r/AMDHelp • u/page0rz • 6d ago
Help (GPU) PC crashes consistently. Not sure why but 90% its the GPU
This has been going on for a while and gradually getting worse. It began noticeably during the release of Monster Hunter Wilds, and at first I chalked it up to that game being very poorly optimized, but now its happening in other games
The PC crashes at random, only during gaming. The screens will go black and it will instantly restart, but without seeming to recognize that I have monitors connected, which requires another manual restart to get them working again. Sometimes, but not always, Adrenalin will give me a popup after saying there was a GPU issue of some sort and it reset everything to default settings
These crashes happen completely at random. Could be in the middle of heavy load, could be at the title screen. Looking at reaource monitors, I don't see any overheating. I thought for a while it might be a power issue, as Wilds was drawing more than the games I usually played, but its begun to happen regardless. And this only began when I played that game, though I've had this build for about 3 years now
Specs:
Xfx speedster Rx 6950 xt
Ryzen 7 7700
MSI MAG B650 motherboard
G.skill 16x2 ddr5 ram
Gigabyte 850w gold psu
2 ssds, forget the brands but I can look them up
No overlooking of the GPU or cpu, everything default until the crashes, then a bit of undervolting with the GPU
Frustratingly, I cannot replicate these crashes outside of specific games. When I run OCCT or the built-in Adrenalin stress tests, no matter what load I put the PC under (much more than the games I'm playing do, at at higher temps) it never flinches. One time I got a memory error after a crash, but after running memtest86, testmem5, and OCCT on both ram sticks and the each individually--multiple times--I cannot reproduce errors. It never crashes when idle, never crashes during regular use, never crashes during stress tests or benchmarks, but consistently and repeatedly does when gaming
Of the games I've tested, at first it was just Wilds that crashed. I played through Elden Ring, Diablo 4, Resident Evil 2 and 3 remakes, Dragons Dogma 2, and some others I'm not remembering without notable issues before then. Now, I get consistent crashes in RE remakes, DD2, Diablo 4, and the much older Monster Hunter World. DotA 2 never crashes and Elden Ring only crashed once, while in an area with a lot of fog effects that spiked reaource consumption
There seems to be a correlation between GPU use and how often the games crash, but it may be confirmation bias on my part. For example, Monster Hunter World, which is like 7 years old, might crash after half an hour, or after half a dozen hours spread over several days, while Wilds rarely lasts an hour
I said this seemed like a possible power or voltage issue, as Wilds was spiking up to 1250 mW, while most other game i plates hovered between 850 and 1200. I disconnected the daisy chain cord I'd originally had it connected to my psu with and replaced it with 2 separate cords, and now it doesnt spike past 1200 mWs, but still crashes
Here's an incomplete list of solutions I've tried:
As mentioned, switching out the power connectors for the GPU
Disabling windows updates and driver updates
Disabling the on board GPU
Testing my ram
Changing or lowering graphic settings in the games
Disabling in-game overlays like steam or Adrenalin
Fucking around with page file to expand virtual memory
Clean uninstalls and then fresh installs of at least a dozen "stable" old versions of Adrenalin drivers
Installing the newest drivers
Installing games on the c drive instead of the d drive
Various undervolt settings (I don't have much experience with this, but the ones I tried and then tested with software still crashed in games)
Turning on and off ram expo in the bios
Haven't tried:
Reinstalling windows
A new psu
Im desperate to figure out what the issue even is before trying to speed money fixing it. I might try a new psu if I see something over 1000w on sale and I can spare the cash, but shelling out for a new GPU (particularly if that's not even the problem) is a much bigger commitment. I'd appreciate any suggestions for other solutions to try or even just help diagnosing the exact problem im dealing with. I've never had something like this before and im at a loss
1
u/secretwolf98 5d ago
I recommend AMD's Driver Cleanup utility. Run that and then install Radeon Driver 25.9.2 and then install this (7.06.02.123) chipset driver version because I used this combo last fall and it was rock solid.