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3090 ROG STRIX OC - Freezing [Help Please]

rt_luke_s
Level 7
Hi guys

Ive been trying to figure out if my 3090 has a hardware or driver related issue. Ever since swapping out my 1080ti strix for a 3090 strix ive been getting black screens and freezing, multiple times a day.

I have installed a bunch of different drivers, none of which fix all my issues. 461.51 seems to be the closest as i haven't had any black screens using this version, however i still receive the freezing often (at least 2-8+ times a day at this point), and they last from 3 seconds to 20 seconds.
This mainly happens when i use a hardware accelerated program like opera(chrome), zoom, geforce experience, steam, but can be at any moment (even if im in a RDP session working). I am also not able to replicate the issue consistently, it seems to be entirely random.

I've tried posting on nvidia forms with no luck, ive tried contacting nvidia support who said it was asus's issue. ive then also contacted asus who said to RMA through the retailer (as if they never heard of the driver issues on nvidia forms), the retailer(PCCG) is happy to do so - but i wont have a card for weeks, assuming they can confirm the problem.

Is any one else having these issues, or better yet know if its a driver related problem or hardware? I really dont want to RMA a new card i've had for around a month when it might not even be hardware related, as i can reinstall drivers when the crashes occurred and the GPU started working fine again.
I also have a friend who has a 3090 TUF who has had none of these issues at all.
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PynkFloydd
Level 7
I upgraded from 1080ti to the 3090 Strix OC also and had hard crashes when I'd try to play CoD:Cold War. It turned out that the Seasonic 860W PSU I had couldn't handle the transient spikes. I did a lot of research and if you have a PSU more than a year or two old, it's likely to struggle with the 3080/3090. I upgraded to a bequiet 1200w PSU and it solved my issues and the 3090 actually ran quieter after that also.

Not sure what the rest of your system is, but very possible it's exposing instability.

PynkFloydd wrote:
I upgraded from 1080ti to the 3090 Strix OC also and had hard crashes when I'd try to play CoD:Cold War. It turned out that the Seasonic 860W PSU I had couldn't handle the transient spikes. I did a lot of research and if you have a PSU more than a year or two old, it's likely to struggle with the 3080/3090. I upgraded to a bequiet 1200w PSU and it solved my issues and the 3090 actually ran quieter after that also.

Not sure what the rest of your system is, but very possible it's exposing instability.


Yeh i've had that thought too, i went out and purchased a 1000w PSU before acquiring the 3090 just to prevent that from being possible; i've also tried both rail modes and it seems to run pretty quiet unless i crank up the fans (as expected). Hopefully it isn't a dodge PSU, but its a "Corsair HX Platinum 1000 W 80+ Platinum". Not sure how i test if it's good or bad though.

I'm currently trying the GPU in another PC with a 750w PSU (bit low or just enough, but its a test), and it seems to be going well so far (and a non OC'd 10600k is outperforming my 8086k OC'd?), no crash or freezing; so im now am about to try building the pc part by part to see when the freezing occurs just in case its another component that (in)conveniently is causing problems with a 3090 instead of 1080ti.

is it possible the 3090 is using too much of the PCI bandwidth or something of the sort? As you can see in my part list below i have a bunch of drives, so i wonder if its getting to the limit of say an intel build?


Full part list: https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/PgB7Hz

Glad to hear it doesn't sound like the card is at fault, at least. I don't think it's a bandwidth issue, but definitely could be related to your overclock, a corrupt driver install or failing drive or memory. I was just on a beta release for the C8H and was getting really terrible audio static and dropouts over HDMI running from the 3090. Never seen this before, but when I rolled back the BIOS (and later updated to a stable release), it went away.

Maybe try resetting your BIOS to stock and going from there?

PynkFloydd wrote:
Glad to hear it doesn't sound like the card is at fault, at least. I don't think it's a bandwidth issue, but definitely could be related to your overclock, a corrupt driver install or failing drive or memory. I was just on a beta release for the C8H and was getting really terrible audio static and dropouts over HDMI running from the 3090. Never seen this before, but when I rolled back the BIOS (and later updated to a stable release), it went away.

Maybe try resetting your BIOS to stock and going from there?


So i spent a while using the same exact setup except swapping the MB+CPU(z490+10600k), and there basically wasnt any issues present that i was previously experiencing (apart from HW acceleration bugs where some videos would lag/buffer at random for not even a second, but im not sure its a huge issue as i had similar issues with the 1080ti early on with their drivers - at least they dont cause the whole PC to stutter/lag).

This morning i put back in the original MB+CPU(z370-e+8086k), no OC, or even XMP - complete stock BIOS, same OS+drivers; and ive been getting freezing regularly, and close to half of the time it turns off most of my monitors and kills windows still (crashing?).

Funny you mention HDMI, the monitor that drops out for me is also on HDMI but so is a third monitor which doesnt stay off, but flickers on and off after the crashing - DP stays on always, although windows is usually broken where icons go missing, cant click on things etc etc.
I've also checked the Event Viewer for errors around the times of when im getting these crashes, and nothing seems to be logged; so im unsure if its the GPU, but previously i could reinstall the drivers and windows would become usable without needing to restart which makes me believe its the GPU knocking out windows (havent done this today, as i know the driver+os etc worked on the z490 setup)

I'm going to try and downgrade the BIOS next (currently on the latest available 2401, idk the best working one so ill try a few over the next week), but if that doesn't work do you have any ideas as to how to diagnose if it's a MB or CPU issue, and possibly if it's fixable?

edit: i'm onto the 3rd bios down from the list of versions (2001), problem is still occurring. I'll keep going back a few more with each crash, but by the looks of it i suspect the bios may not be the issue here either. rip

edit2: i think the downgrade of bios makes things worse. had a hard crash when i was sitting watching a video. Critical error from event viewer "The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly."

edit3: upgraded to the latest bios again, and the critical error happened again (possibly a problem getting worse?) Same error as yesterday, but an extra error a few logs prior "Dump file creation failed due to error during dump creation.", and a few more prior to that one "The previous system shutdown at 4:07:11 PM on ‎5/‎03/‎2021 was unexpected."
The crash didnt restart as normal either, it sat there with no windows/monitor output for a number of minutes until i gave up waiting for it and reset the pc.

rt_luke_s
Level 7
more testing....tried another PSU and still crashed using the z370 (critical error, no win dumps etc). then i tried reverting to the 1080ti, and whaddya know a driver crash within a few hours exactly like the 3090 has encountered originally! (not a critical fault, but similar to one of the first issues where all monitors also turn off, then the primary turns back on with windows half broken and unresponsive apps).

this i guess is great news, as it rules out the GPU (imo, correct me otherwise!), leaving the MB or CPU at fault; and i assume most likely the motherboard as i think i read that they try and sacrifice themselves prior to a CPU; and also that the RGB lighting decided to stop working just before receiving the 3090 too...maybe related or unrelated but still another coincidence that happened around the same time the problems started.

luckily for me both the MB and CPU are also in warranty, so i can organize to RMA the parts. hopefully that fixes the problems...

I had few seconds freezing randomly on my ROG with Core i7-9700. I searched many discussions and did many things but nothing could fix it until it became worse and I noticed that the cause is my Seagate 3TB hard disk. I replaced the Hard Disk with new 4TB. It solved this randomly few seconds freezing completely.