Sapphire R7 260x black screen!!!

[Aravind92]

Bought a sapphire R7 260x 2gb(says oc edition but core and memory clocks are lesser than referrence) 25 days back.
Whole system is new.Got a black screen just when sitting on the desktop two days after i built the pc.Restarted pc,everythjing fine for 2 weeks,black screen again,all components running fine inside the cabinet,still black screen tried unplugging and replugging DVi cable,no go,monitor still gets signal after black screen.This was with the the driver which came along with the gpu.
Then installed 13.12 from amd webiste,black screen next day,just when browsing the internet.
Uninstalled that too and installed 13.12c from sapphire which had catalyst version 14.1,worked fine for 8 days,black screen again when watching a movie.Movie sound form the speaker turned into a wird long loop,still monitor was recieving signal.So uninstalled that too and installed 14.3 beta.Restarted the pc and when installiong arkham origins,black screen again,restated the pc and uninstalled that too and installed 13.10.Worked fine for one day and black screen again just after starting the system when browsing thorugh my folders on the hard disk.

Everytime i do a clean uninstall and boot into safe mode and run driver sweeper and only then i install another version.

When gaming this has never happened,No heating issue,max temp is 76 even with crysis 3.To be noted:I live in India,chennai.It is summer now and temps are between 35 and 40c outside.

Even tried leaving the system on for 5 minutes after black screen,display does'nt comeback,all components would still be running.I have to hard shut down and restart everytime this happens.

Even before i bought this card i knew many are facing this issue,with all manufacturers like asus,xfx,sapphire and all.Stll took a risk by going with the card.I just wanna know if it is hardware issue or a driver related problem.If its latter i can wait for a table version.Just wanna make sure it is not a hardware issue,if so i will have to rma this card.

I could not relate each occurance with another,happens completely random.Everytime happened under diferrent scenarinly thing i could get out of those were like the gpu did not have lot of work to do.Was almost at idle.

Tested drivers:
13.20(worked fine for 2 days black screen,again worked fine for 2 weeks,black screen) which came along with the disc(for some reason this was released before 13.10 or 13.12)
13.10(good for 1 day)
13.12(good for 2 days)
13.12c from sapphire website.(good for 8 days)
14.3 beta(not even for 1 hour).

My whole system config is:
I3-3220
Gigabyte B75m-D3h
Corsair value select 4gb 1600mhz ddr3
Seagate barracuda 1 tb
Sapphire R7 260x 2g Gddr5
Power supply:Corsair VS450(UK version)34A on 12v.

 

[bayonet14]

Yes. But be sure to do that again if you install new drivers for your gpu because it defaults back to 1500mhz. Mine is running at 850mhz with 14.7 beta. No problem ever since

 

[yatzr]

I have the one on the left, the smaller one.
Im having the same issues that many people, black screens, and only 1 blue screen. Both happened when i was playing League.
I never flash'd my MB or Graphics, im kinda afraid to do it, dont know where to get the file and how to do it.
Right now i did the 750hz thing on the Amd catalyst overdrive part (memory clock), so far nothing happened but its random when i get the black screens, could u explain me more what should i do?

Btw i use a HDMI connector i dont know if that tells something

I really thank you for helping me!

Pd: sorry bad english

I have checked and it seems the smaller Sapphire you have uses the same flash chips as the other ones, so that is good news. However, it seems there is a 1GB and 2GB version of it. Check if you have the 2GB version. If you do, then proceed:

I have prepared a small package for you. Download it here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8TL2vfH8OJ1MzBYOEZuNmZ0ZmM/edit?usp=sharing

Click the "download here" icon on top of the page. Extract the .zip archive to e.g. C:\ or D:\ or whatever you like (a short path is better). Then you should have a folder C:\vbios\ with a lot of files in it.

Then you will need to open a command prompt as administrator. Open your start menu (shouldn't matter if Windows 7 or 8) and type "cmd". It should show you the application "Windows Command Processor" or "Command Prompt" or just "cmd.exe" as a result. Right click it and select "as Administrator" or similar.

You should now have an admin command prompt that is currently within "C:\Windows\system32\". We now need to navigate to the "vbios" folder you downloaded/extracted from my .zip file. You can do that with "cd folder_name" to go deeper and "cd .." (yes, two points), to go up. So if you extracted my .zip to C:\, then you need to do "cd .." and enter and then another "cd .." and enter and you should be in "C:\" now. Then do a "cd vbios" and enter and you should be in the right path.

Now you need to type these two commands:

atiwinflash.exe -unlockrom 0
<press enter>

atiwinflash.exe -f -p 0 253T04H0.O45
<press enter>

It will take 2-3 minutes or so to finish. Then reboot. It should work just fine, but understand that I am not responsible if you run into any problems. However, even if the VBIOS does not work well with your card, it is fairly easy to revert back to the VBIOS you have right now.

I just want to chime in here to say that I followed these instructions to install that sapphire bios onto my XFX r7 260x 2GB, and so far it's running fine. I hadn't seen anyone say they put it on an xfx yet. It did take more like 5 minutes to flash though...had me worried there.

 

[bagghin]

Thanks d2kx for sharing the detail steps. I am also having the "2 x dvi" version. Just wonder if the steps can also be applied to my AMD Sapphire 260X card (not ASUS) which is also facing the intermittent black screen issue ?

It is R7 260X 2G GDDR5 PCI-E DP OC Version (2 x DVI).

Just about to find an youtube video showing this VBIOS solution already

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KunSDzUBmr0&list=UUtqXwIU0Ht9096KyVDiD1Lg

I have the one on the left, the smaller one.
Im having the same issues that many people, black screens, and only 1 blue screen. Both happened when i was playing League.
I never flash'd my MB or Graphics, im kinda afraid to do it, dont know where to get the file and how to do it.
Right now i did the 750hz thing on the Amd catalyst overdrive part (memory clock), so far nothing happened but its random when i get the black screens, could u explain me more what should i do?

Btw i use a HDMI connector i dont know if that tells something

I really thank you for helping me!

Pd: sorry bad english

I have checked and it seems the smaller Sapphire you have uses the same flash chips as the other ones, so that is good news. However, it seems there is a 1GB and 2GB version of it. Check if you have the 2GB version. If you do, then proceed:

I have prepared a small package for you. Download it here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8TL2vfH8OJ1MzBYOEZuNmZ0ZmM/edit?usp=sharing

Click the "download here" icon on top of the page. Extract the .zip archive to e.g. C:\ or D:\ or whatever you like (a short path is better). Then you should have a folder C:\vbios\ with a lot of files in it.

Then you will need to open a command prompt as administrator. Open your start menu (shouldn't matter if Windows 7 or 8) and type "cmd". It should show you the application "Windows Command Processor" or "Command Prompt" or just "cmd.exe" as a result. Right click it and select "as Administrator" or similar.

You should now have an admin command prompt that is currently within "C:\Windows\system32\". We now need to navigate to the "vbios" folder you downloaded/extracted from my .zip file. You can do that with "cd folder_name" to go deeper and "cd .." (yes, two points), to go up. So if you extracted my .zip to C:\, then you need to do "cd .." and enter and then another "cd .." and enter and you should be in "C:\" now. Then do a "cd vbios" and enter and you should be in the right path.

Now you need to type these two commands:

atiwinflash.exe -unlockrom 0
<press enter>

atiwinflash.exe -f -p 0 253T04H0.O45
<press enter>

It will take 2-3 minutes or so to finish. Then reboot. It should work just fine, but understand that I am not responsible if you run into any problems. However, even if the VBIOS does not work well with your card, it is fairly easy to revert back to the VBIOS you have right now.

 

[leanfv]

I resolved this issue uninstalling the catalyst 14.4, then rebooting the system and after that, installing Sapphire drivers from Sapphire web site instead of Catalyst from AMD website,.
I opened a ticket support with them and they reccomended me to try that.
It looks like there are different drivers than the last version of Catalyst, but they worked fine. I have tested it this week and I haven't seen a black screen yet. Before, I saw the back screen every two days at least.
I tried this and it worked:
I have the SAPPHIRE R7 260X 2GB GDDR5 OC 2x DVI, but check you correct model here:
http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/downloads/download_index.aspx?psn=0006&lid=1

I hope this works for someone else.

 

[bayonet14]

I resolved this issue uninstalling the catalyst 14.4, then rebooting the system and after that, installing Sapphire drivers from Sapphire web site instead of Catalyst from AMD website,.
I opened a ticket support with them and they reccomended me to try that.
It looks like there are different drivers than the last version of Catalyst, but they worked fine. I have tested it this week and I haven't seen a black screen yet. Before, I saw the back screen every two days at least.
I tried this and it worked:
I have the SAPPHIRE R7 260X 2GB GDDR5 OC 2x DVI, but check you correct model here:
http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/downloads/download_index.aspx?psn=0006&lid=1

I hope this works for someone else.

Tried this before, got a blackscreen after a few days.

 

[leanfv]

I resolved this issue uninstalling the catalyst 14.4, then rebooting the system and after that, installing Sapphire drivers from Sapphire web site instead of Catalyst from AMD website,.
I opened a ticket support with them and they reccomended me to try that.
It looks like there are different drivers than the last version of Catalyst, but they worked fine. I have tested it this week and I haven't seen a black screen yet. Before, I saw the back screen every two days at least.
I tried this and it worked:
I have the SAPPHIRE R7 260X 2GB GDDR5 OC 2x DVI, but check you correct model here:
http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/downloads/download_index.aspx?psn=0006&lid=1

I hope this works for someone else.

Tried this before, got a blackscreen after a few days.

Try opening a support ticket with Sapphire, it's free.
I wouldn't recommend to upgrade the Firmware of the video card, it's very risky.

 

[bayonet14]

If you're talking about Catalyst V13.12c from Sapphire, tried that before I went to the forums. Me and a lot of people still get blackscreens. Although that driver works for some, this problem has been solved by moving the memory clock settings to a lower number. So no more black screens and we still get Mantle support!

 

[Nuc1eoN]

Hi guys,

Upon request the MSI support send me a brand new and possibly fixed VBIOS for the MSI R7 260x OC 2GB!

It still needs to be tested if it fixes the problem, but you can already obtain it here.

Please test if it fixes anything for you and report back!

 

[hussein hanafy]

can i flash sapphire or asus bios on my gigabyte windforce 2x card?

http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4798#ov

i cant find bios update :S

 

[jayadratha]

new driver catalyst 14.9 is there but still the line is there in known issues

"[404660]: GPU gets stuck in a low power state after it was previously stressed to max power"

Are they not trying to solve the issue???? Worst GPU maker ever. nVidia is lot better thats why those cards are costly.

 

[Nuc1eoN]

new driver catalyst 14.9 is there but still the line is there in known issues

"[404660]: GPU gets stuck in a low power state after it was previously stressed to max power"

Are they not trying to solve the issue???? Worst GPU maker ever. nVidia is lot better thats why those cards are costly.

Interesting. But is it realated to our black screen bug in idle?

Btw the new MSI testing BIOS still has those issues :/

 

[jayadratha]

new driver catalyst 14.9 is there but still the line is there in known issues

"[404660]: GPU gets stuck in a low power state after it was previously stressed to max power"

Are they not trying to solve the issue???? Worst GPU maker ever. nVidia is lot better thats why those cards are costly.

Interesting. But is it realated to our black screen bug in idle?

Btw the new MSI testing BIOS still has those issues :/

yes the problem is that

"[404660]: GPU gets stuck in a low power state after it was previously stressed to max power"

Its the problem GPU lowers down the power but at a extreme level and for that memory controller also stops. and thats the reason of the black screen. thats why some peoples lowers the memory clock and fix it there.

 

[Nuc1eoN]

yes the problem is that

"[404660]: GPU gets stuck in a low power state after it was previously stressed to max power"

Its the problem GPU lowers down the power but at a extreme level and for that memory controller also stops. and thats the reason of the black screen. thats why some peoples lowers the memory clock and fix it there.

Now this is interesting. I'm using an MSI OC card with 1175 core clock and 1625 memory speed.
Do you know to what level I need to lower the memory clock? I think the default (non-OCed) one is 1500 mhz.

Also do you know if it is also the cause for the glitches I sometimes get in games?

 

[dadobond]

Thanks bayonet14! I finally solved my black screen problem (display driver stopped responding...) that i had for 2 months now. I upped my core voltage to plus 25mV using MSI AB, and i finally passed Valley Benchmark Extreme HD with no black screen. And btw i have MSI R9 280x and I tried lowering core clock and momory clock but nothing fix it, but +25mV did. So thanks again !

UPDATE: Today it started to crash again yesterday worked fine, but today crashes if i have +0mV or +25mV

 

[Nuc1eoN]

yes the problem is that

"[404660]: GPU gets stuck in a low power state after it was previously stressed to max power"

Its the problem GPU lowers down the power but at a extreme level and for that memory controller also stops. and thats the reason of the black screen. thats why some peoples lowers the memory clock and fix it there.

Holy craps, it appears you might actually be right.
How I verified it? I started up afterburner 4 and let it log all data from the GPU (including voltage), waited for the black screen to happen, and put all of this data into an exel table and added some charts to it, you can download the document here (please open it with LibreOffice): https://www.dropbox.com/s/sz08ddgzlwh3d3k/HardwareMonitoring_bug_occurance.ods?dl=0

I have split the data into a green and a red section. The green background marks that everything is still going well, whereas the red section marks the time span during the malfunction. I have also added a dotted red line to over all charts blow, marking the exact point of where the malfunction starts. The charts show a clear break the consistency that existed prior - note that this has all happened during total idle!


My conclusions after considering the data and general observation:

Obviously, unlike I thought before, this process take a certain time of "instability" (~10min in this case) and then finally if no user input/activity is being given. If you happen to catch the graphics card during this instability time span you will probably prevent the card from a crash - I once managed to catch my card on this and immediatly made a screenshot of it:

Well as you see the behaviour is comparable to what I have in my exel document and it successfully recovered.
Also note that some data is obviously distorted: There's no way for the graphics card to constantly switch between ~30 and 0 degree Celsius. It may be that there are simply some gaps in logging or whatever.
However other data may indeed be accurate: For example you may notice that the logs report the fan speed being constanlty at 0% -- well I opened my PC and holy craps, this is indeed the case!

However I noticed there is also a bug which causes exactly the opposite: During normal usage (e.g. browsing the www) the Win7 areo effect suddenly turns off... so apparently something is not right with the driver/graphics card. So I looked into afterburner and saw, that my graphics card was constantly a a very high power state. Since it did not stop I manually reclocked my card using afterburner and suddelny everthing whent to normal.

Apparantly the cards reclocking somehow hangs. I don't know if the bug has the same cause as the first one, however there are some clear similarities.

What do you guys think of it? Any thoughts or feedback? And don't forget to take a look at my document, since I really made an effort to put extensive information into it.

So now I would like to try modifieing my voltage ahnd see if it fixes those issues... does anyone know how much I need to raise it?

Thanks in advance and have fun with the data!

 

[Tommy321]

try this driver 14.9.1Beta-32Bit-Win7 (on site AMD), it helped me.

 

[sebawarman]

Does anyone tested the new drivers ??? fix the problem?

 

[jayadratha]

I installed it. but still getting black screens. AMD said that it still has black screen issue. I posted it already.
Any one flashed any bios in the small R7 260x OC 2GB????? If yes please share here with proper instructions

 

[susticco]

I have Gigabyte r7 260X OC 2gb ddr5. Can you please tell me how do I find an upgrade for my gpu bios or if there is another vbios compatible that i can use same way people with asus cards are using sapphire roms?

 

[d2kx]

I have Gigabyte r7 260X OC 2gb ddr5. Can you please tell me how do I find an upgrade for my gpu bios or if there is another vbios compatible that i can use same way people with asus cards are using sapphire roms?

Install GPU-Z and check if you have Hynix GDDR5 memory, and not Elpida or Samsung. Also check your VBIOS version. All VBIOS updates are for Hynix versions.

The newest version for Gigabyte 260X is 015.043, which you can get here: http://www.datafilehost.com/d/9b010137

But if it's a Hynix, all VBIOS posted here including the Sapphire and ASUS ones should work for you.

 

[susticco]

My memories are from Samsung, also the bios you posted is not compatible with my card, it says "Flash bios failed! Bios ID not match!"

I managed to download a new bios version 015.040 from techpowerup.com since i had 015.035 but black screens still happens.

 

[bayonet14]

New problem with R7 260X. The computer will freeze and monitor will lose signal but everything still runs. (Minecraft still runs while monitor has no signal)

 

[Alhaddar]

i have gigabyte r7 260x oc , i had the same problem , sudden black screens and the computer is still running , to solve it , i used asus r7 260x oc bios and flashed it to my gpu , it works like a charm but it makes my gpu runs only in 3D mode making it runs like a toaster ( 55 c idle ) but that's the only way i know to solve the problem

 

[bayonet14]

Just checking how everyone's r7 260x doing.. are they still crashing? Mine's still giving me problems, it doesn't black screen but it freezes and monitor loses signal. This started in 14.9 drivers... I hope AMD sends a fix. Everytime they release new drivers it's always for the R9.

 

[Aravind92]

Just checking how everyone's r7 260x doing.. are they still crashing? Mine's still giving me problems, it doesn't black screen but it freezes and monitor loses signal. This started in 14.9 drivers... I hope AMD sends a fix. Everytime they release new drivers it's always for the R9.

I am on 14.9 for 2 months now...haven't faced an issue...just disable ccc from startup and lock memory clock with msi afterburner....
When cc loads it resets clocks..