Rebooting problems with new mobo + RX 480, but not other GPU ... weird! Any ideas?

[ayqazi]

Hello all,

I was wondering if I could ask for a bit of help/advice/suggestions for my problem....

I'm a long-time PC builder (my favourite mobo+CPU combo was the Opteron 165 and DFI LanParty NF Ultra-D... those were the days........), and have a weird issue with my new build.

Important bits: I have a:

Gigabyte F2A88XM-D3HP - it's an AMD A88X mobo
AMD Athlon X4 880K
AMD Radeon RX 480
Corsair 620W PSU
Corsair Vengeance Pro memory (2x8GB)

The issue is that the system will hang before the boot screen on a reboot, either with the reboot button, or by soft reboot. The fans spin up, and then nothing.

If I turn the system off, wait a about 20 seconds, and then turn it on again, it boots fine.

This ONLY happens with the RX 480. I have an old Geforce 8800 series card (ANCIENT, I know), and with it, everything is fine! Soft-reboots, hard reboots, reboots with the button, turn off and on again in quick succession - all fine.

Of course, goes without saying - I'm using all stock settings in the BIOS.

Am I correct in assuming this a motherboard incompatibility? Any ideas? I'd rather send the mobo back and get a different one - I got it from Scan, so hopefully they'll let me do that.

Thanks

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Is the PSU an HX620W?? If so do you have a decent quality alternate PSU you can also try??

[ayqazi]

Is the PSU an HX620W?? If so do you have a decent quality alternate PSU you can also try??

It IS an HX620W, which (when I bought it a couple of years ago) was one of the best PSUs out there. It's Seasonic built, after all.

I don't have any other PSUs with me, no. But I've used this PSU with so many builds, do you think it's the problem? It works with the old Geforce fine, I thought that would rule it out as the problem.

Thanks so much for the reply!

[EndlessWaves]

Assuming you're using Windows 8 or 10 then does shutting it down and starting back up cause the problem? (although I'm not sure if A88 supports Hybrid Whatitsname)

You don't have a spare system you could try the RX 480 on?

[kalniel]

Cold boot problems are surprisingly common and have been around for years (just google cold boot problem). They're often caused by the PSU not providing a good enough standby voltage line. It could be that the more powerful GPU you've got needs a bigger kick to get started. It could be the GPU is too efficient at startup to trigger more draw from the PSU!

Different PSU is one answer, another is to make sure you've got the latest BIOS updates, then failing that, you may want to delve into the BIOS and adjust a few voltages - when I had this problem donkeys years ago after a graphics update (to a 6800GT) I found overclocking the CPU helped! It probably raised a few voltage settings in the BIOS and that was enough to make everything stable from standby.

[ayqazi]

Assuming you're using Windows 8 or 10 then does shutting it down and starting back up cause the problem? (although I'm not sure if A88 supports Hybrid Whatitsname)

You don't have a spare system you could try the RX 480 on?

I've been booting into a Linux LiveCD (or more accurately a live USB drive), and doing a shutdown + power-up does indeed work. Same for holding down the power button for 10 seconds to shut down. It's only an immediate reboot that fails.

Cold boot problems are surprisingly common and have been around for years (just google cold boot problem). They're often caused by the PSU not providing a good enough standby voltage line. It could be that the more powerful GPU you've got needs a bigger kick to get started. It could be the GPU is too efficient at startup to trigger more draw from the PSU!

Different PSU is one answer, another is to make sure you've got the latest BIOS updates, then failing that, you may want to delve into the BIOS and adjust a few voltages - when I had this problem donkeys years ago after a graphics update (to a 6800GT) I found overclocking the CPU helped! It probably raised a few voltage settings in the BIOS and that was enough to make everything stable from standby.

But in this case, it's not cold boot. Cold boot works fine in this instance. It seems to be the reverse problem - a warm reboot, where the GPU is already powered up!



There's another system at my parents' house, but it's not got nearly as good components.... some ancient Athlon micro ATX thing, with an (I think) 400W Antec EarthWatt PSU. But I'll try it there anyway, just to see what happens.


So do you guys think it's worth soldiering on with this problem? Or should I buy a new PSU (seeing as this one is almost 10 years old)? Or should I RMA the motherboard, or maybe the GPU?

Thanks all so much for your help, really gives me hope I can get this sorted.

Thanks

[kalniel]

But in this case, it's not cold boot. Cold boot works fine in this instance. It seems to be the reverse problem - a warm reboot, where the GPU is already powered up!

Oh sorry, I misread. In that case it's more likely to be the GPU not pulling enough power, possibly it's going into zerocore power mode and not responding to the wake up correctly. That will probably be improved with driver/firmware updates, but again a quick google shows there are plenty of warm reboot issues people have too (though perhaps not quite as common as cold boot). Is there an option in the drivers to disable the zerocore power mode (there is on my Sapphire drivers)? Worth trying if so.

Personally I'd live with it - give driver improvements a chance, see if you can tweak some voltage/idle power state settings to help.

[Phage]

Keep an eye out for BIOS updates as well.

[ayqazi]

Update:

I contacted Gigabyte support, and they were surprisingly helpful. They suggested changing PCI-E slots - and now it all works! Hard reboots, soft reboots, saving settings and restarting from the BIOS menu.... all flawless. Unfortunately, the 2nd PCI-E slot is wired at 4x speed.

So for some reason, the GPU doesn't reboot properly in the main PCI-E slot.

This points to the motherboard being the culprit, right?

Thanks

[jimborae]

Have you updated your bios??? I once had weird booting issues on an older board when I upgraded to an R9 290. I was sure the card was faulty and rma'd it. CCL to their credit returned the card free of charge and advised me to update the board bios, which I sceptically did and hey presto problem solved. Never seen anything like it before or since.

[Phage]

Update:

I contacted Gigabyte support, and they were surprisingly helpful. They suggested changing PCI-E slots - and now it all works! Hard reboots, soft reboots, saving settings and restarting from the BIOS menu.... all flawless. Unfortunately, the 2nd PCI-E slot is wired at 4x speed.

So for some reason, the GPU doesn't reboot properly in the main PCI-E slot.

This points to the motherboard being the culprit, right?

Thanks

Yep. It should defintely work in the 1st slot if it works in the 2nd.

EDIT: Just seen this over at OCUK - Same problem as you.

"As per title, faulty Asus Maximus VI Extreme motherboard. Bought off these forums a few years ago as a bundle. Worked fine till last year when I switched it on and had no display. Through fault finding I discovered my graphics card wouldn't display a picture when in the first pcie slot, transfered my card to the second slot and I got a picture fine but my card would only run at x4. Upgraded to spec in sig and found out my card was faulty and RMA'd it. The mobo was left in a box.

It comes with various sli bridges, wifi module, Asus Overclock panel + drive bay case, i/o shield, manual & driver cd. No sata cables are included.

Please note whilst my Titan was away for RMA I bought a 780 to tied me over, I tried that in this board and the first slot still didn't work but second slot did at full speed. Also this board has a PLX chip so was capable of 4 way sli."

[ayqazi]

Have you updated your bios??? I once had weird booting issues on an older board when I upgraded to an R9 290. I was sure the card was faulty and rma'd it. CCL to their credit returned the card free of charge and advised me to update the board bios, which I sceptically did and hey presto problem solved. Never seen anything like it before or since.

I can't find an RX 480 BIOS update, so I'm assuming one doesn't exist. Maybe AMD will release another one for the PCI-E power fiasco?

I'm RMA'ing the mobo, first slot seems damaged. Thanks so much everyone. Really appreciated the help.

[Phage]

No wuckas

[scaryjim]

I can't find an RX 480 BIOS update ...

I believe jimborae meant your motherboard BIOS. There is an F2 BIOS on the Gigabyte website (http://www.gigabyte.com/products/pro...?pid=5657#bios), so there's a reasonable chance that you're still running on the old one.

AMD are releasing (have released?) a driver update for the RX 480 which is meant to address the balance of power draw, but it's worth noting that most modern cards actually exceed PCIe specification on their inputs. it only seems to have been picked up on the RX 480 because people were expecting a very efficient card and were surprised that it didn't seem to be.

[ayqazi]

I believe jimborae meant your motherboard BIOS. There is an F2 BIOS on the Gigabyte website (http://www.gigabyte.com/products/pro...?pid=5657#bios), so there's a reasonable chance that you're still running on the old one.

AMD are releasing (have released?) a driver update for the RX 480 which is meant to address the balance of power draw, but it's worth noting that most modern cards actually exceed PCIe specification on their inputs. it only seems to have been picked up on the RX 480 because people were expecting a very efficient card and were surprised that it didn't seem to be.

Ah. Already did the mobo bios update, unfortunately no success.

re: RX 480 power draw - I know, right? I was getting a bit worried, until I realised that any OCing of the graphics card will take it out of most specs anyway, so mobo manufactuers must have taken that into account.