Sapphire R7 260x black screen!!!

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Aravind92

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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 scenario_Only 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.
 
Solution
From mtdew332:

"So after two weeks of searching for the cause / solution to my Black Screen issue, I think i've finally nailed it down.
With some help from overclock.net forums.
I'll just quote it here.

(This black screen from power transitions occurs because the memory clock jumps up to full speed (1250, etc), while the GPU voltage (which also controls the IMC--this is the problem) is STILL running at idle volts of 0.9xxx). That idle voltage is too low to handle the IMC, which is controlling the memory running at that speed (this is NOT due to defective memory modules btw), and thus the card black screens.)

The fix, is to increase the GPU voltage, which ALSO increases the idle voltage to the IMC as well. (previous...

Karadjgne

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From everything I have read about this issue, there seems to be a problem with the ramp up. The 260x internal clocks seems to throttle down when not actively used, like in a game, so when idling, or low gpu surfing, the clock speed is @ 600, but when active, ramps up to @ 1750. Somewhere there is an issue and when more than the 600 is called for, the card is not responding correctly, so is trying to pump out 1750, but only receiving voltage for 600, resulting in an underpowered state, which shuts the card down to prevent damage. Black screen. This means at 100% load you are all good, or should be, but when internet surfing lower intense screens like mail etc, and flip to a page with pictures, black screen.

All electronics are different, its the nature of differences in the individual components. You can take 2 identical CPUs and 1 will overclock to 4.6, the other overclocks to only
4.4.. so I can't answer to what the eco will do. It may be 12.00 at load or 12.28, but it won't be 11.6 for sure unless your house is running some crazy voltage like 210v instead of 220-240v.

If you really want to test your gpu and see if it throttles back or shuts down for temps, do a free program called furmark, think version 13 is out now. Guarantee you will get an answer, it will stress your gpu past what crysis 3 or bf4 calls for, and shows you temps and clocks and other useful info.
 

jayadratha

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Let me clear what you have said. Yes R7 260X down clock itself when not in use & increases clock speed when it needed. So you want to say if all time the card is in load like 60-100% then I should not face problem. But when there will be down clock and up clock the problem may arise. right??

But,
At idle gpu load is 0-1% only and clock speed is around 300-340MHz. But when I play games the load is 100% and the clock speed is 1050MHz(Maximum Clock Speed). In this pump up from 300 to 1050 I didnt see any issue. At the idle time when the load is 0-1% and the clock speed is around 300MHz then I faced the issue only so there is no increase in clock. I will try furmark. and inform you.


& you know I didnt faced the problem in last 4days. But I have used my computer so much, and the down clock and up clock occurred so many times. LOL. the problem is really ridiculous. God knows what type of error it is.
 

Aravind92

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Jayadratha,
81*c is in no way high for a gpu...And i ran furmark the first day after i bought the gpu and by then my case fans were completely messed up.The gpu temp reached a max of 91 after 20 mins,if the case fans were set like how its set now i would have had a max of 87.Now playing crysis 3,hitman absolution,ac4 or batman arkham origins takes my gpu to 76(ac4 takes it to max of 75) at max and this is with a custom fan profile with msi afterburner,1% for 1*. If i use auto fan,gpu reaches 78 or 79,but personally i like to have a custom profile,as with auto profile it would spin the fan at more speed at that temp but auto setting will increase the fan speed only after the temp hits 70*.So i fell its better to increase the fan speed constatly and have a better load temp,eventhough its a 3 degrees diff.
 

Aravind92

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Even i have'nt had a black screen in last 5-6 days.As i have already posted here i had the pc without black screen continuously for 2 weeks even,that is why i am really worried because we will not be able to narrow the issue down if it happens only once in 2 weeks and all.
 

jayadratha

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Yes. same for me. If it will happen once in a week or two then it is impossible to debug the error. But I dont think It is a PSU problem or Heat issue. because I didnt reached more than 85degree while playing battlefield 4 for 5-6hrs. I dont think any software will give that much load as battlefield 4. furmark is a different case. no software will give load like that.
 

fruitbowl33

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Yes. I just waited, and waited for the thing to come on hoping it would work. But if the waiting doesn't work, I would try using the drivers from the CD. And if that doesn't work, I would just RMA them.
 

jayadratha

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Dont know why those two days I got the problem. But last 7days I didnt faced that problem. So impossible to say the reason of that black screen
 

Aravind92

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Even i have'nt seen the issue in last ten days.I have another info for Karadjgne 12v dropped to 11.592 now,Temp increased by 1 degree because of this.Would corsair accept if i try to RMA stating this as the reason?
 

jayadratha

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I have 11.90 volt, Didnt checked before.
 

Aravind92

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Use HWmonitor,run it in the background when you play a game,after you finish exit and see the min value under 12v voltage..
 

jayadratha

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Today I faced the problem again. after so many days. was reading an article in mozila, which was having many images. I dont think it needs so much power of gpu. what the hell is this problem!!!!

I will tell you the voltage on load tomorrow.
 

Aravind92

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Black screen again,when watching a movie,buzzing noise from speaker.Waited for long time,then unplugged and replugged dvi cable.nothing happened.Removed the pcie cable from gpu,system restarted,connected pcie cable back and restarted pc again.Everything fine again,asusual no error reports in event viewer..What should i do now.I've tried everything to fix this...Keyboard did not respond either..
 

jayadratha

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I also did all of this. I also measured the voltages when the screen was blank using multimeter. there was all correct voltages. Is there any way to know if the graphics card is off or on when the screen is black???
 

Aravind92

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Just checked all over the internet for black screen and buzzing sound,alos knew people with 7870 had this issue some time back so checked that even and it seems like almost everyone had no signal on the monitor and in all cases it has been when playing games mostly.But my situation is totaly different happens when doing less intesive work,monitor still gets signal,what could be the issue?
 

jayadratha

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I have also the same problem. When I playing game no issue. What do you think?? is it driver problem??
 

Aravind92

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not sure really,suspect the driver more than the card in itself..
 

Aravind92

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Black screen again,just left the pc turned on as i was downloading some torrents.had the monitor turned off.Turned the monitor off by 7 30 in the morning by then the time elapsed in utorrent was 3 hours and 30 mins.By 11:30 in the morning came back and turned the monitor on and blacxk screen.Restarted the pc and opened utorrent and found th elapsed time saying 4 hours and 27 minutes,so that means everything crashed by 8:30 but the computer was still turned on at 11:30 when i came back but with the black screen.Does this give us any clue.I really cannot live with this because i had all the components running for 3 hours when the pc did nothing at that time.
 

jayadratha

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This graphics card will ruin our computer. I'm sure. This will damage our pc too.