Question The RX 580/590 saga much better but not 100% where it oughta be.

[gn842a]

Well these past few weeks I've had quite the number of issues with first an ASUS RX 580 and then a Sapphire Nitro RX 590 which I got on RMA (there were no more Asus RX 580s so they gave me cash back). And then I RMA'd that RX 590.

So this is my third card in a month or so.

The good news:

It passes all the benchmarks without crashing. The problem I had with the other two gpus can be seen in this 30 second video.

We have two variables that changed. One is that this was the third card. The other is that between the two cards I switched from DVI-D to displayport on the monitor, and this has shown some signs of improved system performance (notably elimination of mouse and keyboard lag).

So you can pick. It's "third time's the charm" or the cable.

The bad news:

I think this RX 500 series is glitchy. I left the system in sleep mode last night and when I rebooted this morning I booted into a washed out purple screen--like the green screen in the link, only purple. I rebooted and it went away. I ran an "extreme" Unigine Superposition test (which always crashed the other two cards) and there was no crash. So the system can take stress without crashing (so far) but the not-much-of-a-stress of coming out of sleep mode crashes the graphics.

It is to be remarked that during this entire time the R9-380 ran on the old and new builds without ever having a problem. It never crashed on the Unigine extreme superposition. It never crashed at all. Very reliable kit. And yes I'm running the latest and greatest RX 590 drivers on an updated BIOS.

https://imgur.com/kVWESlN

View: https://imgur.com/kVWESlN

 

[gn842a]

To conclude this is IMO a glitchy card and I wouldn't be surprised if it fails in the next few months. I don't think there i much I can do about it. Coming out of sleep mode the whole system is cool and there's barely anything running.

 

[King_V]

Out of curiosity, what power supply do you have? And, even if it's a good brand/model, is there another known good PSU you could swap in to try as a test?

I'm surprised that you're having trouble - ESPECIALLY given that one was a Sapphire.

My son's been running a PowerColor RX 580 8GB since last December without issue. And that's on a standard Dell XPS 8910, with the original 460W Dell power supply. Granted, I haven't run stress tests or anything, but my son does play games, at 2560x1080, and one or two of his favorites are pushing this card hard (ie: can't keep up 60fps at the given resolution).

 

[gn842a]

Thank you for your answer. I started out with a brand new Seasonic 850 watt (which I still have). Somewhere along the many twists and turns of this saga, I thought that maybe the build was underpowered. So I ordered a Seasonic 1300W, which is what's installed.

I just ordered a MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ti. Sometimes you have to know when you're beat. If problems continue about the only thing that's left to consider is the mobo. I would not be happy about putting in a new mobo. I might do it but jeezus what a pain after all these other hoops. The 37 reviews on the 1660 at Newegg made not one mention of crashing. But if you look around at 580s and 590s on google with terms like "green screen" and "black screen" and "crashes" you'll get an eyeful. Anyhow I could say well just use this thing and don't put it in sleep mode but the fact is it's showing it's unstable and worse symptoms could develop at any time. Better to yank the bad tooth.

I see that I did not post my build.

ASUS Prime X470 Pro running latest BIOS 5007
Ryzen 5 2600X with Noctua heat sink and fan
Samsung 970 M.2 NVMe 500 gb on mobo with Win 10 OS
32 gigs G.Skill DDR4 3200
Seasonic PSU 1300W (formerly 850)
Dell U2312HM with Displayport connection running 1080p nothing fancy here folks

The GPUs that crash: Asus RX 580, Sapphire Nitro RX 590 (two) with updated drivers as posted.

The GPU that does not crash: R9-380 with 2 gigs ram. The R9-380 runs on the drivers posted better than the 580 and 590s do.

The temps: cpu usually running 30 to 40, gets up to 60 during Unigine Superposition "Extreme" at 1080p resolution. The gpu very consistently runs ten degrees hotter, so 40 to 50 normal net and movie streaming, 70 to 74 during Unigine Superposition.

And that's about it, Greg N

 

[King_V]

I wish I could say I had some ideas or a solution, but I'll admit that I'm stumped. Even 850W was way more than you would've needed, power-wise, and I'd have been absolutely confident running this setup on a 550W PSU. Nothing about this makes any sense, particularly given that the R9 380 has about the same power draw as an RX 580.

I mean I've run into one or two cases of an old motherboard that was moody with particular video cards (an old Dell XPS 630i, Nvidia Nforce motherboard that, bizarrely, would lose its mind when I plugged in an Nvidia GTX 660Ti video card into it, but had no problems running an ATI Radeon HD 4850 - someone bought the system from me, an successfully ran a GT240 and a GT 1030 simultaneously in that same system - go figure.)

But all of your stuff is modern.

At this point I'm gonna say "I dunno. Witchcraft? Maybe space gremlins?"

 

[tennis2]

I wouldn't suspect the GPU here. It's either the cable or the monitor.

I'll say that I've had a similar issue once per year that I've owned my Samsung C27HG70 where I'll power on the computer and the display is very washed out and discolored. The only thing I have to do is power cycle the monitor though and it all goes back to normal.

 

[gn842a]

I wouldn't suspect the GPU here. It's either the cable or the monitor.

I'll say that I've had a similar issue once per year that I've owned my Samsung C27HG70 where I'll power on the computer and the display is very washed out and discolored. The only thing I have to do is power cycle the monitor though and it all goes back to normal.

Well the cable has been replaced, and it did improve performance (it eliminated keyboard and mouse lag--which connect through ports on the monitor). AND, of course, for what it's worth, I can get through a Unigine Superposition Extreme benchmark test without crashing! I thought the problem was solved. But instead it migrated to boot up from sleep mode. Now that I can't use sleep mode--it's worthless because I have to reboot anyhow when coming out of sleep--I realize how very much I like this feature.

And we can't eliminate Win 10 instability. Windows has always had an antagonistic relationship to sleep mode. In XP it didn't work at all. It's like this idea that they dangle in front of you but never let you have.

I have had, recently, the wash out effect where the colors are the same but the whole thing looks like it's under a layer of white soap. I consider that one of the "crash modes" to which I've been subjected, but it is much less severe than the full color washouts you all can see in my video. And I did get a "white soap crash" on the Unigine Heaven benchmark but it did not repeat.

I guess the ultimate beneficiary of these things will be my son as I transfer rejected hardware to the build upstairs (a 5 year old build where the RX 590 works fine). He's been after me for a new monitor. I really like this Dell.

If I have the same problems with the TI 1660 the monitor will be "on the table" as a potential weak spot. I guess I'll have to steal the monitor from my girlfriend's house to test the hypothesis.

Greg N

 

[gn842a]

So tennis2 in my mind there are three remaining major systems which might be suspect:

1. The gpu, we'll know later this week after 1660 TI arrives
2. The monitor, as you suggest -- borrow GF's, test is free and easy
3. Win 10 -- not expensive, just majorly a hassle (I would go back to 8.1)
4. The mobo, which has far from sterling reviews on Newegg (Asus Prime X470 pro). I don't know what to make of this possibility. One might as well suspect the cpu. I don't like either of these options.

I might actually choose just to use the defective build rather than change the mobo, make the occasional Macrium mirror and just wait for the build to stop working. That might take a long time.

Greg N

 

[digitalgriffin]

Thank you for your answer. I started out with a brand new Seasonic 850 watt (which I still have). Somewhere along the many twists and turns of this saga, I thought that maybe the build was underpowered. So I ordered a Seasonic 1300W, which is what's installed.

I just ordered a MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ti. Sometimes you have to know when you're beat. If problems continue about the only thing that's left to consider is the mobo. I would not be happy about putting in a new mobo. I might do it but jeezus what a pain after all these other hoops. The 37 reviews on the 1660 at Newegg made not one mention of crashing. But if you look around at 580s and 590s on google with terms like "green screen" and "black screen" and "crashes" you'll get an eyeful. Anyhow I could say well just use this thing and don't put it in sleep mode but the fact is it's showing it's unstable and worse symptoms could develop at any time. Better to yank the bad tooth.

I see that I did not post my build.

ASUS Prime X470 Pro running latest BIOS 5007
Ryzen 5 2600X with Noctua heat sink and fan
Samsung 970 M.2 NVMe 500 gb on mobo with Win 10 OS
32 gigs G.Skill DDR4 3200
Seasonic PSU 1300W (formerly 850)
Dell U2312HM with Displayport connection running 1080p nothing fancy here folks

The GPUs that crash: Asus RX 580, Sapphire Nitro RX 590 (two) with updated drivers as posted.

The GPU that does not crash: R9-380 with 2 gigs ram. The R9-380 runs on the drivers posted better than the 580 and 590s do.

The temps: cpu usually running 30 to 40, gets up to 60 during Unigine Superposition "Extreme" at 1080p resolution. The gpu very consistently runs ten degrees hotter, so 40 to 50 normal net and movie streaming, 70 to 74 during Unigine Superposition.

And that's about it, Greg N

Try putting the GPU in the second X16 slot. It is possible a pin on your MB PCIe connector is broken or bent.

I bought an MSI Armor 580 for $160 + 3 months Microsoft game pass recently. Even though it has just 1 8 pin power connector, it works flawlessly.

Also check your specs on the monitor and how you are connecting it. I would recommend DP. I found out the hard way myself that HDMI on the RX580 uses HDMI 2.0 which is limiting in a lot of ways. (HDMI 2.0a is required for HDR and wide color gamut with 4:4:4 chroma sampling)

The display port has a higher bandwidth and supports more color formats.

 

[gn842a]

Well I will add some more information here. In my previous round of testing, I found out that the crashing was associated with the "distant" monitor (Dell) and the "near" monitor (actually a TV) never crashed when it was connected all by itself. But the distant Dell (about 25 feet) crashed all the time. This was with a 25 foot DVI-D with a booster.

So one can have an aha! moment because here is a replicable problem. The only head scratcher was that the R9-380 didn't care. It worked fine in all these configurations, dual screen, near screen, far screen, it doesn't care.

So at a minimum we know that although the failure mode is associated with distance, it is not a necessary failure in the sense that the R9-380 (older 2 gb model) doesn't do it.

So today I thought well I need to test this new kind of crash (coming out of sleep mode) as a near vs distant monitor problem. I had neglected doing that because the distant monitor worked fine through virtually every benchmark I put it through that it had failed before displayport was put in. And unigine superpsoition extreme is a pretty brutal test. I thought my issues were over when my build repeatedly passed that test, that the distance issue was resolved.

But, here we are, and I can say: the sleep mode crash--

does not occur when near monitor only is attached
always occurs when distant monitor only is attached
always occurs when both monitors are attached
[and of course never occurs, no matter monitor config, when gpu is R9-380]

Off hand your intuition that it could be the monitor is now in play, since the DP improved things without fully curing them. Perhaps the monitor is the other half of the puzzle.

I did talk to Startech which makes signal boosters for about $150. They were very skeptical that the issue was the new dp cable unless it is defective. They say that 25 feet is "in range" for use without booster. But they'll sell me a booster if that's what I want.

It is possible that some gpus put out a more robust signal than others. But maybe I should hold off on installing the 1660 TI until I've tried a different monitor.

Greg N

 

[gn842a]

Well I installed the MSI 1660 TI and it does everything that the Asus RX 580 and two units of the Nitro RX 590 cannot: It does not crash on brutal benchmarks, and it comes right out of sleep mode without crashing. On one screen. Or the other screen. Or both screens. No crashes.

Perhaps problems lie ahead but it's put in 12 hours already and opened up a wide distance over the Nitro. Thank goodness I'm not dealing with that thing. Just a relief to be using some hardware that's not crashing right and left in the first thirty minutes of use.

Greg N

 

[King_V]

It still really bugs me that this works fine with the 1660Ti, but the RX590 does not... yet the latter card works trouble-free on your son's machine.

Some part of me wants to say that it could be just something odd about the long DVI-D with booster, but I'd say I'm grasping at straws.


As you say though, and as I said with the baffling "Nvidia 660Ti works in my son's Dell, but not in an older Dell with an Nvidia-chipset motherboard" . . . . "well, here we are."

Or, as I've best seen it:

 

[gn842a]

It still really bugs me that this works fine with the 1660Ti, but the RX590 does not... yet the latter card works trouble-free on your son's machine.

Some part of me wants to say that it could be just something odd about the long DVI-D with booster, but I'd say I'm grasping at straws.


As you say though, and as I said with the baffling "Nvidia 660Ti works in my son's Dell, but not in an older Dell with an Nvidia-chipset motherboard" . . . . "well, here we are."

Or, as I've best seen it:

That cartoon sums up my past six weeks. We can take the DVI-D out of the equation, however. I landfilled it about two weeks ago. The Displayport works better, and the RX 580 and RX 590 style of crashing has been reduced but still happens. The syndrome is associated with multiple monitor/distance monitor.

I stream a lot of music from all over the world and it never ceases to amaze me how streaming from one radio station might be perfect at a set volume level on the tuner amp and then switch to another station and it blasts you out of the house (gets a lot louder anyhow). Or the other way around. All these people are streaming but the signal strength varies quite a bit and it's not a distance factor. I stream from Australia quite a bit.

What I'm getting at is that the strength and clarity of the signal has something to do with how the signal is being sent out by whatever devices are being used in these various places. And it makes a difference in how well I can hear the music. I can only hypothesize that the RX 500 series signal is weaker, maybe dramatically weaker, than the signals from the R9-380 and the 1660 TI and as a result the functioning of the entire system is more fragile.

I would like to know what this output number or value is, it must have a name, and how to look it up, because I would make a point not to buy another graphics card that was below the levels of the R9-380 or 1660 TI. I drove a Toyota Tercel in the 80s it had 60 horsepower and got me around, and across the country twice, but I wouldn't get a 60 HP car again, you know?

Greg N

 

[gn842a]

I installed the RX 590 on my upstairs build which is old (Asus F2 A85 V pro + AMD 10-5800k with 32 gigs RAM, about 5 years old, using Win 8.1) and it does work, as I indicated earlier. It gets through tough benchmarks without crashing.

BUT, it crashes using sleep mode. The PC goes into a cycle of booting and rebooting and then into repair mode. So long as one avoids sleep mode, it seems to work. So it has some instability which it took with it to the upstairs build.

I decided to use it up there because that way the R9-380, which for me anyhow has a long track record of reliability, is what I would want to use in the event that my 1660 TI fails. I won't be putting another RX 500 series in the downstairs build, in other words, not even if it were handed to me by the sweet baby jeezus with a big smile.

And when/if I find the upstairs build crashing with its Nitro 590X, it sort of depends on when that happens. If we are a year or two closer to the end of Win 8.1 then I might just build a whole new PC. Or put in a fancy NVIDIA with the idea that when I in fact do create a new build I will re-use the card.

Greg N

 

[King_V]

I think the fact that it crashes in the upstairs build, but does so in a completely different scenario, just adds more to the "hair pulling madness" aspect of this.

 

[digitalgriffin]

I installed the RX 590 on my upstairs build which is old (Asus F2 A85 V pro + AMD 10-5800k with 32 gigs RAM, about 5 years old, using Win 8.1) and it does work, as I indicated earlier. It gets through tough benchmarks without crashing.

BUT, it crashes using sleep mode. The PC goes into a cycle of booting and rebooting and then into repair mode. So long as one avoids sleep mode, it seems to work. So it has some instability which it took with it to the upstairs build.

I decided to use it up there because that way the R9-380, which for me anyhow has a long track record of reliability, is what I would want to use in the event that my 1660 TI fails. I won't be putting another RX 500 series in the downstairs build, in other words, not even if it were handed to me by the sweet baby jeezus with a big smile.

And when/if I find the upstairs build crashing with its Nitro 590X, it sort of depends on when that happens. If we are a year or two closer to the end of Win 8.1 then I might just build a whole new PC. Or put in a fancy NVIDIA with the idea that when I in fact do create a new build I will re-use the card.

Greg N

There was a problem with Polaris locking up/crashing when resuming from certain sleep states on certain motherboards. It was fixed with a ROM Update for some. But the proper fixes never made it to windows 8, only 10. It was tied to a hybrid sleep issue for some. This is especially true of win 8 machines.

https://community.amd.com/thread/222850

 

[gn842a]

There was a problem with Polaris locking up/crashing when resuming from certain sleep states on certain motherboards. It was fixed with a ROM Update for some. But the proper fixes never made it to windows 8, only 10. It was tied to a hybrid sleep issue for some. This is especially true of win 8 machines.

https://community.amd.com/thread/222850

I find that very interesting but after messing with RX 580 and two RX 590s for something like four weeks about all I'm going to do with mine is toss it and get another 1660 TI. Well I'll try to use it without going into sleep mode. I'm thinking over whether to make another new build or just to keep this one going another two or three years.

thank you for the link and the analysis,
Greg N

 

[digitalgriffin]

I find that very interesting but after messing with RX 580 and two RX 590s for something like four weeks about all I'm going to do with mine is toss it and get another 1660 TI. Well I'll try to use it without going into sleep mode. I'm thinking over whether to make another new build or just to keep this one going another two or three years.

thank you for the link and the analysis,
Greg N

It's easy. Just disable hybrid sleep (You still have regular sleep) on Windows 8.1 and you'll be good to go.

 

[gn842a]

It's easy. Just disable hybrid sleep (You still have regular sleep) on Windows 8.1 and you'll be good to go.

Well I disabled hybrid sleep. Rebooted to make sure the change was in the system. Tried sleep and reboot. Worked. Cruised the net for fifteen minutes, tried sleep and reboot, hung up on a snowy screen.

So I disabled sleep mode altogether and got a timer app that will turn the whole system off after whatever I set it for. As I have mentioned, these issues move around with the gpu. Wherever it goes problems move with it. Take it out and problems go away.

I was curious about speccy which I had installed on my 8.1 upstairs build for some time, in fact forgot about it. It was showing something like a thousand days of use (very plausible ) but if by days it means 24 hours x 1000 I find that implausible for that computer. Too much down time. I was wondering what speccy means by "day."

thanks,
Greg N

 

[gn842a]

Follow up....with sleep mode disabled and the computer set to turn off in 12 hours, I had a white screen crash (snowy white) while I was away from PC. So nearly as I can tell this was triggered by the screen going to sleep after one hour. So now I've set it not to go to sleep. I think it will anyhow when the pc is shut down. It bears repeating that these are behaviors never witnessed with the R9-380 and R9-200 video cards (which I still have) when they were in the build. I'm going to leave the Nitro RX 590 in though to see if I can get some use out of it. If it keeps crashing while the PC is doing nothing I guess I'll take it out and put in one of the older ones. Greg N