Gamers are ditching Radeon graphics cards over driver issues

Irata said:
And really, if you have a "boxfull" of AMD based cards that pretty much all failed miserably but somehow you could not quit buying them...not sure what to say without coming across as rude.
Click to expand...

Let me help you there. Only *****s attempt to sell PC's with components they haven't tested, investigated and evaluated to death. I understand there are companies configuring PC's with "any old hardware that fits" , however I am not.

Maybe you can take a course on nuance, clearly I have been talking about AMD's dumba** driver issues. It works like this; card A, B, and C, do not work properly IN ANY COMPUTER with AMD drivers, BUT card, D and E operate well IN ANY COMPUTER using AMD drivers. My job ends where the supplied, required software faults, products that don't work get binned. If AMD wants to hire us for debugging their "Video_Scheduler_Internal_Error" the charge is only $1800 an hour.
Get the picture?

I could throw them back at the vendor, it's just a bad move to p*** off companies I need products from, and it's not really their problem..
 
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CharmsD said:
Let me help you there. Only *****s attempt to sell PC's with components they haven't tested, investigated and evaluated to death. I understand there are companies configuring PC's with "any old hardware that fits" , however I am not.

Maybe you can take a course on nuance, clearly I have been talking about AMD's dumba** driver issues. It works like this; card A, B, and C, do not work properly IN ANY COMPUTER with AMD drivers, BUT card, D and E operate well IN ANY COMPUTER using AMD drivers. My job ends where the supplied, required software faults, products that don't work get binned. If AMD wants to hire us for debugging their "Video_Scheduler_Internal_Error" the charge is only $1800 an hour.
Get the picture?

I could throw them back at the vendor, it's just a bad move to p*** off companies I need products from, and it's not really their problem..
Click to expand...
Thanks for clarifying this. I thought you had bought them for your own use.

Glad to see you‘re not doing an Asus and actually testing components before selling them
 
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I have a pretty large userbase of people who ask me to solve pc problems
Most of the problems are wrong choices made between hardware.
Many of them buy a new Gpu and put it on a old motherboard and start complaining that it does not work.
I actually had people trying to force a different socket Cpu onto an old motherboard.
But yes of course both have issues from time to time, often (more likely) ones which are not even their fault at all. Windows 10 is often the cause of problems because M$ puts their Xbox stuff standard as enabled which gives massive issues with nvidia its toys (experience crap)
So lets be honest it is true that both still have a large userbase having problems.
But I am pretty sure this outcome is fake, the nvidia fanboys for very far in making this kinda news allways favor their favorite brand.
I actually see in my userbase a much more realistic difference, AMD 31% and nvidia 23% and from those having issues alot of them are problems caused by crappy hardware or software related failures.
Hell even the antivirus products are often the cause of massive problems.
When I visit one of the people in need the first thing I try too is kill their AV products to see if that solves the problem.
Anyway I do not believe that an open voting gives serious numbers, even though some people are really legit I think its not something usefull for true numbers.
I actually know some of my friends are such *****s to vote with open vpn servers many user accounts and do favor one or the other. In my userbase I have 67% users who favor nvidia in both cpu and gpu choice.
The fact remains is that people make a non educated choice to buy a new product without properly investigating if it really would work well in their systems.
And lets be honest everytime when one or the other comes with new tech we see a shitstorm of problems appear at least the first months after the broad availability each time.
When people would wait longer to see if issues get ironed out we would see a much more relaxed situation.
I often get to test a product from these people to see if it runs well and constant have to remind them that my machine has a total different price tag than the ( often crappy) machine they are trying to use with a new product.
I actually have not upgraded yet at all because my current machine still scores pretty high in overall performance and can run all titles darn well.
But I admit I constant delayed to buy a new gpu or cpu because of insane high prices or not giving me enough extra power to make it worth the switch.
I am constant eyeballing at AMD its big core count machines but have not decided if its worth spending the money on it. The main reason is I have not seen any games which I want to buy what actually can benefit from a newer product that much.
All are on the train for more cores but actually most games still do not use much more than 6 cores so the claim that 4 core cpu are beginning to become absolute is also largely not true.
Only with the newest crappy titles some will use more than 4 and only a few do give a load result on more cores, but if you see how much it also shows its not worth to have more than 8 cores (so a 4 core with ht running 8 threads will do pretty well)
The only thing where the more core monsters start to shine is in the production software audio, graphics and development there we constant see massive improvements and for those these are very good times to get something more powerfull.
For the rest of the planet if you love bragging you might upgrade and can brag alot but normal users will not see much improvement for real.
Sure it will be a little faster in the fake synthetic benchmarks but realtime you hardly notice the difference in most cases. Unless you really had an inferior product before or a very old product.
Fact is these pumped up numbers are often not really noticable at all for most users.
 
hcgazoo said:
It's endlessly frustrating to see AMD doing such a good job pressuring Intel on the processor side with Ryzen yet be so woefully incompetent pressuring Nvidia when it comes to GPU'S and largely due to the drivers.

I have been running an old PC I built years ago and I'm currently in the process of deciding what parts to buy for a new rig that is badly overdue. I likely will be using a Ryzen 5 3600 and while I'd like to use a 5600XT or 5700 I can't see a way to do it with risking endless frustration. Honestly how they can let someone mismanage this situation so badly and remain employed is beyond my comprehension.
Click to expand...

I see much complaining only posts and funny enough all own a nvidia presuming to have bought a AMD gpu and not even tried to wait for a solution, but in great haste returned the product.
Exactly what I see with my problem fixing by those who ask me to see if I can solve their crap.
In almost every case they hardly done any research if the part they bought would be a wise step to do, no way Jose they ran to a store or ordered it at a online store put it their machine and hope for the best.
Do I have to remind the people out here the blow up nvidia 560 - 580 series ....
Nobody talks about it anymore and simply forgotten nvidia has had plenty of issues as well, but then I hardly see people complaining about the driver issues, nor do they send the card back so hastly.
Its typical this kinda people filling almost every it tech related forum reaction.
AMD bla bla crap and fail and not working, its downright BS AMD has proper cards on the market and many cards became hyped to the moon by online reviewers before the card was even released .... GUESS WHO PAYS THESE PEOPLE...... You do not believe me look at the items surrounding these people yes indeed all nvidia boxes and cards YES. but ofcourse those are trusted people who travel almost every month to china because they do not get paid for their reviews ,,,, Those who believe them should get their heads checked out. AMD has admitted that this series suffers from a flaw in the RDNA design but again most issues are caused by people ramming it into an old motherboard and do not even clean thier system properly before putting the proper drivers on a system.
Hell I've had thousands of issues with nvidia its crap drivers as well, do you hear me complain nooo, I simply find an older driver which works ok and wait till the maker releases a better version.
Its amazing that people love to blab only about AMD issues and do not want to hear about all the issues with other brands have or that in most cases the issues are caused by flawed drivers from other products.
I constant have issues with the audio drivers and even now the so called IRQ sharing is still not flawless.
Even my pretty new system is constant putting 3 major devices and 1 IRQ guess what happens, yes indeed it crashes many times. It costs me often hours to solve these ***** issues which should not happen, but guess what making good drivers seems a pretty difficult task for almost every company on the planet. Hell even Intel its drivers are flawed sometimes, but they do their best to fix it as fast as they can if many people complain.
 
I'd still like to see Nvidia manage two product lines at once and have well performing products in both. Nvidia can focus all of their attention on GPU's so they're obviously going to have an advantage, AMD simply doesn't have the manpower to take on both CPU and GPU markets without some disadvantages and its been software that's lacking. At least AMD can claim to be victorious over Intel and maybe then they can try to expand and better recruit new people into their software wing. I for one would love to work there, but I've yet to graduate and earn a degree. Hopefully more people will see the hole that exists there that AMD will probably be desperate to hire for. For 2018 figures, AMD has just over 10000 employees, Nvidia has ~13300, and Intel has ~107000. So before you dog on AMD, remember who's hogging the minds, and remember that years of being the king is the only thing that kept Intel with enough money to hire so many, AMD will grow and they will know what they need to fix.
 
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Irata said:
Thanks for clarifying this. I thought you had bought them for your own use.
Glad to see you‘re not doing an Asus and actually testing components before selling them
Click to expand...

I wish I were in Asus business, motherboards were about 18 billion - last year I think. That's big, my shop is assembly with all the pertinent pre and post ops thrown in. I have to warranty everything I sell as new, it would eventually cost more to sell unproven components.
 
1) Get a quality case. 2) Get a quality motherboard. 3) Get a quality power supply. You don't know those are? 1) Get you an updated copy of Scott Mueller's Upgrading and Repairing PC's. https://www.amazon.com/Upgrading-Repairing-22nd-Scott-Mueller/dp/0789756102 2) Research brands and reviews. You don't won't to go in all willy-nilly just throwing parts together. Take your time in the research and focus on quality long-term parts. Research all the time, even when you don't have the money or are intending to to do a build in the near-term. Keeping tabs on the industry, planning mock builds all the time. It'll make your life a whole lot easier, when you finally settle on one that can reasonably happen. You've already been doing the footwork and knowing where to go. To be an enthusiast, you almost kind of have to be a tech as well. Nearly good enough to get paid for it. I do confess that I have gone without paying any attention to the industry at times. But when I'm ready to do a build, I will spend months researching and planning before I make my first purchase. Power requirements and cooling issues are by far your top concerns. You have to stay within those limits as you add on or you're just going to have a bad time.
 
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So I thought people were talking about hardware acc etc with the "black screen bug"... I've made radeon settings(wattman) crash ocing more times then probably 99% of the people out there on navi. When radeon settings(wattman) fails.... That is exactly what happens. A simple test is to hit your capslock button to see if it lights up. If it wont light up you are going to have to restart your comp.

Upon completely removing files n folders associated with radeon settings(wattman). I have for the 2nd time since ownership, elminated black screen reboots. Even with extreme overclocking. Instead of radeon settings(wattman) bugging out. The program such as a game or benchmark will give me an error. I won't have to restart my computer.

I really thought this is something reviewers would remember from initially ocing the 5700 series. To be fair I can't say radeon settings(wattman) is the only reason people are bugging out. But, that's my guess. And I know it to be true ocing.

Maybe someone else can try this out, to see if it helps whatever issues your having with Navi. A user on another forum suggested this. And to make it clear, it works ocing.

"program files]\AMD\CNext and delete everything.

open up task manager and shut things down and delete them

It's pretty hacky, but it works

you do need aticlxx, but that's all.

No graphics settings once you do this."
 
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CharmsD said:
I wish I were in Asus business, motherboards were about 18 billion - last year I think. That's big, my shop is assembly with all the pertinent pre and post ops thrown in. I have to warranty everything I sell as new, it would eventually cost more to sell unproven components.
Click to expand...

I am not really a fan of any of the 3 big brands, but they have won they killed any and all competition.
At least in europe there are only the 3 brands (asrock is from asus) left
Others do not even try to sell their products here.
So no real competition at all and that shows.
I had to do with these inferior products, most other brands are primarily making server and workstations boards hardly any of these do well for gaming and are lacking enough toys current demanding users want on the motherboards.
 
I bought an MSI 5700 XT Gaming X 8GB just before Christmas 2019. The card was beautifully built and packed. Really great quality, very silent and with an excellent heatink.

CRASHING
I installed it with "Adrenalin 2020 Edition 19.12.3 Optional" and experienced the blackscreen problems within the first minute or two of jumping into a game in Battlefield 3 or 4. It was DirectX crashing. I was very consistent. The case was an NZXT H210. With the clean modular cabling of the tiny SFX Corsair SF450 PSU, and with the case's PSU shroud removed (drilling out the rivets holding to the chassis), there was plenty of space to fit the massive 2+ slot MSI GPU.

SUSPECTED
The ambient temperature was about 30 degC, a typical Brisbane late afternoon and evening. The case was spacious enough and uncluttered but I suspected two things:
- the case didn't have enough airflow. It only had a 120mm NZXT intake at front and a 120mm NZXT exhaust at rear
- the fan curve in the driver was too conservative

WORKAROUND
I did three things:
- took the side panel off and faced it upward towards the ceiling
- placed a large desk fan over the open side and cranked it to full
- used MSI Afterburner to drive the GPU fans to 100%

With this workaround I was able to game for a good hour before I got a black screen crash to desktop. I didn't have much confidence in a driver dance but a friend said lets try it. He also had air conditioning. So I took the PC to his place.

FIX
After confirming that the PC still crashed in a cooler ambient temperature of around 24 degC with the GPU fans pinned at 100% we did two things:
- removed the side cover and placed the case with that open side facing upward
- dropped the drivers back down to "Adrenalin 2019 Edition 19.10.1 Optional (WHQL)"

These drivers were Windows Certified and immediately we noticed that the fan curve was significantly more aggressive that with the 2020 Adrenalin software. But that was still not loud on the MSI because it is a sweet HSF build.

Didn't experience a single crash. Not after hours of BF4.

LONGER TERM
I wanted to improve the airflow so I did two things:
- moved the NZXT 120mm fan from the front to the top rear so both NZXT fans were exhausting out the back
- added two Noctua NF-A14 PWM (140mm) to the front pushing air into the case

Now the MSI could breath properly and even with the ambient temperature exceeding 30 degC the PC was rock solid in games. Thank you WHQL level drivers!

AIRFLOW
After adding the Noctua fans I planned to replace the stock cooler that came with the Ryzen 3600. I considered a Noctua D15 level setup to drive the air into the exhaust fans and minimise heatsoak from the motherboard and components. But that was the enthusiast in me wanting to play with hardware.

I even considered covering the back of the GPU backplate with the highest performing heatsinks I could find, to draw heat away from the back of the card. There is a lot of heatsoak there and I think it is worth mitigating that. But the card was totally stable sitting at about 73 degC even in a hot ambient temperature so I was stoaked!

The NF-A14 PWM fans are a great fan to use where you need good static pressure to push higher volumes of air through the case. The NZXT fans are good as exhaust because they flow well, with the Noctua static pressure fans doing all the work.
 
Last edited:
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I'm using PowerColor Red Devil RX 480 on current system and haven't had any issues...
...and that was until I installed AMD 2020 Adrenalin drivers, I installed them and black screens
with short sound TRRRRRRRR and freezing with black screen followed.

At first I didn't know what was causing it. Then I read on some forums and ppl started sugesting to change Graphics profile (which "Adrenalin 2020" set's by default to Gaming or E-Sports) and that's where the problem is.

They force the "Radeon Enhanced Sync" to ON, and that was the culprit of my problem. I disabled
it by changing to Custom profile and never had issues with alt+tab and that issue with short
TRRRRRRR sound and black screen again.

I too have been on Radeon cards since long time, my first being Ati Radeon 7000 VE, then
Radeon 9000 Pro then 9800 Pro etc. till I got this RX480 and I'm planing on getting
either 5700XT or something newer when new navi hits the market.

Still sticking with the Red Team... they will fix this, though I never had issues with
Radeon cards and I never used DDU to remove drivers, the only issues I had was this
switch from 2019 to 2020 Adrenalin that was caused by that Radeon Enhanced Sync... that
translates to Black Screen issue for me with sound still audible but no image. All good
when I switch to Custom Profile and put Enhanced sync on Disabled.

Good Luck I hope I helped somebody.
 
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Awesome tip, it will help me solve problems with friends having similar problems.
Thank you for posting this :)
I want to add that there are much more people not having issues with the amd cards, the fact that it gets blown up is that only those having issues seek the media.
In our case only 4 out of 984 owners do have a problem with their AMD card
So that makes clear its not hitting everyone at all.
However some had just removed the latest driver and went back to 2019 versions and the issue was solved. Lets be clear if their is no need to upgrade you simply can skip the newer versions. In most cases these newer drivers are just working for another brand and not helping you at all.
I do not know why people believe that newer drivers are better, because history has shown me that this is often not the case.
So if you do not see certain improvements in the list for your games or card, simply skip it.
My rule to stay at least 2 versions away from the newest to weed out the bad ones, has this far worked like a charm.
For instance my laptop gets every month the warning to install the latest driver, but it can not even run with them so if I try to install the 20.xxxxx versions it simply restarts and then whines its the wrong driver and the system reinstalls the 12 year old versions again. However the whining for new drivers happens everytime a new driver is released. Even though it can not run on the old hardware or has no improvements at all
 
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MaxSmarties said:
Fast forward to July and ... I’m still having driver issues and black screens with my 5700xt.
Click to expand...
Chances are you are young and dont know how to return a defective product for a working one.

Any of your friends having the same issue..? Anyone here having the same issue..? Anyone on reddit having g black screens..?

black screens...?
 
When driver crashes, there is a black screen until driver is reloaded. Driver will crash due to various reasons, but, on 5700xt (some models like thicc) VRM will overheat and driver will crash.
 
Ludak021 said:
When driver crashes, there is a black screen until driver is reloaded. Driver will crash due to various reasons, but, on 5700xt (some models like thicc) VRM will overheat and driver will crash.
Click to expand...
That’s exactly the issue that I had and literally hundreds of thousands of people on reddit are complaining about. Meanwhile AMD appear to be ignoring the community.

Just ditch your Radeon mate, I did and I’ve not looked back. AMD deserve to lose heavy market share over this. Maybe then they might do something about it ?.
 
Yea, but, buy the cheapest 2080ti and it will have excellent cooling no matter the brand. Buy 5700xt (the best AMD has and it's not cheap at all) and you can get trash. That's a problem. Personally, I avoid them. THICC 5700XT is not cheap, it's one of the more expensive ones.

People should just RMA all that trash until retailers stop getting trash, and then, maybe then, AIBs will stop making trash when all they get is loss.
 
Now it is, when everyone knows it's trash, last year when the first edition came out it wasn't the cheapest. It's besides the point. For ~$500 it shouldn't have been trash in the first place.
 
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