Vega 64 troubleshooting help please

[Jay Fury]

I put a Vega 64 in there in place of my old R9 390. I pretty much had zero problems with the 390 but this is my THIRD Vega 64 and I have no clue what is going on. The AMD software will crash and need restarted. It will crash and basically cycle my screen to black screen then my monitor will cycle through all the inputs, find the Vega 64, then be ok but I have to reload my Wattman profile. Usually takes like 2 secs so not a big deal but annoying for a "top of the line" GPU. So the first one and the second that I had would freeze windows 10 when left idle, crash a few games, BSOD a few times etc etc. Third one has not BSOD, has not frozen windows, but still has some crashes (not as many) and the AMD software issues I mentioned above. I will say that Battlenet App when left on while PC is idle for a long time will freeze and go white screen when left idle but my profile in AMD goes back to default or crashes everytime this happens as well. Doesn't freeze windows though or BSOD. Like I said this is my third Vega 64 and I am BEYOND frustrated. Someone please help me.

I have reinstalled fresh windows 10 three times. I have tried the drivers many different ways. I have win 10 uninstalled them and reinstalled. I have rolled back. I have DDU exactly how they say to do it in safe mode without networking a few times. I have UV, OC, -25% power, +50% power. I have tried a whole bunch of Vega self UV guides and no matter what I do the AMD control panel software will crash from time to time. Newest BIOS on MOBO, Win 10 fully updated, Chipset drivers updated, etc. It is not thermal throttling except when left on default profile because that fan curve is a joke at best for these cards. My CPU is not overheating either nor is anything else according to HWmonitor as far as I can tell. I don't know what to do. It can't be another bad card... maybe my PSU? So please chime in if anyone can. I want to stay Red Team but this Vega 64 is making it hard... ( I have my reasons and am not here to debate Green vs Red and go green is NOT a fix for me right now. ) I mean the thing is a MONSTER when it works flawlessly.

Here are a few questions:

1) How does a PC react when a PSU is not enough power? I think maybe this is it but I don't want to buy a new PSU to find out. Any other way I can troubleshoot this?

2) Is the AMD driver software crashing their fault or is it my gpu's fault? Like I said I'm having way less problems with this 3rd card and do not want to keep sending them back because I'm starting to feel like I am the one missing something here and not the card itself.

3) Also anyone have experience with heaven valley? When I run HV in windowed mode and watch the monitoring in Wattman my GPU Mghz will drop like twice during the test from 1500 w/e it is to like 800. Why is this? Is this normal? How can I fix this? I thought I pretty much want a straight line the entire time for that test? Am I wrong? Again it's below 80c and supposedly throttles at 85c so that shouldn't be it.

Parts list: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/JayFury540/saved/

 

[Lutfij]

How old is that PSU? Did you recreate the bootable installer for Windows 10 before you used it to reinstall the OS?

1| The system will either reboot when taxed, freeze when the GPU needs more power or the system will shutdown itself.
2| You can try and use the latest off AMD's site. Windows 10 tends to install the latest drivers it thinks is deemed best for your system. We suggest you manually install the driver in an elevated command - Right click installer>Run as Administrator.

 

[Jay Fury]

PSU is almost 4 years old now. It hasn't rebooted or froze with this new card yet and hasn't shut down. Battlenet froze but not windows when left idle. Just the driver crashed and reset itself to default when left idle for 8 hours. I always use the drivers off AMDs site. I have tried 19.1.1 Windows approved. Trying 19.1.2 now and see if that helps. I think I installed them as admin but Ill make sure. So that's it? You think it is indeed another bad card? *sigh* EDIT: I don't think I know I installed them as admin. And uninstall them in safe mode before every fresh install try as well.

 

[Jay Fury]

Did you recreate the bootable installer for Windows 10 before you used it to reinstall the OS? I don't know what that means so I'm gonna say no. I just reinstalled windows 10. Like there is a fresh install option and I used that. Here is an update if anyone who sees this can help. I reinstalled the 19.1.1 drivers after 3 COD Blackout games crashed as soon as I got into the game. I did barebones AMD install, turned off all their monitoring, no VSR, No relive, and didn't even set wattman up at all. No chill and no profiles for any game. Everything else default. Installed MSI afterburner and of course RTSS setup my fan curve and setup monitoring. Setup my frame cap to 138. 10 games in a row without a single issue even went afk and left it idle for an hour to eat and still everything fine. Jump in a game play for like 10 mins get a few kills and BOOM it freezes while Im fighting someone with the gunshots echoing over and over in my ear. BUT AMD software didn't crash just the game and the battlenet launcher. I go into Event Viewer and it says " Display driver AMDKMUAP has stopped responding and recovered two times in a row right when I crash. It always has this in System Event Viewer. I don't know much about event viewer tbh. What to do? I have no idea what is wrong. Max temp was 77 and only for a second. Haven't tried any other games yet will try some more asap and report back to my mega thread of despair. 🙁

 

[Jay Fury]

Then just now I launched Microsoft store to finish a download and it hiccuped, went black screen my monitor cycled thru all the different display options then when it got back to display port everything was fine. This has never happened until putting Vegas in either. Ugggggggghhhhhhhh.

 

[justjayhere]

You must have a 750 watt power supply or better for Vega 64.... you must use 2 separate pcie power supply cables (not one with the pigtail). If you do not meet the minimum power requirements nobody will be able help. Most pre-built PC's have a cheap PSU... this is where they cut cost etc

 

[justjayhere]

...continuing my answer... I have a new Corsair RMi Series™ RM750i — 750 Watt 80 PLUS® Gold Certified Fully Modular PSU and was running a GTX 1050 OC GPU just fine with the single cable with the pigtail and the card worked fine. Then I got a new MSI RX Vega 64 and hooked it up the same way... seemed to work okay until under load for a bit then I got coil wine noise and other problems ... so I decided to hook up the Vega 64 with two seperate pcie power supply cables and haven't had any issues since.

 

[Jay Fury]

Its not a prebuilt and it is running off of 2separate cables. It is a 750 EVGA 80+ Bronze and the power draw for the whole system is way under that. I'm leaning towards PCIe slot right now. New case will be here in a few days and I can try the other slots to test. Also ordered new DP cable just in case since I needed an extra one anyway for another build. I took everything apart and reseated it. So far everything has been fine but I haven't played or tested it much due to other things I had to do. I hope something was just seated oddly maybe the RAM or one of the PSU cables. I'm ready to enjoy my VEGA 64 and so ready to be over this headache. Thank you for your reply. To anyone reading this don't underestimate taking it all apart and reassembling even if you KNOW it's correct. Simply unplugging something and then back in may just help. Time will tell.