Powercolor 7990 - Freezing Games

Silentium · Sep 28, 2013

Recently purchased the Powercolor Radeon 7990, everything seems to be working fine except when I try playing a game. I've tried a few demanding games, and after about 5 minutes in, my whole computer just freezes (can't open task manager or anything). However, I still hear my friends talking in Teamspeak and they can still hear me.

Specs:
Motherboard: MSI ZH77A G43
GPU: Powercolor Radeon 7990
PSU: Rosewill Xtreme Series RX850-S-B 850W
CPU: Intel i3-2120
RAM: (I forget the exact details, all I know is that it's 8GB)
Running on latest stable Catalyst driver.

neo668 · Sep 28, 2013

Sounds like a heat problem. The 7990 runs very hot because of its twin gpu. You'll need to think about how to cool the inside of your sysytem, and especially the 7990. You can check with HWMonitor or GPU-Z.

Scout · Sep 28, 2013

Wouldn't you be bottle necked pretty severely with an i3 and a 7990 ?

Silentium · Oct 3, 2013

I don't think it's a heat problem, the GPU stays warm at the most.

Would a bottleneck cause it to crash games? But yeah, it's a severe bottleneck

wingman99 · Oct 3, 2013

No a bottle neck wont cause a game crash.

Supertrucker · Oct 3, 2013

Warm at the most isn't a reading from hw monitor or gpu-z. You need to check the core temps and the vrm temps, either one overheating could cause the card/driver to crash.

what you are describing sounds like what happens when the driver crashes and recovers in windows. That only happens to me if I push my cards too far on an overclock or when I let them get to hot back when they were air cooled.

Silentium · Oct 3, 2013

I've got 2 friends that know about computers, they say it's a severe bottleneck.
I'm going to check out the core temps and will post back once I get results.

Silentium · Oct 3, 2013

I had GPU-Z opened up on my second monitor while I loaded up a game, however I didn't even get into a match. For some reason my fans started to spin up quickly when I loaded GPU-Z, as if it was putting a load onto the 7990...

Results:

neo668 · Oct 3, 2013

Your pic shows a GPU Load of 14%, which means it is at idle and your game hasn't started yet. The corresponding temp at idle is 39.2C. If you start a "demanding" game the Load should show at least around 60% - 80% with a corresponding increase in temp.

Try playing a game and see what the temp is when your computer freezes.

Silentium · Oct 3, 2013

Actually got into a match, the game I was playing was Hawken (a mech game, quite demanding). This is the info. I got when it froze.

neo668 · Oct 3, 2013

I'm just trying to help and say what I think. But I believe there's something wrong with your GPU sensor.

My 6850 on my home server shows 53C even when the Load is only 1%. Your 7990 is showing just 46C at 52% Load. Your 7990 is definitely hotter than a 6850.

Silentium · Oct 3, 2013

Most likely due to the fact that I was in a game for about 10 seconds (no exaggeration) before being frozen, temperature takes time and I didn't really have that much time.

Silentium · Oct 3, 2013

I just want to get to the bottom of why it is freezing, so can anyone post possibilities?

neo668 · Oct 3, 2013

The snapshot I took above was right after I started HWMonitor and CPU-Z.

I've considered getting the 7990 but judging from reviews I've read and talking to computer shops I am of the opinion that the 7990 has heat problems.

Just my 2 cents and I may be totally wrong.

orion456 · Oct 3, 2013

Underclock the card and see if it still crashes. If so, it might be the PSU not supplying proper power.

Could also be system memory that is faulty. Trying using only one stick and swapping them out if the crash happens.

Silentium · Oct 4, 2013

Underclocked the card to 800 MHz (core clock) and 1050 MHz (memory clock) and it's working perfectly fine (other than crappy FPS) on BF4 Beta on High.
Edit: Working at 850 MHz Core Clock and 1250 MHz Memory Clock, that's pretty much normal. I really don't know what the problem was before...

Does this mean that it's a CPU problem?

Supertrucker · Oct 4, 2013

Stock core on a 7990 is 950/1000 boost. If its stable at 850 core you have a power issue or an unstable card that needs an rma.

Silentium · Oct 4, 2013

Supertrucker said:
Stock core on a 7990 is 950/1000 boost. If its stable at 850 core you have a power issue or an unstable card that needs an rma.

Going to try 900 now.
Edit: maintaining quite good temperature and fan speeds at 900, going for 950.
Edit #2: Going good on 950, and that's OCing it by a bit. I have no idea why it didn't work before...

Silentium · Oct 4, 2013

Nevermind, for some reason, Battlefield 4 is the only game that it works on.

Silentium · Oct 4, 2013

Okay, I underclocked on the game that was it was freezing on and it didn't freeze.
These are some results I got mid-game.
You can't see it but the GPU Memory usage was at Min: 196 and Max: 3047.

So, uh, what's the problem?

Powercolor 7990 - Freezing Games

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