Random freezes to white screen with stripes (at idle) XFX Radeon R9 270X

[Rafael Luik]

Last year I bought a XFX Radeon R9 270X CDBC (Black Double Dissipation Ed.)

I can play games on Ultimate or Extreme normally, for hours, and the card gives me good performance... But randomly, every 15 days or so while I'm doing nothing special just browsing the web the PC will freeze to a white screen with stripes like this ( pics: http://imgur.com/d0Qhdov http://imgur.com/2YakK5z ). I don't know if sounds continue but the keyboard is for sure frozen, e.g. Numlock doesn't toggle the light. I've taken the DVI cable from the port and connected to the other and it outputs no signal, I connect it to the Intel motherboard DVI and outputs no signal either, back to the original port I'm using and the white screen with stripes are there again. I push the tower reset button and when I check Windows Event Viewer nothing is there registered in the time it froze it only says the system shutdown that happened unexpected (exactly because I pressed the reset button and nothing else).

My specs: i3 4150, GA-H97M-D3H, 1x4GB Corsair Vegeance 1600 Mhz CL9, EVGA 500W 80plus PSU.
- My system was bought just 4 months ago, all new except the case and everything is clean. I made sure the card is well connected and the PCI-e PSU cables too. I'm troubleshooting it since I got it, and the issue doesn't go away.
- I ran Memtest overnight, RAM is fine. I've ran a similar software to check the card's VRAM and it's fine!
The result would be obvious of course, I think, I can game for hours so how can anything on the system be faulty? It's also obvious the PSU can handle it and specially when I'm just browsing the web - I browse with Flash Player disabled on Opera so it should be very light!
- I've reinstalled Windows 8.1, I have fully updated it with Windows Update, I checked its integrity with sfc /scannow... It's ok.
- Intel graphics are disabled in the BIOS. I've used DDU to remove Intel and AMD drivers, then clean installed the latest Catalyst version.
- The video card BIOS is already up-to-date/newer than everything out there in the web.

Nothing solves the issue. This is driving me insane. :x
Not even XFX support knows what's going on.

I think I've nailed the cause of issue to 3 possibilities by now:
- Driver bug on the "low power" mode handling or how it treats the spikes to the full clock specially since it's an pre-OCed card.
- Terrible power service in my area, it really gets low and maybe the PSU can't get what it wants from the wall(?). Still while the problem is random, the energy is always bad here speciall yat night and I still can game normally at night time.
- Something in the GPU is in bad state. ?

I don't think I'm under warranty anymore but I can check that... I live in Brazil and RMA'ing it would have to be via international mail the biggest PITA I could imagine.

I've seen around other topics that downclocking the card 50 Mhz may fix the issue? It may related to the #1 and #3 possibilities I listed I guess...

Thanks in advance.

 

[BigBadBeef]

uuu this looks bad, definetely something broke! You will need to do exploratory surgery to find out what. Start with the graphics card. Put it in another computer and test it there!

P.S.: Doesn't your supplier have some form of return sheet where you don't have to pay shipping?

 

[Rafael Luik]

I had an old AM2 computer with a PCI-e 1.0 slot and 2.5 GB of RAM, if that's considered enough to be considered a good second test machine. LOL... In that one I had very similar issues a little bit more frequently, the screen would turn completely white, or green with stripes. Always happens at almost "idle" state and never while gaming...

Equally rarely when coming back from suspend/sleep mode the Windows 8 lock screen would be covered in white or with some pattern and as soon as something redraws over it everything renders fine.
Example pics... http://imgur.com/9wFGsOS closer: http://imgur.com/sRunkj2
Random freeze in green screen with stripes. http://imgur.com/KHZaK2b closer: http://imgur.com/MI5pvIo

I'll call the shop at Monday but I don't believe I'm under the initial warranty period anymore (I bought it 09/09/2014 and since then it has been a saga to troubleshoot the issue) but they may surprise me. That would leave me completely dependent on XFX's international RMA.

If anyone has any suggestions until then...
I'm interested in a tool or game that could fill my VRAM entirely at 1280x1024 (my display max res), can you suggest one?

 

[Joel Deecke]

Last year I bought a XFX Radeon R9 270X CDBC (Black Double Dissipation Ed.)

I can play games on Ultimate or Extreme normally, for hours, and the card gives me good performance... But randomly, every 15 days or so while I'm doing nothing special just browsing the web the PC will freeze to a white screen with stripes like this ( pics: http://imgur.com/d0Qhdov http://imgur.com/2YakK5z ). I don't know if sounds continue but the keyboard is for sure frozen, e.g. Numlock doesn't toggle the light. I've taken the DVI cable from the port and connected to the other and it outputs no signal, I connect it to the Intel motherboard DVI and outputs no signal either, back to the original port I'm using and the white screen with stripes are there again. I push the tower reset button and when I check Windows Event Viewer nothing is there registered in the time it froze it only says the system shutdown that happened unexpected (exactly because I pressed the reset button and nothing else).

My specs: i3 4150, GA-H97M-D3H, 1x4GB Corsair Vegeance 1600 Mhz CL9, EVGA 500W 80plus PSU.
- My system was bought just 4 months ago, all new except the case and everything is clean. I made sure the card is well connected and the PCI-e PSU cables too. I'm troubleshooting it since I got it, and the issue doesn't go away.
- I ran Memtest overnight, RAM is fine. I've ran a similar software to check the card's VRAM and it's fine!
The result would be obvious of course, I think, I can game for hours so how can anything on the system be faulty? It's also obvious the PSU can handle it and specially when I'm just browsing the web - I browse with Flash Player disabled on Opera so it should be very light!
- I've reinstalled Windows 8.1, I have fully updated it with Windows Update, I checked its integrity with sfc /scannow... It's ok.
- Intel graphics are disabled in the BIOS. I've used DDU to remove Intel and AMD drivers, then clean installed the latest Catalyst version.
- The video card BIOS is already up-to-date/newer than everything out there in the web.

Nothing solves the issue. This is driving me insane. :x
Not even XFX support knows what's going on.

I think I've nailed the cause of issue to 3 possibilities by now:
- Driver bug on the "low power" mode handling or how it treats the spikes to the full clock specially since it's an pre-OCed card.
- Terrible power service in my area, it really gets low and maybe the PSU can't get what it wants from the wall(?). Still while the problem is random, the energy is always bad here speciall yat night and I still can game normally at night time.
- Something in the GPU is in bad state. ?

I don't think I'm under warranty anymore but I can check that... I live in Brazil and RMA'ing it would have to be via international mail the biggest PITA I could imagine.

I've seen around other topics that downclocking the card 50 Mhz may fix the issue? It may related to the #1 and #3 possibilities I listed I guess...

Thanks in advance.

I had an old AM2 computer with a PCI-e 1.0 slot and 2.5 GB of RAM, if that's considered enough to be considered a good second test machine. LOL... In that one I had very similar issues a little bit more frequently, the screen would turn completely white, or green with stripes. Always happens at almost "idle" state and never while gaming...

Equally rarely when coming back from suspend/sleep mode the Windows 8 lock screen would be covered in white or with some pattern and as soon as something redraws over it everything renders fine.
Example pics... http://imgur.com/9wFGsOS closer: http://imgur.com/sRunkj2
Random freeze in green screen with stripes. http://imgur.com/KHZaK2b closer: http://imgur.com/MI5pvIo

I'll call the shop at Monday but I don't believe I'm under the initial warranty period anymore (I bought it 09/09/2014 and since then it has been a saga to troubleshoot the issue) but they may surprise me. That would leave me completely dependent on XFX's international RMA.

If anyone has any suggestions until then...
I'm interested in a tool or game that could fill my VRAM entirely at 1280x1024 (my display max res), can you suggest one?

Did you ever find out the problem i have an MSI r9 270x 2g gaming and i have the exact same problems as you are describing i cant figure it out my full specs


Processor Intel® Core™ i5-4460 Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.40 GHz)
With Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO CPU Cooler
Mother Board MSI B85-G43-GAMING B85 Chipset Motherboard (Integrated USB3.0, SATA3 support)
Memory Team 8GB DDR3 1600 Elite Memory
Storage 500GB WD Blue SATA3 Hard Drive 7200rpm
Graphic MSI R9270X-GAMING-2G 2GB PCI-E
Operating System Windows 7 Home Premium (Licence Only, No Media)
Power Cooler Master Thunder 500W 85+ Efficiency

 

[Rafael Luik]

Did you ever find out the problem i have an MSI r9 270x 2g gaming and i have the exact same problems as you are describing i cant figure it out

I got tired of it and sent it to the XFX RMA. I'm waiting for the post office to deliver it to them.
I suggest you to do the same, return the card to the shop or RMA it if you can because that one is faulty.

The fact is all topics about white screen / lines on the internet is solved by swapping the graphics card... So that's what I'm doing...

 

[Joel Deecke]

Did you ever find out the problem i have an MSI r9 270x 2g gaming and i have the exact same problems as you are describing i cant figure it out

I got tired of it and sent it to the XFX RMA. I'm waiting for the post office to deliver it to them.
I suggest you to do the same, return the card to the shop or RMA it if you can because that one is faulty.

The fact is all topics about white screen / lines on the internet is solved by swapping the graphics card... So that's what I'm doing...

That is heaps dirty cause i wont have warranty on the card itself as it was a whole system in one not just a card and i would have voided my warranty on the system when i changed the case..

which wasn't the cause it was happening before i changed it over

 

[Rafael Luik]

You can't open your own PC because that voids the warranty? That looks like an illegal condition to me. Do you think that kind of limitation exists for any other product where you live? I don't think so, the shop invented that.

Anyway you still have options. 1. Put it all back in the old case and try warranty, contact the shop so you can check whether you need to return the whole system or just the card. 2. Contact MSI so you can RMA it directly to them.

 

[Joel Deecke]

You can't open your own PC because that voids the warranty? That looks like an illegal condition to me. Do you think that kind of limitation exists for any other product where you live? I don't think so, the shop invented that.

Anyway you still have options. 1. Put it all back in the old case and try warranty, contact the shop so you can check whether you need to return the whole system or just the card. 2. Contact MSI so you can RMA it directly to them.

I have ordered a gtx 970 for a replacement card I will let you know how I go with the problem hopefully I don't have anymore issues as its a really annoying problem best of luck to you, have you had any issues at all since removing the card ?

 

[Rafael Luik]

No issues so far with Intel HD Graphics 4400.

 

[Joel Deecke]

Hows your problem going chief so far its been over 2 weeks with the GTX 970 and no issues at all no freeze no crash its awesome, now i just have to fight with the company i got the computer from they want the card back to test in there own system to decide if its an issue with the card or not, but as replacing it fixed it so i cant see how it would have been anything else

 

[Rafael Luik]

I don't have a definitive answer from XFX yet, but a friend that's also from Brazil with the same problem on a XFX R9 270X CDBC returned the card to the shop and they found it was faulty (I don't know what kind of test they ran).

It's definitely the card.