290x instantly crashing on loading most games, but will load cgminer fine

[faxon]

So I got a new Sapphire 290x reference board today for my main system to replace my 7950, since I mine and have the extra capacity in my farm but need to focus on slot/MH/s density now more than raw output. It mines fine but when I try loading any newer games (planetside 2, arkham asylum, arkham city, fear 2 and 3 are what i have installed to test with) almost all of them crash instantly on loading full 3D mode. Planetside 2 can load 3D character screen but once it loads into the main game it instantly hangs and i've had some BSODs from this. Same story with Arkham asylum and city. Fear 2 loads in after a bit of alt-tabbing because it glitches out a bit and doesn't come up full screened on the right screen but i think that's a bug from the install being originally set to full screen windowed on a different default monitor, and it otherwise seems to load into my last save point just fine but i haven't tried playing it steady since I want to play planetside 2, not something from years ago i only had installed for storyline reasons (got it recently in a humble bundle). Any advice on what to try would be great.

So far I have: Tried switching from 13.12 driver to the 14.x beta driver that's currently available on AMD's site, I haven't looked to see if anything earlier than 13.12 supported R9 cards but there's not a lot of options there. I used Display Driver Uninstaller in safe mode to uninstall using the version released on 3/11 every time i tried reinstalling between different driver versions. All the changes in between, mining has worked consistently just fine, making me wonder if this is a hardware issue or a driver issue or what? Also of note my miner is currently set to load guiminer on start but not to start mining, so the card should be just sitting idle. The card is running stock factory clocks. Idle temps are like 50-54c at 20% and the card was allowed to load at 78-80c for an evening before attempting to game since I didn't have time to try gaming on it right away, but if that's all that it was gonna take to break the damn thing then there's something wrong with it anyway since I kept it at under 75% fan speed and under thermal limit.

TL;DR my 290x wont load 3D apps but will run openCL, halp?

 

[faxon]

okay so resetting the game settings for planetside 2 to default graphics and reinstalling the entire game got it to load finally, under 13.12. making progress, definitely some type of driver issues going on here and not a hardware bug

ed: wont load the game unless i run it at default render distance and render quality, which is shit because it means that i can't see enemies out as far away as i could on my 7950 and the game looks half as good, just to load without crashing.

 

[DownTheSky]

Clean your system of any traces of AMD drivers then reinstall them. Though your card may be broken. Problem might be TMU-related, since they aren't used by CGminer.

 

[MeldarthX]

Sounds more like drivers need to be cleaned out and reinstalled......once that's done you should be fine.....

 

[faxon]

I already ran a driver and registry cleanup a dozen times between various 14.x beta and the 13.12 WHQL, definitely not an issue of the drivers being corrupted or anything like that. Made sure of that after it BSOD the first time and had to run a chk dsk on startup afterward because it BSODd while something was being downloaded to disk as well

I'm thinking it's a driver issue. some older games seem to run fine and running everything in full screen stabilized a few other games as well. I'm spent from stress (IRL issues unrelated), and don't feel like continuing to debug it today. Right now it seems like it's probably a combination of driver support on AMD's end and possibly some bad coding on SOE's end as well (they aren't known for their quality up to date performance coding, though they've gotten better in recent years). Right now I'm letting it mine as if it were a toned down 7950 (about 500MHs) so I can at least view netflix stable while it mines, but it can hit 900mhs at stock clocks no problem with the fan dialed up to somewhere around a dull roar (waterblock on the way, F that noise literally). I didn't want to dismantle it and move it into my other rig because the box it's in is the only one with a fast enough CPU to game on and debug. Has anyone else had issues getting their 290 or 290x to work in planetside 2? I have access to a 290 I could use to debug with possibly as well.

This system otherwise worked 100% totally fine before with my 7950, mining at 670KHs scrypt at 1100/1500 and gaming at 925/1250 for stability reasons but still generally running my game just fine, albeit with some frame tearing issues from inconsistent framerates in heavy combat situations (in game FPS indicator tells CPU vs GPU limitation and i'm mostly GPU limited when i stutter). When i ran 7950 xfire i never had these tearing issues from the massive performance boost, but the extra performance was excessive and i'd rather let it mine while i game on the 290x since it's also more economical than buying the extra radiator + waterblock's i'd need to continue to keep those 7950s stable. they already got cooked once just gaming in california summers (2 gigabyte windforce 7950s bought mid 2012 august) and needed an RMA even before I started mining.

I will test with various newer games and/or benchmarks to narrow down exactly what's wrong and see what does and doesnt run. Given fear 2 ran just fine without a hiccup i'm thinking I don't have the full story yet.

 

[el etro]

DDU: Display Driver Uninstaller.

http://www.guru3d.com/files_details/display_driver_uninstaller_download.html


You did something wrong.

 

[faxon]

DDU: Display Driver Uninstaller.

http://www.guru3d.com/files_details/display_driver_uninstaller_download.html


You did something wrong.

No you didn't read my OP. Also the version you linked is out of date, 12.5 was released this week and you linked me 12.4

......I used Display Driver Uninstaller in safe mode to uninstall using the version released on 3/11 every time i tried reinstalling between different driver versions.....

unless you are saying 12.5 has a bug and i should try 12.4 (i used 12.1 before updating to 12.5 so idk if it will make a difference), then I definitely followed the DDU instructions to the letter every single reinstall, like i always have since the app launched

 

[el etro]

Try in another machine. Is hard to achieve it, but it will tell if problem is your GPU or not.

 

[faxon]

tested in another machine with the same issue but it turned out my second box didnt have any games on it cause i forgot i only copied the OS to it and not the games partition. i have a friend updating their copy of the same game while i get my other box reconfigured back to its old stable mining state. if his is also crashing at least we know its the game, but if his works then i will test the card in his box and see if it has issues with any other games there. he has the most games (including BF4) installed and updated and already knows his 290 works with all of them. I'd test more games but i just don't have enough downloaded to work with right now or the time to invest installing tons of games when i can drop the card into a working box with them.

 

[Jodell88]

tested in another machine with the same issue but it turned out my second box didnt have any games on it cause i forgot i only copied the OS to it and not the games partition. i have a friend updating their copy of the same game while i get my other box reconfigured back to its old stable mining state. if his is also crashing at least we know its the game, but if his works then i will test the card in his box and see if it has issues with any other games there. he has the most games (including BF4) installed and updated and already knows his 290 works with all of them. I'd test more games but i just don't have enough downloaded to work with right now or the time to invest installing tons of games when i can drop the card into a working box with them.

I would just download the unigine heaven benchmark. It has directX9, 11 and OpenGL rendering engines so it should let you know what works.

 

[PG]

You didn't flash to a Stilt bios for mining did you?

 

[faxon]

nope, no bios mods. This rig is intended for gaming and general use and I will eat the hashes for stability's sake, i just cant turn down the 900+mhs once I get a water block for it that it adds to my farm. im gonna get unigine tonight and try that, Shmee's comp loaded PS2 just fine (though he has no idea how to play lol). It's looking like its the card. im going to his later to test my card in his rig to confirm for 100% sure but unigine is a goodidea.

 

[faxon]

yup, card's bad. putting in for a replacement with newegg today

 

[Kenmitch]

yup, card's bad. putting in for a replacement with newegg today

That sucks....Maybe you'll have better luck with the replacement card.

Might as well mine with it till your RMA goes thru

 

[faxon]

it instantly processed, was approved by a computer and all. I'm waiting on the return shipping label now, i'd mine on it but when i put it into another comp it'd BSOD whenever it got to installing that driver so i just canned it for now. figure im just stuck waiting =/

 

[FalseChristian]

It sucks getting a bad card but the replacement should work exceptionally well. This is my experience, anyhow.

 

[blake0812]

yup, card's bad. putting in for a replacement with newegg today

How can you tell it's bad?