6950xt Crashing in RT workloads Solved

Hardware Hub GPU
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1

Hi folks!

I got a 6950xt two days ago, and it crashes in RT (and only RT!) workloads.

Specs:
5700x
ASUS Prime B450M-a II (latest bios + chipset drivers)
CM MWE850v2 PSU
RX 6950xt (24.6.1 drivers)
16gb 3600mhz DDR4
Windows 10

All stress tests performed:

  • CPU burn in furmark
  • Memtest86
  • Furmark

All tests above passed, with acceptable temps and correct looking power consumption figures

Troubleshooting steps:

  • Tried all AMD drivers released in the past 3 months
  • DDU between each install
  • Upgraded to Windows 11
  • Reinstalled Windows 10
  • Tried most recent AMD pro drivers
  • disabled XMP/DOCP & removed all but 1 8gb stick
  • Ensured both 8pin GPU connectors are powered with separate cables
  • Checked reviews to ensure this PSU can power this class of card
  • Reduced power limit of GPU to 80%
  • Enabled Radeon chill
  • Capped FPS to 30 in AMD driver
  • Where possible set resolution and other games setting to lowest in crashing RT games
  • Increased power limit
  • Reinstalled/verified offending games

Evidence of behaviour:
Working games with no RT or RT disabled:

  • GTA V
  • MSFT flight sim
  • Cyberpunk
  • StarWars BattleFront 2
  • Doom
  • Doom Eternal
  • Spider-Man
  • Spider-Man Miles morales
  • Metro Exodus

Games with RT enabled (or RT only!) not working:

  • Metro exodus enhanced (crashed on intro)
  • Cyberpunk (Crashes seconds after enabling any RT preset)
  • Doom Eternal (Crashed when RT enabled, won’t boot anymore, assume if I can turn off RT in a config file it will come back)

I tried installing two free RT benchmarks, to see if they would work:

  • Gpu Score Relic Of Life
  • Bright memory Infinite Ray Tracing Benchmark

Both cause driver timeouts and system hangs, just as all of the above listed RT enabled games do. Windows event viewer producing generic errors that just say the AMD driver hung, then recovered.

This is an incredibly odd problem, and have only found 2 separate threads regarding this issue, both were resolved with an RMA, but one was an rx 7900xtx, and one an RTX 3070.

I have a support case submitted with AMD, containing the above info, but wondering if anyone here can help. I’ve exhausted every sensible avenue I can think of, and have slowly gone from suspecting any other component or software (ram/cpu/badly seated power cables, underpowered PSU, bad drivers etc), to assuming I have a faulty card that only shows instability when under an RT workload.

Thanks in advance!

2

It seems highly likely to be a problem specific to your card. My impression is that while the RT cores are tied to compute units, they’re technically separate… So a fault in any one of them would pass every single test you can throw at the card, but then break every time RT gets turned on.

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3

Appreciate the feedback, reached a similar conclusion - just always worth an ask when you’ve got a touch of tunnel vision trying to solve a problem

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4

After getting in touch with AMD, they provided some further troubleshooting steps, but most had been covered by the above. They’ve now recommended a return to Amazon, which Amazon have actioned. My card is going back today, with the new one due one Sunday.

I will follow up here to confirm that has fixed the issue, in the hopes it helps someone else like myself - who has spent hours trawling through google looking for other instances of this specific failure!

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5

Can confirm it was a defective card.

Just received the replacement unit, same 6950xt (founders?reference? Whatever we’re calling em these days). New one has zero crashing in RT!

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6

:+1:

This was the right decision. When you buy a product and it does not work and you think the problem might be the other hardware in your computer, you should debug the problem for a few days, possibly with replacement hardware, but if you can not make it work by then you should return or RMA.

Most modern hardware is so intricate in design that there will be a certain amount of defective products and as a consumer it is not your responsibility to jump through hoops to somehow make it work.

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