Question 4090 crash with black screen on windows desktop

[TheThirdMan]

Hey all,

I've tried for a few days to fix this but have yet to succeed and have started an RMA process with nVidia, but thought I'd ask here as some of the symptoms seem to be relatively common with this card. I got a new 4090 Founders Edition card direct from nVidia and installed into my system (b550 itx motherboard with 3950x) with an upgraded PSU (Asus TUF Gold 1000w ATX3.0) into a larger case (my build was in the lovely NR200). From the outset, it crashes randomly on the windows desktop - which is to say not when running a taxing application, but merely in the desktop environment, with chrome running, windows explorer etc. The screen will turn black and the card fans will begin to spin up. Half the time windows is still running fine in the background - music will continue playing and, most recently, a video call i was on was still running fine and they could hear me. The other half of the time, it's a full crash - zero responsiveness. In both cases i have to turn off with the case power button.

I initially ran it with the included 16-pin PCIe 5.0 12VHPWR cable that came with the Asus PSU but swapped for a 3 PCI-e to 16-pin PCIe 5.0 12VHPWR adaptor from amazon to see if that helped (it didn't), then finally used the included adaptor that came with the card - it generally runs for the longest in this way but there's still crashing. With the first two it would run anywhere from 10 seconds to 10 minutes in windows before crashing. With the official nvidia adaptor, it will run anywhere from 10 mins to 30 mins before crashing.

I've run FurMark stress test on it with it at 100% and it doesn't crash. I've repeatedly run 3dmark without causing a crash. It's just in the windows desktop environment. Here's a list of other things I've tried -

• Updated BIOS on mobo
• Checked if the card needed a firmware update (it doesn't)
• Uninstalled any GPU speed/fan applications
• Uninstalled any LED controlling software (some users reported this was the issue)
• Reset RAM settings in BIOS
• Tried different power settings in windows
• Tried changing nvidia display settings (no vsync etc)

If anyone has any suggestions, they'd be most welcome!
Thanks

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Do you know anyone with a modern system you can test the card in? Always nice to narrow it down to the card being the problem. You could always use your PSU to power their rig if need be. Otherwise I think you are doing the right thing by RMAing it.

All the minutia involving power limits, undervolting, clockspeeds, should not be necessary with a new GPU. If it doesn't work correctly OOB with a properly configured and updated system that has a solid PSU, then that isn't something you should have to live with.

BTW, I have 2 versions of the NR200, they are definitely great little boxes.

 

[TheThirdMan]

Do you know anyone with a modern system you can test the card in? Always nice to narrow it down to the card being the problem. You could always use your PSU to power their rig if need be. Otherwise I think you are doing the right thing by RMAing it.

All the minutia involving power limits, undervolting, clockspeeds, should not be necessary with a new GPU. If it doesn't work correctly OOB with a properly configured and updated system that has a solid PSU, then that isn't something you should have to live with.

BTW, I have 2 versions of the NR200, they are definitely great little boxes.

I don't unfortunately - only other PC builder i know has an NR200 too!
Thanks for the reply - yeah I think I've exhausted everything with the card i could reasonably test!

 

[In2Photos]

What GPU did you have in the system before the 4090? Have you used DDU to uninstall the previous driver?

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I agree. You shouldn't have to pull your hair out trying to solve the problem. Your 2070 worked fine I take it.

It was a good call on the RGB software too. That stuff is notorious.

 

[TheThirdMan]

What GPU did you have in the system before the 4090? Have you used DDU to uninstall the previous driver?

Hey thanks for the reply - I was (and currently am) running a 2070. Sorry, forgot to mention, yes i used DDU too, didn't seem to make a difference!

 

[TheThirdMan]

I agree. You shouldn't have to pull your hair out trying to solve the problem. Your 2070 worked fine I take it.

It was a good call on the RGB software too. That stuff is notorious.

Yeah zero issues with the 2070- honestly think i might just revert to the NR200 with the 2070- ran basically silent and very cool compared to this MATX case. Such a great case for the size!

 

[TheThirdMan]

Hi all - thought I should update in case anyone else has a similar issue - it seems likely this is actually caused by Asus B550 boards - a reddit thread here goes into some detail. It seems Asus are not releasing a BIOS update to fix this.

Having now put the same 4090 fe into my new B650 (MSI mobo) build, there are (so far) no issues. Been running longer than any time with the asus B550 build with no black screens yet.