Info XFX 6950 XT upgrade causing random restarts.

Jun 1, 2023
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I saw this question asked earlier but was unable to post anything in the thread. I wanted to post this to help others with this issue because I thoroughly Tested my card when I received it. I'm not listing my system specs because it's pretty much irrelevant. I upgraded from my 3070 FTW3 to and XFX 6950XT mainly for the extra performance and the extra VRAM because the price to performance was right. I got my card and did the upgrade as I have many times before as I run a PC shop from home. Mind you there were zero issues with my system before the upgrade. After the install with proper driver, then I go to run the 3dmark stress test but the system restarted every time I would run it or any game. Then I noticed it would restart not only when starting a game or GPU intensive program but even when in desktop. I tried reseating the card, re- installing driver, DDU, Bios Update, even a clean install of windows. Connectors were secure swapped the existing Be Quiet 850W Gold certified PSU with a 1200W Corsair platinum just for [redacted] and giggles even though I knew the 850W was enough. After removing the card and re-installing the 3070 everything was right as rain. I RMA'd the card and sent for replacement. Just like the individual did in the question that was asked back in Feb this year.

I just wanted folks to be aware that there are some bad ones out there still floating around and to save someone from pulling their hair out.
 
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Jun 1, 2023
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"system restarted every time I would run it or any game"
Thanks for sharing your experience, but you wrote random restarts as well. Was it random in idle and every time the GPU was running 3d stuff?
I also mentioned, "Then I noticed it would restart not only when starting a game or GPU intensive program but even when in desktop". I didn't want to write novel. But in short I initially noticed it restarted every time when I would start 3dmark or any game. Then I noticed that it didn't matter whether I was in a program or game or not it would still restart no matter what I was doing on the PC the longer I tried to use it. The only solution that fixed it was re-installing the previous card. I will update this post when the replacement 6950XT comes in but I suspect that if the replacement card isn't defective as well that it will resolve the issue just as it did for the individual in the question asked in the forum back in February. He had to go through two cards before he got a good one apparently.
 
Yep, hard resets are always hardware-based issues because drivers can't cause system resets. Sure, they can black out the screen, but the PC will still hum happily along until the user restarts the system.

I had a similar problem with my first RX 5700 XT. I think that it had a power distribution issue.
 
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Jun 1, 2023
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My experience, when I upgraded to a 7900 xtx I had the same issue random restarts especially when opening a game and playing for a few min, what I discovered is that my psu even been 1000w was a multi rail psu, so u need to see if your psu is multirail or single rail , if your psu have the ability to switch , some high end psu have a phisical switch or some are inteligente and you can switch that with vendor application like some few Corsair , changed to a single rail mode or psu .
Thanks for the input darry04, I thought you were on to something because I don't have any experience with high end GPU's like this. So I checked the specs of the Be Quiet 850W Gold PSU that I initially had and it in fact it does not have an auto switch feature and had to plug on connector with dual 8 pins into a specific connector on the PSU. As for the Platinum 1200i Corsair I swapped for, it actually had software and a special cable that you have to install and can manually set to either single or multi rail. So now I feel like an idiot but hey, learn something new everyday so thanks for the assist my PC brethren. I won't forget this anytime soon.
 
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Jun 1, 2023
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I get the replacement tomorrow so I will try to run it without any changes first then in stall the corsair software and change from multi to single rail if the issue is still present for thoroughness sake.
 
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I get the replacement tomorrow so I will try to run it without any changes first then in stall the corsair software and change from multi to single rail if the issue is still present for thoroughness sake.
If I were you, I would always run it in single-rail mode. I don't even know why they would make it just an option. In my experience, top-end PSUs are all single-rail, period. I'd never even heard of a PSU in which you could select one or the other.

It sounds innovative as hell but ultimately useless.
 
Jun 1, 2023
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If I were you, I would always run it in single-rail mode. I don't even know why they would make it just an option. In my experience, top-end PSUs are all single-rail, period. I'd never even heard of a PSU in which you could select one or the other.

It sounds innovative as hell but ultimately useless.
I've actually never had to worry about this feature before and was unaware of the what seems many ways to enable single or multi rail mode. But I do agree that Multi rail isn't really needed anymore with SLI being pretty much dead at this point. From what I have be researching though it seems manufacturer's are seeing that point and are beginning to to do just that.
 
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Jun 1, 2023
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So I got the card a bit early instead of tomorrow. I immediately wanted to test the multi-rail theory.
Without any changes made and leaving the Corsair 1200i Platinum PSU on Multi-Rail setting I was able to install the latest driver and finally run the 3DMark stress test without any issues. The test passed with 99.3%
I have also been using the PC for the last hour now and played a a couple games without any restarts so I think it's safe to say that the card I received the first time was a bad card.
I do want to take the time to thank everyone for their input on the matter and taking time out of their day to respond.
 
I've actually never had to worry about this feature before and was unaware of the what seems many ways to enable single or multi rail mode. But I do agree that Multi rail isn't really needed anymore with SLI being pretty much dead at this point. From what I have be researching though it seems manufacturer's are seeing that point and are beginning to to do just that.
Actually, single-rail PSUs aren't new. In fact, single-rail has been the way to go for at least the past 15 years. The point of a single +12V rail is that it doesn't matter what device is plugged in where because it all runs on the same internal rail, a rail that is significantly sturdier than any multi-rail setup. All high-end PSUs that I've seen since 2008 have had single +12V rails.

I have an OCZ-Z1000M from 2009 (that still works perfectly) and it has a single +12V rail rated at 83A:
leist.png

Now, I don't know what the point of multi +12V rails are but I don't know everything and I have to assume that there is a use-case for it. After all, if there wasn't a use for a PSU like yours, nobody would have bothered to make one.

I think that it's a pretty interesting feature because I had never heard of such a thing before and that makes it kinda cool. :giggle: