Does anyone still get the AMD 7xxx bug where your monitor doesn't wake up from sleep?

[Zorander]

Just saw this thread.

I have a HD7950 connected to a Dell 3011 via a dual-link DVI cable. The bug occurs for me at times (approx. 30-40% of the time). The only way I can get it out of sleep is to power down the PC via power button and switching it back on. I usually keep to the latest Catalyst version.

 

[VirtualLarry]

It's either your Windows, your unstable overclock, poor electrical delivery (PSU / outlet) or faulty cards. I've been running DC work since HD4890 (August 2009) and in 5 years despite overclocked NV/AMD cards doing DC, I haven't had 1 blue screen with any of the driver versions when doing DC work. My system pretty much ran DC 24/7 when not gaming, other than electrical timeouts due to power outages.

The rig is completely stock, no OC. PSU is an Enermax NAXN 350W. I suppose it's possible it's faulty (less than one year old). I'm going to try swapping my practically-new EarthWatts 500W in there.

As far as the monitor not waking from sleep mode, the number of complaints out there seem to suggest the problem is too widespread to be individually-defective cards. (Unless the majority of cards that AMD and their partners churn out are defective.)

I have to ask, what OS were you running? Was it 8 or 8.1? Or 7?

My problems have all been with 8 or 8.1.

My OS install is factory stock, except for installing Waterfox 32.0, CyberPower PowerPanel Personal Edition (UPS software), newest GPU-Z, AMD Cat 14.9 WHQL, ImgBurn, and the newest drivers off of Rosewill's site for my AC1200UBE USB3.0 AC1200 wifi adapter.

Edit: I just swapped PSUs, put in the EarthWatts, booted Win8.1, fired up BOINC, allowed new tasks for Einstein@Home (GPU) and PrimeGrid (CPU), fired up my web browser and internet radio. Guess what? Screen blinks out - AMD driver recovery.

So it's either a crap AMD card, or their crap AMD drivers. Again, nothing is overclocked, this is not a factory OC card that I know of.

Either way, AMD is crap.

Edit: After the display recovery, some of my Waterfox icons in the UI were missing. Had to restart the browser to get them back.

Edit: I left my Lenovo i3-3240 w/7790 1GB GDDR5 doing BOINC, to run out the WUs (Einstein@Home on GPU, PrimeGrid on CPU). Also left my browser open and the internet radio playing.

I went to that PC today, and tried to wake it up. This time, I waited until the monitor booted (it takes some time to power-on for some reason - maybe because it's an HDTV), and then when it said "no signal", I moved the mouse. I got a black screen, BUT HEARD HDMI AUDIO. For a few seconds, it was playing (current) HDMI audio of the internet radio stream. Then it stopped, and I was stuck with a black screen. Had to force power-off and reboot.

Edit: When I rebooted, there were no traces of WUs left, so it must have finished the WUs prior to me trying to wake it up. So it hadn't crashed the PC at all. It just simply doesn't seem to want to wake up the monitor. Monitor is connected via HDMI, HDMI cable that works fine with my other PCs, and an HIS 1GB GDDR5 7790.

 

[Orof]

Ever since i've upgraded to the 7870 XT, i've been experiencing the infamous black screen on standby problem.
the driver updates did not help, a clean install of windows did not help, a new, and even a completely different rig did not help.
now the card has been RMA'd on the second time, and i'm replacing it to a GTX 670 with an addittion of 66$.


very poor "Zero Core" technology guys... :thumbsdown:.

My rig

CPU: Intel Xeon X5460 3.16Ghz@3.8Ghz
Cooler: Scythe Mugen-2 SCMG-2000
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3
RAM: A-DATA Vitesta 800+ 8GB (2GBX4) @960Mhz CL5
Graphic Cards: Sapphire HD7870 XT 2GB
SSD : Crucial MX100 256GB
Hard Drives: WD Caviar Blue WD3200AAKS 320GB
Samsung F3 HD103SJ 1TB
DVD Burner: Samsung SH-S203
Case: Raidmax Sagitta 2
PSU: Thermaltake Toughpower 600W - W0103
Screen: Dell 2007FP A05
Keyboard: Razer Blackwidow Ultimate
Mouse: Razer Deathadder 3.5G
Headset: Razer Megalodon 7.1

 

[cheasie]

I am experiencing the exactly same problem since 2 years ago when I got my XFX HD 7870 DD with Windows 8. I am now updated to Windows 8.1 and the latest Catalyst, still same problem.

Sometimes I can unplug/replug the DVI cable, and the screen will come back on, sometimes I'll have to hard reset. This is getting really annoying because I am sure it's a software bug. I tried using the same set up, but plug my monitor to crappy onboard graphics; the monitor always turn back on after it goes to sleep.

So far from my research on google, there is no fix to this, other than do not set your monitor to auto sleep/shut off. Do not buy AMD graphics cards is the lesson I learned.

 

[VirtualLarry]

So far from my research on google, there is no fix to this, other than do not set your monitor to auto sleep/shut off. Do not buy AMD graphics cards is the lesson I learned.

It seems to mostly be the 7xxx-series cards that have the issue ("ZeroCore"). I don't think I ever had the problem with my HD4850 cards that I can ever remember.

Anyways, I picked up a couple of Zotac NV GT630 "ZONE" 384SP (Kepler) GPUs for $34.99 ea. at Newegg recently. They work pretty well, and run cool. No monitor sleep issues either.

Edit: I plugged my G3258 back in, with my HIS 7790 1GB GDDR5 card, and guess what? I plugged in the HDMI cable to my monitor (actually, to an HDMI switcher), and for whatever reason, when I powered up the PC, the HDMI switcher was blinking the input-selection LEDs back and forth. I plugged the HDMI into the Intel IGP, through an ATI HDMI adapter, and I got signal to the monitor. So I tried the ATI HDMI adapter on one of the DVI ports on the 7790, I got signal, as well as audio. (Audio too on the Intel.)

So it looks like my HDMI port on my 7790 died, mysteriously. It was working when I put the PC away.

Perhaps this is why I was having monitor-sleep issues? I'll leave it connected to the ATI HDMI adapter in one of the 7790's DVI ports, and see if I ever get the monitor-sleep issue again.

 

[cheasie]

It seems to mostly be the 7xxx-series cards that have the issue ("ZeroCore"). I don't think I ever had the problem with my HD4850 cards that I can ever remember.

Anyways, I picked up a couple of Zotac NV GT630 "ZONE" 384SP (Kepler) GPUs for $34.99 ea. at Newegg recently. They work pretty well, and run cool. No monitor sleep issues either.

I'm planning to pick up an Nvidia card soon too, hopefully black friday will have some good deals

 

[Mezzanine]

I had this issue with a 7850, 7950 and a 290, it went away when I bought a GTX 970.

 

[SSBrain]

It could be a coincidence but since I installed Windows 10 Tech Preview I haven't experienced this problem yet. Could the OS be one of the causes as well?

 

[Decoman]

My impression is that, if I leave my computer for hours, the screen will eventually turn off and turn back on, however that only works once for the first day, because if I leave my computer running for two days and leaving the computer during night time, my screen tend to just stay dark, and a hard reset is required. Really annoying.

Could this be BIOS related? I have no idea what BIOS update to chose, because I don't understand the description for the bios updates. And I don't want to update the bios just to try things out.

 

[RaulF]

Just came to say that I have not had this issue.

In the past 6 months, I have own several 290/290X and currently a 295X2 and never had the issue. Previously I had 6950 in crossfire and also never had the problem.

 

[Orof]

6950 has nothing to do with this problem, it only occurs during the Power-Zero sleep that occurs from the 7xxx and up series.

when i tried to make the problem reappear in the lab, i've managed to succeed on one system, while at the other i couldn't. it's really random and undefined.

 

[ocre]

6950 has nothing to do with this problem, it only occurs during the Power-Zero sleep that occurs from the 7xxx and up series.

when i tried to make the problem reappear in the lab, i've managed to succeed on one system, while at the other i couldn't. it's really random and undefined.

No way, this goes back much further.

I think it is chipset dependent. Some motherboards have issues and such. Maybe that is why some will argue the issue doesnt even exist or claim it is only on this model or that.

My friend has an Emachine with an AMD ph2 (840 i think). Long ago, he upgraded the graphics to the HD 4770 and has had the black screen freeze every since. He went through it for years. I would go to his house and try different things. I thought it was okay but every time i left he would call me and tell me it froze up again. He said it happens when the PC sits idle for a long time. Finally i disabled everything from going to sleep (even the monitor) and the black screens went away. This was at least 2 years ago (when i finally stopped it) but he had been having the issue for a long time before hand.

I even remember my opteron 180 system wouldnt wake up from full sleep. If i wasnt doing anything for an hour, the screen might come back up or i might have to press reset. I always thought it was vista but I think i even read back then it was a common issue on AMD HW. Not sure exactly when but i used that socket 939 system well past the time time they were popular. My upgrade path was socket 939 to AM3 for AMD CPUs, totally skipped AM2. I mainly used ATI gpus back then. Heck, i was a huge AMD fan and it took me a long while to even consider anything else in my personal PC.
Them abandoning socket 939 was one of the first big disappointments that i had to deal with. I kind of took it personal (i was young ya know) lol.

But anyway, I had waking from sleep issues way back then

 

[Ieat]

The issue can be video card or motherboard dependent. I had a 7850 and sleep worked with both MSI boards I tried and an 1155 Asus board. It would not wake when I tried it with an old Gigabyte board and a 1150 Asus board. Currently using a 7870 and sleep works fine with the 1150 Asus board.

 

[tential]

Same issue but my PC is plugged into my receiver. Cycling inputs usually fixes the issue though. I do plan on upgrading to the gtx 900 successor for my htpc though. For a dedicated desktop rig still would use and as long as the price to performance ratio is there but for htpc its too annoying to have experiences like this where a person wants to watch TV and I have to tell them workarounds to get my video card to do its most basic job, display images on screen.

 

[Crosstalk]

I’ve joined this forum solely to post the solution that has finally fixed the issue for me as it’s not one I’ve seen suggested elsewhere and, in many ways, it’s the exact opposite of what would be expected.

The answer for my particular system has simply been to disable the ‘Repost video on STR resume’ option in the BIOS.

Hopefully it will provide a fix for a few others as well.

 

[richaron]

I have this exact same problem with my mother's Dell running Haswell IGP.

I think it's a chipset driver thing.

 

[nopanopa]

has anyone checked if amdkmpfd is installed? it's for system devices->pci bus in device manager, had to install manually (catalyst 14.9b2). I also had to install display driver manually because it was not there in the installer options. see if it helps.

edit: amdkmpfd is most likely for motherboards that have amd chipset.

edit: has nothing to do with the sleep problem.

 

[ZGR]

Since installing 14.301.1006, I haven't had a single black-screen-on-boot issue! I installed the driver on 10/25, and its been over 2 weeks without needing to do a reboot to log on.

What could have fixed this issue? I've had that black-screen bug since June, but now I cannot replicate it with this driver.

There is 14.11.1 beta now available, but I am not in any rush to install.

 

[dbcoopernz]

The latest WHQL driver stopped this bug on my 7790, but ... on Monday I had the first incident of it for weeks.

 

[Mushkins]

Since installing 14.301.1006, I haven't had a single black-screen-on-boot issue! I installed the driver on 10/25, and its been over 2 weeks without needing to do a reboot to log on.

What could have fixed this issue? I've had that black-screen bug since June, but now I cannot replicate it with this driver.

There is 14.11.1 beta now available, but I am not in any rush to install.

I've had this bug appear and disappear on multiple video cards, in multiple, rigs, with multiple drivers, and multiple monitors/cables. It comes, it goes, it does whatever it pleases. Sometimes new drivers stave it off for a few months, and then even newer drivers bring it back.

Nowadays I just tell people to disable auto monitor sleeping and manually turn their monitor off when they walk away if they go AMD. Personally, I just bought a GTX 970 and I'm very happy after nearly 15 years of AMD's quirky BS.

 

[SSBrain]

Just turning the monitor off and disabling monitor sleeping is not an optimal solution though. Power consumption especially if a dual output configuration is enabled, can get rather high even during idle, depending on the AMD video card. Look here:

This can be a problem if the PC needs to be kept unattended for much of the day.

This being said, I haven't had this problem anymore since I installed Windows 10 Technical Preview. On the other hand, a different issue started appearing, involving the primary screen not getting recognized and getting locked at 640x480 resolution after waking up from sleep. The workaround is pretty much the same as the blank screen issue I was previously having: physically turning the monitor off (preferably pulling the power cord out of the display), then turning it on again.

It happens much less frequently than the blank/black screen problem, but it's just as annoying, if not more.

 

[Mushkins]

Just turning the monitor off and disabling monitor sleeping is not an optimal solution though. Power consumption especially if a dual output configuration is enabled, can get rather high even during idle, depending on the AMD video card. Look here:

That depends entirely on your priorities. An extra $3 on my power bill a month is not as important to me as preventing potential data loss due to needing to forcibly hard boot at least once a day.

But you're right, the *optimal* solution would be for AMD to get their act together and fix this bug after half a decade and four GPU generations. Apparently that's not an option though.

 

[Magic Carpet]

when i tried to make the problem reappear in the lab, i've managed to succeed on one system, while at the other i couldn't. it's really random and undefined.

Some systems experience this behavior. Just yesterday, I tested the same 270 card in 3 different systems (Conroe based, Toledo based and Haswell based). And only Haswell based system could reliably recover from sleep. Other systems had various "black screen" issues (with the fans spinning and not). The failure rate was not 100% though, sometimes it worked ok. I did about 20 runs. Go figure, what kind of incompatibility this is. Moral of the story, if you are not sure, go with nVIDIA. Alternatively, you can disable ZeroCore tech by preventing your monitor to go to sleep. See attached picture.

But when it works, it is great. My 270 Crossfire Haswell rig pulls just slightly over 30 watts (1HDD + 1SSD) from the outlet, during the night. Just a few watts over what HD 4600 would do in this scenario. Kudos to AMD.

 

[ocre]

Just as i stated way earlier,

Some systems experience this behavior. Just yesterday, I tested the same 270 card in 3 different systems (Conroe based, Toledo based and Haswell based). And only Haswell based system could reliably recover from sleep. Other systems had various "black screen" issues (with the fans spinning and not). The failure rate was not 100% though, sometimes it worked ok. I did about 20 runs. Go figure, what kind of incompatibility this is. Moral of the story, if you are not sure, go with nVIDIA. Alternatively, you can disable ZeroCore tech by preventing your monitor to go to sleep. See attached picture.

But when it works, it is great. My 270 Crossfire Haswell rig pulls just slightly over 30 watts (1HDD + 1SSD) from the outlet, during the night. Just a few watts over what HD 4600 would do in this scenario. Kudos to AMD.

Thanks for proofing it out. I have longed believed this but never actually took the time to do what you did.

 

[Techno Pride]

Hi all,

I've had this problem for a few months on a Sapphire R9 280. Monitor goes to sleep, then whole system hangs. No amount of software settings suggestions from this thread helped.

For my case, tracked it down to a possible bug or memory settings issue in Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3 U1j bios. Have turned the system memory (not card memory) down to "Normal" instead of Turbo or Expert.

Thought this might help someone.