Hello all,

I bought this system around 2 months ago:

ASUS Crosshair V Formula Z // 2101
AMD FX-9590 ~4.7GHz
ASUS R9 290 DC2OC 4GB DDR5
Corsair AX1200i
Corsair Vengance Pro RAM 16GB (CMY16GX3M2A2133C11)
Corsair Carbide 400R
Corsair 110i Water Cooler
Samsung 850 Pro 256GB
OCZ Vertex 3 120GB
Sennheiser 363D with G4ME1

Generally it was relatively stable, I have updated the BIOS on motherboard and GPU to the latest versions, I was using the Catalyst driver from ASUS.

I installed 14.4 and my system went to a black screen before install completed, I rebooted and tried again, it installed but on reboot and login I get a black screen. Similar but worse with 14.7 and 14.8.

I then emailed ASUS who told me to RMA the card to the supplier, they said it should work with the latest drivers. So I RMAed to the suppliers.

Ebuyer, the suppliers stated they ran the card in their test rig for 4 hours on 13.12 drivers, using Fur Mark, no problems. I asked them to try with 14.4 drivers, they stated they couldn't get them to install, they didn't give me any more information than that. They did tell me that this issue would be with the drivers, not the card and to report it to AMD, which I did, I'm still waiting for a response.

I got the card back last week, did a fresh install of Windows, updated Windows fully, I decided to try the 14.8 drivers from the guru 3d website, after a reboot, I login, then get a black screen, waited 2 minutes, but nothing appeared. So I rebooted in to safe mode and used the Driver remover tool found on this website to remove Catalyst, I then installed the 13.12 drivers instead. Also, AMD had recommended I use the following hot fixes for my CPU, I have installed both kb 2645594 and kb 2646060.

I have also tried installing Windows 8.1 x64 Enterprise Evaluation Edition, using the 13.251 driver install works, but sometimes on the desktop the display driver stops responding, and has to be recovered. When I try to install the newer drivers (14.4 or 14.8) my screen often doesn't come back on when the screen goes black during driver install, or the install will finish, but my system will hang before I can click finish, or it will hang after clicking finish before the machine will reboot.

Sometimes while using 13.251 the system seems okay, I can even complete the Furmark test the supplier stated they ran on my card to prove it is working okay. Then I reboot my machine and within seconds my display driver stops responding and has to be recovered. If I load a game, often the display driver stops responding and drop me to the desktop, requiring a reboot. Sometimes I can play the game fine, but when I leave the game and go back to Windows the system hangs on a black screen, requiring a reboot.

I have emailed ASUS support, but they are not helpful, they don't read the history of my email, so each time I get a response they ask me to to do the same thing I was asked to do 2 emails previously. I don't have another AMD GPU to try in my system. When I rang ASUS support in the UK, they told me no one in the UK is trained on Graphics Cards, and they refused to help me or put me in touch with someone who could. I found an email address for a Customer Loyalty representative on the newegg product listing for my model card (where loads of people are complaining of the same kind of issues I have been having, they seem to be getting their cards replaced) their first response was to ring UK support, when I told the advisor I had tried and they say they are not trained on Graphics Cards, I was told I could try to email someone else, who is based in the North American Region, but I am still waiting for any correspondence at all.

I understand that ASUS don't ever admit there are known issues with their cards, this is ridiculous, you have a large number of GPU owners who have faulty cards which are DOA, and you're not helping your customers. You call your brand Republic of Gamers, but you offer some of the worst customer support/technical service I have ever had the misfortune to experience. You're clearly producing cards which don't work with the drivers that AMD are producing, but you're refusing to take responsibility for your terrible products. You're saving money by cutting back on Technical Support, eventually this will get you a reputation as a company who don't care about your customers and you will see them leaving in their droves.

I for one will never buy another ASUS product.