Overclocking VRAM causes the system to fail to boot.
Overclocking VRAM causes the system to fail to boot.
I increased the VRAM on my Sapphire R9 290 OC graphics card with Trixx software. As soon as I pressed "apply," the screen turned black and remained so. After restarting, it went through the BIOS boot screens but froze when trying to access Windows. It didn’t respond at all!
Removing the graphics card and using the Intel Integrated graphics worked perfectly. I also tried deleting Trixx, hoping it was causing the crash during overclocking, but that didn’t help.
Have I damaged my graphics card?
Before considering a fried video card, it's more likely you should remove the Sapphire R9 290's driver. The most effective method is to boot the system with the R9 290 in safe mode. In the display adapters section, double-click your R9 290, go to the driver tab, and select uninstall driver. After that, restart the computer. It will restart using a standard driver, requiring you to reinstall the newest Crimson drivers from AMD. This approach should resolve the issue. I faced similar challenges when overclocking my Sapphire R9 290 Viper X. Testing with an unstable overclock would cause the computer to freeze or shut down completely, making it difficult to restart properly with the GPU settings.
Before assuming a fried video card, it’s more likely you should remove the Sapphire R9 290's driver. The most effective method is to boot the system with the R9 290 in safe mode. In the display adapters section, double-click your R9 290, go to the driver tab, and choose uninstall driver. After that, restart the computer. It will restart using a standard driver, requiring you to reinstall the newest Crimson drivers from AMD. This approach should resolve the issue. I faced similar challenges when overclocking my Sapphire R9 290 Viper X. Testing with an unstable overclock caused the computer to freeze or shut down, and it couldn’t reboot properly. The only fix was uninstalling the driver and then installing the latest update from AMD.