I`m now having my second attempt at getting a MSI R9 290 BF4 to work in games. I have been on a number of other forums, trying to get some advice, but nothing came back any worth while. I see that many other people are also having trouble with these cards crashing and freezing up during games. I cannot even get into a game before i get a blask screen, those people are doing well. I have tried everything, flashed both bios`s, upped the ND PCIE voltage to max, enabled load line calibration, re-installed everything 7 times, dropped the VRM down to 1000mhz. This card is fine without the driver installed, and fine now in a forum, but if i try to run GPUZ / overdrive / afterburner, i would be lucky not to get a black screen. These cards definately have a design fault, and AMD should recall them all back. I think there is only a few people out there, who actually has a working one. Also, please Bit-tech, stop posting reviews on these cards, because it encourages people to choose this chipset, which should not have been re-leased by AMD. They should re-call them all back, because a large portion of them are faulty.
I agree. I'm on my second card which red screens randomly and locks the PC up. I'm going to RMA it and get a non reference card this time.
you might want to try on AMDs forum, they might not hear you here I have 3x in CF, no issues here so they can't all be bad, I will admit I have had the odd crash but I can play for hours and with the OC'ed state of my system you could put it down to anything. I would imagine you have corrupted the driver install with clashing OC tools for the sounds of the things you are upto, had similar when I was dicking about with Overdrive, Afterburner and Sapphires thing, now I just disable/uninstall the others and use one, no problem. Go back to basics, stock firmware, stock drivers after a good clean up and see how it fares when you leave it alone. Things like black screens with GPUs often point to PSU issues.
I thought it was my PSU. So I bought a new RM850 hoping that would solve the issue. With my old 6970 everything is rock solid.
God this was painful reading. So, you are demanding a product recall of an entire generation of cards just because you and a few others are having an issue, which may not even be related to the GPU hardware in question? You sound like you don't know what you are doing too..... I mean, if the issue is with the card, why would changing load line calibration have any effect? Dropping the VRM to 1000mhz? What does that even mean? 'These cards definately have a design fault' - since you are 100% sure, maybe using your PHD in electronic engineering you could detail it for us, as AMDs team of highly skilled engineers seemed to have missed it? This coming from the guy that 3 weeks ago was blaming the motherboard company (MSI) for issues he was having. I also see you've been flashing GPU BIOS's.....
If you don't have anything nice to say..... Ripping someones post to pieces and being sarcastic is really helpful go back to General.
The OP didn't ask for help as far as I can see? He just came to rant about MSI, claim that they should recall an entire line of GPUs, and tell BT to stop reviewing them.
It could be down to something as simple as incompatibility between that GPU and your motherboard BIOS, something that most people wouldn't catch because they're not attempting to mix a new GPU with a five year old Motherboard. Further to that; Flashing GPU bios should NEVER be needed to fix an issue, unless it's related to having previously flashed the VBIOS to something else in the first place. I don't understand how you thought slapping a different vBios onto the cards would solve an issue that sounds like an incompatibility or driver issue. Completely crazy idea; Have you tried the GPU in any other systems? Anything a bit more modern than an LGA 1366 machine? Because it might just be that it doesn't work with your specific machine setup, which is a pain in the ass, but not grounds for an entire GPU recall. Also, as a little addendum; good luck RMA'ing the GPU when you've flashed different vBios onto it, especially if you've been silly enough to tell MSI support about that, since they'd be well within their rights to refuse the RMA.
R9 290 design fault Thanks for all the replies, they all very entertaining. However, i do not have the time to point out all the technical details. I can assure you all, i have isolated the fault to the GPU board itself. I was not impressed with MSI technical support, nor their website, because of the response i got, before i even told them what the problem was. But i do understand now. Take a look for yourselves, all over the internet, forums and you tube, people are complaining about the same thing, Freezes, and black screens coming from R9 290`s. Some people have been saying that the earlier boards had a bad batch of silicon used for their memory chips. Some are saying that if you do not overvolt the card, it is naturally unstable. So therefore, if you flash with another manufacturers unlocked bios, the gpu can recieve enough voltage to keep it stable. Others are saying, that if you max out the power percentage, the card then becomes stable. When i did this, mine seemed to become a little more stable, but i still could not get into a game without it freezing / black screen. If this is the case, then AMD know these cards are faulty, so all the Revision 1`s should be re-called. And maybe that is why MSI are reluctant to speek to anybody with one of these cards, because they know they have to be replaced, and they having to fit the bill, because AMD are not excepting responsibility. I`m really disappointed, because i do like AMD`s ideas and innovation, and i really do want to support them, and this build for me was an all AMD PC. The system spec you see on my profile is very old, probably goes back to before some of you were born, but for me, it was just when i joined this forum. I`v had 7 PC`s since then..
People generally post on forums when something isn't working. They don't post a new topic to tell the world something's working fine. Google gives me more hits when looking for 780 ti freezing than with the r9 290. Have you been breaking them?
