Game freezes, PC crash etc

Hi,

So Im not really sure in which thread this belongs in, but since I just bought a R9 290 and started getting issues, I think this thread should do it.
First of all I'd like to say that I have upgraded from Win7 to Win8.1. Previously I had a GTX 560Ti, with which I had no problems what so ever. However, ever since I switched to the R9 290, I had been getting all sorts of issues.

- Random game freezes (I play a game, the game freezes for a second, then afterwards both my monitors go black for 3-4 seconds or so), THIS is how it looked the last time my game freezed (I had to restart my PC here).
- Black screens (only when playing games, there was one instance that I got a black screen just from browsing and not running any game what so ever)

I have multiple HDD's (6 actually) so at first I thought, hmmm maybe the disk is failing, so I transferred some of the games to another disk...aaaand the same thing happens , so I thought to myself, alright maybe this is disk is bad aswell and transferred games yet to another drive, but again the same thing happens. Then naturally I installed Hard Disk Sentinel and checked for any disk error, to which I found I had one 3TB seagate disk with bad sectors, so I moved those bad sectors (I did not run any games from that disk afterwards and I still get the same issue). And since that didnt helped me what so ever, I upgraded to Win8.1, thinking it would at least help with something... I did not.

So I noticed that maybe my PSU wasnt strong enough (12V per rail), it was enough for my 560Ti, but not for the R9 290 apparently, so I spent the last money I had on buying an XFX 750W something something PSU, this helped somewhat, in that I had waaaay less black screen happening, but never the less, they were still present. At this point I dont know what to do anymore, I updated my BIOS to the latest, clean installed AMD drivers, changed from win7 to win8.1 and bought a new PSU, and yet, here I am.

Oh and one more thing, no matter what in-game settings I change (low or ultra) I pretty much get the same FPS, and even if I set everything to low I cant get over 100 fps in any game I own (the only games I get over 100fps is Guild wars2 and Planetside2).

I have no idea what is causing this, I had my PC at a service shop and they reported no issues (they ran some benchmarks, but "nothing" happend) and at this point I'm thinking that it must me the GPU(or my CPU), I am almost certain of it. Im loosing my mind over this...

Here are the Event logs if this might help to find the source to this issue (There are a few warnings and errors, but its all pretty much useless information to me, as I dont know what half of it means):
https://mega.co.nz/#!GZYAhDAY!LAXLPOcQ-QzJV2Hnjtr1DnS_BGZaHqyDAbMZ6gsg3PA

My full PC specs:

- i5-2500 @ 3,3GHz
- R9 290 VTX3D
- 8GB 1600MHz HyperX
- Z68AP-D3
- XFX 750W
- 3x WD Green 1xWD Blue 1xSeagate 1xExternal Seagate

I hope someone can help me, this is too much for me. I cant spend another cent to fix this, Im broke as f**k.

Please and thank you,

BoltPow3r

P.S.

sorry for the long post. also when viewing the Event logs, please do ignore the unexpected errors, because that was me resetting my PC because if these issues.

Have you tried different drivers for the R9 290. When I first switched to 8.1 I had quite a few issues with drivers/OS/ games not getting along.

Did you do an upgraded install of Windows 8.1, or a fresh install? If not a fresh install, a reformat and re-install is what I would try first.

Johan45 said:

Have you tried different drivers for the R9 290. When I first switched to 8.1 I had quite a few issues with drivers/OS/ games not getting along.

Click to expand...

I did. I tried the 13.2 and the the 14.beta, omega

What are your temps like? The R9 290 puts out a lot of heat, if that card dumps it into the case instead of out the back that might be part of the problem. Play some game for a while with HWMonitor free open in the background it'll give all your system temps.

Heres what I need you to do.

Step 1) download display driver uninstaller.
http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html

go ahead and do that in windows, dont worry about safe mode.

Step 2) after you remove your drivers, turn your computer off, and turn your psu switch to off.

Step 3) make sure you have TWO rails powering your 290. (i.e. don't have one line powering both the 6 pin and 8 pin connectors. Every 290 comes with an adapter, but im pretty sure the xfx should come with 2 pcie rails)

step 4) start everything up, making sure it gets back into windows

step 5) right click your screen and click on "resolution". Make sure you have full range. click on "advanced settings"

in "adapter type" box, click on "properties", then click "driver". then click "update driver". From there, browse your computer and direct it to your AMD folder. It will now install the drivers without catalyst control center.


From there, I recomend getting MSI afterburner, and GPUz and monitor your stuff. Should be fine.

Johan45 said:

What are your temps like? The R9 290 puts out a lot of heat, if that card dumps it into the case instead of out the back that might be part of the problem. Play some game for a while with HWMonitor free open in the background it'll give all your system temps.

Click to expand...

Im pretty sure theres a problem with 290's and catalyst control center in 8.1. I've had to driver swap and finagle everything to get mine working smoothly.

bob4933 said:

step 5) right click your screen and click on "resolution". Make sure you have full range. click on "advanced settings"

in "adapter type" box, click on "properties", then click "driver". then click "update driver". From there, browse your computer and direct it to your AMD folder. It will now install the drivers without catalyst control center.

Click to expand...

Here's my problem. If I do this, it says I have the "best" driver software already installed.

bob4933 said:

Im pretty sure theres a problem with 290's and catalyst control center in 8.1. I've had to driver swap and finagle everything to get mine working smoothly.

Click to expand...

I agree Bob
@Boltpower
Do that after you have removed the old driver. Then the system will update the driver only and not install the CCC

Bolt Pow3r said:

Here's my problem. If I do this, it says I have the "best" driver software already installed.

Click to expand...

ok, do the driver thing as before (right click, properties, driver) then when you get to pick the driver, manually goto your "amd" folder (should still exist) and use that one. If it still says you have the best driver, then you didnt uninstall the previous one properly.

Nope, no AMD folders, the DDU deleted all. I think I may have selected the option to delete that folder completely

P.S.

Maybe I can extract the .exe and then install only drivers?

Bolt Pow3r said:

Nope, no AMD folders, the DDU deleted all. I think I may have selected the option to delete that folder completely

P.S.

Maybe I can extract the .exe and then install only drivers?

Click to expand...

Doesn't work liek that unfortunately.

Ok install the drivers again, then use DDU agian, but keep the folders. I should have specified that before, sorry. I haven't gotten it to work with the just the install file either, Im sure theres a way, i just haven't found it yet.

Its cool, 'be back in a jippy

- - - Updated - - -

Actually, If its about CCC, I can just not install it. (when installing the driver I can select custom instead of express and I can uncheck CCC)

Bolt Pow3r said:

Its cool, 'be back in a jippy

- - - Updated - - -

Actually, If its about CCC, I can just not install it. (when installing the driver I can select custom instead of express and I can uncheck CCC)

Click to expand...

Nope, doesn't work that way unfortunately, AMD will update CCC into your system.

edit: at least it does on mine... maybe intel setup may work differently, Im not positive. Give it a go?

Welp, I gave it a go aaand it worked. No CCC

Bolt Pow3r said:

Welp, I gave it a go aaand it worked. No CCC

Click to expand...

Well give it a bit.

Did you split hte rails on your PSU?

I have.

As of now, I cannot run planetside 2 "Game Error G25". Which is supposed to be due to low system specs...

"Your video card had trouble initializing and may not meet the minimum requirements to run Planetside "

Gonna restart my PC real quick and give it another go.

P.S.

restarted my PC and ran planetside 2. It started to load into the in-game menu and then it BSOD
BSOD: "DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE"

This has never happened before.

P.P.S
Noticed after the driver reinstall: Longer shutdown, quicker boot time...
no CCC yet.
Gonna try running planetside 2 again, if it crashes, I will reinstall drivers (this time with CCC) and go from there

Try doing the drivers manually. I had all the same issues you;'re having, that fixed it for me. G25 error's happen in planetside regardless of system. I really think AMD's install has an issue with 290's, I did EVERYTHING, but only installing it manually fixed my issues.

Okay this time everything works fine, well except the thing about FPS. no matter what I do, I cant get pass 100fps and I thought of buying a 144Hz monitor next year would be a great idea -.-"

I dunno man, I thought the r9 290 should do easily over 100fps in any game if all settings are set to low. Like my 560Ti could do 60FPS on high in almost any new game. 3gen old gpu. Surely there must be something more to this than meets the eye.

Also temps dont reach 75°C