Question RX580 random reboots

SgtSpoon

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Dec 25, 2007
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I just picked up a used Aorus RX580. The guy i bought it from demonstrated the card in his system, running 3DMark.

I came home and put it in my system, which is rather old:
Cpu: Intel i5-760
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-H55M-USB3
PSU: Corsair VX 550W PSU

The card has an 8-pin power connector. My psu has a 6-pin connector and a 6+2 pin connector. So i used the 6+2 pins ...

I was able to play some quake champions and the card seems to behave as expected. Running furmark also didnt seem to be a problem. But the system reboots quite often ...

The guy did seem quite trustworthy, and he did show the card running ...
I also mailed him and he is willing to take it back, but suggests it might be a PSU problem.

Unfortunately, i have no spare system lying to around to test it in ... any ideas?
 

VirtualLarry

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Aug 25, 2001
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Honestly? It sounds like a bad card, somehow.

It could still be a PSU or even mobo problem. Do you have a second PCI-E slot to test it in? Another PSU to swap in, of sufficient wattage and newer than your current one (and known working)?
 
Mar 11, 2004
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I'm wondering if this isn't related to the Polaris PCIe power spec issue (was that addressed beyond the driver?), where the mix of an older board and older power supply is causing issues. Couple that with the RX580 being pushed further and I think its probably just causing overloads due to power spikes (that aren't exactly related to load).

What OS are you on? A reason I ask that is that Windows 10 handles GPU/driver crashes decently (where it won't crash the system, it'll just reload the driver - which for AMD causes reset to default settings). On Windows 7 (and 8, and I think even earlier versions of Windows 10) it'd actually crash the system, so wonder if there might be some issue related to the driver. Did you do a driver cleaning before the new driver?

Maybe see if doing the driver fix for the PCIe issue (think its some "Power Efficiency" toggle in the tab next to WattMan, where there's stuff like Radeon Chill, Frame Rate Target Control, and then like AA/AF/Compute settings) helps. Maybe lower the voltages a bit (nothing too drastic, but 50mV reduction often seems like it'll allow you to keep same clocks, maybe just go for 25-30mV reduction).

Not sure if you could get the BIOS tweaked. I know some cards have dual BIOS options and things like that, and should mean that the card won't boot in high til the driver loads or otherwise spike.

Only other thing I could think of (and not sure it'd help or even be a good idea) would be if you could get an adapter that would take your two 6 pin power connectors and convert it to a single 8 pin.

Might be best just to return the card though since they're being accommodating. Chalk it up to incompatibility.
 
Mar 11, 2004
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Honestly? It sounds like a bad card, somehow.

It could still be a PSU or even mobo problem. Do you have a second PCI-E slot to test it in? Another PSU to swap in, of sufficient wattage and newer than your current one (and known working)?

Those would both be good options. Especially if you have other PCIe cards in. If you have a lot of hard drives and other accessories you might unplug some of them and see if it changes anything. Which, weren't there a lot of discussions about power supply rails for power supplies back then? Could be something related to that kind of thing.

If your CPU is overclocked you might check it, over time that can actually cause stability issues with boards especially after years.
 
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SgtSpoon

Member
Dec 25, 2007
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Honestly? It sounds like a bad card, somehow.

I did see it work on his machine. Also, since he is willing to take it back, i think he is honest.

It could still be a PSU or even mobo problem. Do you have a second PCI-E slot to test it in? Another PSU to swap in, of sufficient wattage and newer than your current one (and known working)?

Ordered Corsair RM650X yesterday to give it a try. I will be upgrading the rest of the system soon, so i do have use for a new PSU.

Second PCI-E port: yes, but is has only a fraction of the PCI-E lanes.

I'm wondering if this isn't related to the Polaris PCIe power spec issue (was that addressed beyond the driver?), where the mix of an older board and older power supply is causing issues. Couple that with the RX580 being pushed further and I think its probably just causing overloads due to power spikes (that aren't exactly related to load).

Sounds very interesting. Now that i think of it: it usually seems to happen shortly after the fans stop (this card is able to stop its 2 fans completely when idle). Stopping 2 fans might cause a power spike.

What OS are you on? A reason I ask that is that Windows 10 handles GPU/driver crashes decently (where it won't crash the system, it'll just reload the driver - which for AMD causes reset to default settings). On Windows 7 (and 8, and I think even earlier versions of Windows 10) it'd actually crash the system, so wonder if there might be some issue related to the driver. Did you do a driver cleaning before the new driver?

I am using Windows10, and i did clean the drivers using that utility.

Maybe see if doing the driver fix for the PCIe issue (think its some "Power Efficiency" toggle in the tab next to WattMan, where there's stuff like Radeon Chill, Frame Rate Target Control, and then like AA/AF/Compute settings) helps. Maybe lower the voltages a bit (nothing too drastic, but 50mV reduction often seems like it'll allow you to keep same clocks, maybe just go for 25-30mV reduction).

Not sure if you could get the BIOS tweaked. I know some cards have dual BIOS options and things like that, and should mean that the card won't boot in high til the driver loads or otherwise spike.

Sounds very interesting, but i have no idea what WattMan is. I will see if i can find some more info about this fix you are talking about.

And where can i lower the voltages? I havent been able to play around with the software much since it is so eager to just shut down.

Might be best just to return the card though since they're being accommodating. Chalk it up to incompatibility.

The new PSU will arrive on monday. If it does not behave i will indeed bring it back.

Those would both be good options. Especially if you have other PCIe cards in. If you have a lot of hard drives and other accessories you might unplug some of them and see if it changes anything. Which, weren't there a lot of discussions about power supply rails for power supplies back then? Could be something related to that kind of thing.

If your CPU is overclocked you might check it, over time that can actually cause stability issues with boards especially after years.

I unplugged everything that is not needed, and the cpu is running at stock speeds.
 

UsandThem

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May 4, 2000
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Sometimes newer video cards don't always play nice in older motherboards. It's not really a common problem per se, but I've seen it a few times over the years here.

So if the new PSU doesn't fix the problem, that could be your issue.
 

Shmee

Memory & Storage, Graphics Cards Mod Elite Member
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Sep 13, 2008
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I am leaning towards PSU or motherboard being the culprit. You could try updating the bios to the latest, if not already done. That could help with compatibility issues.
 

SgtSpoon

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Dec 25, 2007
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The screenshot is in dutch but ...

Bus type: PCI 3
Current BUS type: PCI 2

Maybe there is backwards compatibility, but i wonder how much testing these things get. I did find my specific motherboard in a "supported deviced" list though.
 

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Mar 11, 2004
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I did see it work on his machine. Also, since he is willing to take it back, i think he is honest.



Ordered Corsair RM650X yesterday to give it a try. I will be upgrading the rest of the system soon, so i do have use for a new PSU.

Second PCI-E port: yes, but is has only a fraction of the PCI-E lanes.



Sounds very interesting. Now that i think of it: it usually seems to happen shortly after the fans stop (this card is able to stop its 2 fans completely when idle). Stopping 2 fans might cause a power spike.



I am using Windows10, and i did clean the drivers using that utility.



Sounds very interesting, but i have no idea what WattMan is. I will see if i can find some more info about this fix you are talking about.

And where can i lower the voltages? I havent been able to play around with the software much since it is so eager to just shut down.



The new PSU will arrive on monday. If it does not behave i will indeed bring it back.



I unplugged everything that is not needed, and the cpu is running at stock speeds.

Yeah I think its just some fairly fluke compatibility. Hopefully maybe the power supply will fix the issue.

I've noticed AMD cards can also have an idle issue. I've seen some where it caused instability at like the lowest P-state. Its odd (as I seem to recall seeing people have it where they had like the lowest 3 P-states at the lowest voltage setting, but its only at the lowest idle P-state that it causes issues, where the higher ones at higher clocks can operate at that low voltage but the lowest P-state sometimes has stability issues). But that I think was just causing the driver to crash and not system reboots. On my RX 480 I had system reboots from some voltage issue (I don't think it was idle, but rather that I'd have video playing for extended periods of time and occasional power spikes would cause it to crash) which on early versions of Windows 10 would cause the computer to reset, but later on it just caused the driver to crash (and Windows was capable of just resetting it). With a bit of tweaking it hasn't happened since. I too am on an older system (but also have a power hungry CPU, and have a lower spec power supply - its a quality unit that is capable of handling my computer's load, but its only like a 450W Antec).

Its possible that its dropping to some idle state that is reducing power (and causing a fluctuation or ripple in the power delivery). Or a spike as its leaving idle state or something.

Ok, was hoping that was the case as it helps some. But figure its worth asking to be sure.

WattMan is AMD's power adjustment feature. Right Click, then click AMD Radeon Settings to load the control center. Then under Gaming tab, the first box should say "Global Settings". Click that and it'll bring up three tabs "Global Graphics" (where you can adjust stuff like Anti-Aliasing, Anistropic Filtering, Tessellation, and several other settings), Global WattMan (which has all the power, clock speed, and fan options), and then Performance Monitoring (which lets you adjust the performance monitoring aspect, where it'll keep tabs of your performance as you game and things like that, telling you GPU load, clock speeds, framerates, and other similar).

In Global Graphics there's 3 settings that you might make note of. Radeo Chill (which just pushes the GPU into lower p-states and/or idle) to try and use less power when the game doesn't need it. Then there is Power Efficiency, which I believe was the setting originally intended to address the early Polaris PCIe compatibility issue (where it'd draw more power through the PCIe port than the spec called for, and caused crashes and things on older systems). It basically clocks the GPU lower to do so though, meaning you give up a bit of performance. I think its still more or less does that but I don't know that it is as necessary as it used to be and not sure if the later Polaris stuff had the problem or not. I personally turn that off but it might be worth trying and seeing if it resolves your issue. I believe some have reported that Radeon Chill would cause stuttering for them in games (some I think said the same for Power Efficiency too), and I did a bit so I leave it off. I do turn on Frame Rate Target Control (which just means that if the GPU is pushing framerates beyond what you have that set at that it'll throttle back; I set mine to my monitor's refresh rate of 60; haven't noticed any adverse affects from).

In WattMan you can adjust quite a few settings. Most people can lower the voltage settings by a bit (and suffer no problems, AMD is aggressive on their voltage settings, which just causes their stuff to consume more power than necessary, reducing them can even actually improve performance some if you're getting thermal throttling, since it'll be running a bit cooler it might can sustain higher p-state clock speeds more). There's guides that can do a better job of explaining all that better. For me, I just adjusted the voltage down a bit (I think around 75mV in most cases, but its best to start smaller with 25, and then maybe try 50; some people have been able to do bigger adjustments like 100mV or more). You can adjust the fan settings as well. Which I think on cards that support it there should be a toggle for letting the fans stop so you might check that and keep yours from spinning down and see if that matters. Some companies I think have their own utility to accomplish some of the same stuff (fan speeds, clock speeds, power monitoring).

My P-state settings (on an RX 480) are:
1: 610MHz with 818 mV
2: 800/800mV
3: 900/825mV
4: 1000/850mV
5: 1100/950mV
6: 1200/1025mV
7: 1275/1075mV

I didn't test mine extensively so its possible I could've dropped them more or gotten higher clock speeds at the same voltage. But they work for me. The idle one I put slightly above 800 just to be sure on the idle issue I'd mentioned. And at the higher states I pushed voltages up more just to be safe. I think the default voltage for 7 was 1150 for me, and I dropped the clock speed a bit (default is 1290, but I think I saw some instability at 1290/1075, and I value the lower voltage more than the extra 15MHz). My card is a refernce blower card and it gets noisy and I can tell the extra heat in the room even when it was mostly idle at stock speeds. The RX 580 I think was slightly different, plus with your card you won't have the same concerns since you have better cooling, so I'd recommend googling your card WattMan settings and see what others might recommend. Oh and you can also save your power settings (under the tabs there's options for saving profile, loading profile, etc). So you could save your profile so you don't have to remember the settings and adjust them every time. I think you might have to adjust the Global Graphics settings though as I'm not sure if those are saved in the profile or not.
 
Mar 11, 2004
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Sometimes newer video cards don't always play nice in older motherboards. It's not really a common problem per se, but I've seen it a few times over the years here.

So if the new PSU doesn't fix the problem, that could be your issue.

Yeah sometimes its just like there's some odd incompatibility that prevents things from working properly. And with Polaris having the PCIe spec issue, I think it likely increases the likelihood of issues cropping up.

I remember some boards also run PCIe bus slightly out of spec and it causing issues (where it was like 1MHz above the spec), and over time some boards get a bit sloppier in the power handling (don't think anything dangerous, but just enough that it can trigger some issues).
 

SgtSpoon

Member
Dec 25, 2007
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Corsair RM650X to the rescue. No reboots yet. With the previous PSU i couldnt have even typed this message.

Heaven benchmark succeeded with a score of 2500. Probably did not break a record with that, but nice to see that a 10-year old cpu can still run games with a decent gpu. Quake Champions for instance runs great.

Anyways, thanx for being an excellent rubber duck ;)

I wonder what the conclusion is now. If i put the old PSU and GPU back in, the system runs rock solid. So the old PSU isnt really broken. It just seems incapable of feeding the RX580 with enough juice, although it is a quality PSU (Corsair VX550).
 

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Guru

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PSU's degrade over time, so it's no wonder that it was causing problems. It was probably able to run at 400W max and likely your system was spiking often more than that and causing a restart(windows usually restarts to prevent hardware damage) or shut down.

And an RX 580 can draw upwards of 200W out of the box, overclocked up to 240w.
 

VirtualLarry

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Aug 25, 2001
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Yeah, this is one of the reasons why I tell people to REPLACE their PSUs after FIVE YEARS, even if they "haven't had problems". (*Unless it has Japanese / Solid caps, and/or a 7/10/12-year warranty.)
 
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Adomas

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Dec 22, 2020
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SgtSpoon I have the same issues with RX580. PC randomly reboots. I also have VX550W PSU. More than year passed, so wanted to double check with you - after you changed PSU to Corsair RM650X, does it solved your problems completely or you still had some reboot problems during that time? Thank you.