPU, got a new MOBO, changed RAM from a second desktop, and even moved my CPU over. Funny thing the problem continued. It wasn't the components, and the problem would only appear when the catalyst drivers were installed. Funny thing the solution wasnt the drivers, but changing bios settings.

made 2 changes >Changed PCIe bus settings from Auto to 110>Chipset Overvolt from Auto to 1.3.>

and all of a sudden my PC was stable.
So my final conclusion is that the current bios of this motherboard can't handle the R9 290.
it worked for me.