topic Re: Both Intel ARC A380 and A770 crash my Windows 11 system frequently in Graphics

Both Intel ARC A380 and A770 crash my Windows 11 system frequently

oviano — Wed, 23 Nov 2022 07:35:11 GMT

My system:

Dan A4 v4 Case
MSI Z690I Unify
i7-12700
Corsair CMK32GX5M2B5200C40
NVIDIA 3070
Seagate Firecuda 530 2TB x 2
Noctua NH-L9i-17xx Chromax Black
Noctua NA-FD1
Corsair SF600

System perfectly stable for months.

A few weeks ago I replaced the NVIDIA GPU with an ARC A380. Straightaway it became unstable, with the screen freezing and the only way around it being to power-cycle the PC. I doubt it would last an hour before this occurred, sometimes sooner. It didn't appear to be related to anything the PC was doing, often happening when idle. I turned off display/system sleep, but the issue still occurred. It happens when using both the DisplayPort and HDMI outputs.

I then RMA-d the A380 and left it a few weeks. In the meantime, I re-fitted the NVIDIA GPU and the system was stable again.

Yesterday I took delivery of an ARC A770 to see if that was any better. Sadly not, the exact same issues are occurring again.

In both cases I used the latest GPU driver, including I have tried the latest BETA driver.

What is going on here, Intel?

I'm particularly interested in the AV1 encoding capabilities of this GPU, which is why I am persevering, but this is testing my resilience.

Is there anything I can do to help diagnose and solve the problem for you?

Resizable BAR is enabled on my motherboard. Anything else I can try? I want to help. I'm a developer, I'm technically proficient, if you need some logs or something just tell me where to find them/how to enable them.

Re: Both Intel ARC A380 and A770 crash my Windows 11 system frequently

oviano — Wed, 23 Nov 2022 11:27:09 GMT

Attaching results of System Support Utility scan.

Re:Both Intel ARC A380 and A770 crash my Windows 11 system frequently

LuisGustav_A_Intel — Wed, 23 Nov 2022 23:05:06 GMT

Hello oviano,

Thank you for contacting Intel Technical Support for graphics.

We are sorry to hear you experienced problems freezing with Intel® Arc™ A770. We are glad to assist.

Please consider for testing

Check latest bios updates, MSI website shows 7D29v191. Set BIOS default values, then modify the corresponding configuration for this graphics card and optimal performance

Perform Clean Installation of Intel® Graphics Drivers in Windows* with latest drivers.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/227955/intel-arc-a770-graphics-8gb/downloads.html

Set RAM to Up to DDR5 4800 MT/s based on your processor

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/134591/intel-core-i712700-processor-25m-cache-up-to-4-90-ghz.html

Reset this PC Windows option which allows you to keep the media, or fresh Windows reinstallation.

Best regards,

Luis A.

Intel Customer Support Technician.

Re: Both Intel ARC A380 and A770 crash my Windows 11 system frequently

oviano — Thu, 24 Nov 2022 09:34:02 GMT

In response to your suggestions:

BIOS - I already updated this, yesterday, and it is still unstable

BIOS defaults - I already did this. In fact, the only non-default settings are that I enabled VMD for RAID. Resizable BAR was already enabled by default.

Clean install of GPU driver - done this numerous times

RAM speed - I just checked, and it's set to 4800 in the BIOS by default

Reset this PC/fresh Windows install - done this several times now, with both the A380 and now the A770

I seem to be able to force the freeze to occur more quickly by running a batch file of AV1 encodes using FFmpeg. It will still crash eventually if I don't do this, but this seems to guarantee the freeze. I've yet to have it complete this sequence of AV1 encodes.

I was hoping to run this test after starting in Windows safe boot mode, but unfortunately the full GPU driver isn't loaded in the scenario, so the AV1 encodes fail. Is there a way of forcing the proper GPU driver to be loaded in this scenario? It would be a useful test.

Finally, I have also tried disabling as many of the motherboard devices as I can, e.g. onboard Audio, wifi, bluetooth, thunderbolt etc. basically anything I'm not using right now but it still froze this morning after doing that.

Re: Both Intel ARC A380 and A770 crash my Windows 11 system frequently

powerarmour — Thu, 24 Nov 2022 10:15:11 GMT

@oviano wrote:

My system:

Corsair SF600

Could potentially be a PSU issue, although the power draw between the Arc A770 and RTX 3070 is very similar overall, the Arc card does noticeably draw more power in idle (like +30W more easy) and can occasionally spike a tad higher (I only know this as I've done the same swap myself, and my Fractal Ion+ 660W Platinum is fine thankfully).

Re: Both Intel ARC A380 and A770 crash my Windows 11 system frequently

oviano — Thu, 24 Nov 2022 10:12:51 GMT

Thanks. I considered this but I had the exact same issues with the A380 (TDP 75W)....

Re: Both Intel ARC A380 and A770 crash my Windows 11 system frequently

powerarmour — Thu, 24 Nov 2022 10:22:17 GMT

@oviano wrote:

Thanks. I considered this but I had the exact same issues with the A380 (TDP 75W)....

Of course, absolutely fair point!

Normally the first culprit to check though with these intermittent hardware related issues unfortunately.

Re: Both Intel ARC A380 and A770 crash my Windows 11 system frequently

oviano — Thu, 24 Nov 2022 11:28:13 GMT

Yep....I just monitored the power draw of the card while it was doing the AV1 encoding and it hovers around 70W, from an idle 30W or so.

Obviously these cards work for most people otherwise this place would be full of similar complaints and I can only find which looks similar https://community.intel.com/t5/Graphics/Intel-Arc-A770-LE-Freezing-Computer-and-Causing-Crash-When-Not/td-p/1426301

and that person appeared to have just RMAd the card.

The only multiple complaints appear to relate to in-game glitches, and there seems a fair amount of media coverage of those sort of driver issues, but less so of actually freezing the entire system.

I may try plugging it into another PC I have which has similar spec but not the same. This one has a Z690I Strix Gaming and an i7-12700K, but otherwise pretty much the same. I suppose that might tell me something (or nothing)?

Re: Both Intel ARC A380 and A770 crash my Windows 11 system frequently

powerarmour — Thu, 24 Nov 2022 12:00:26 GMT

@oviano wrote:
The only multiple complaints appear to relate to in-game glitches, and there seems a fair amount of media coverage of those sort of driver issues, but less so of actually freezing the entire system.

Indeed, I've been using mine as a daily driver since Oct 14th, and I've honestly had no major issues with it other than a couple of game bugs, it's been stable on a hardware level for me luckily (no freezing or display connectivity problems) both in Linux (my main system) and in Windows.

I've genuinely been pretty impressed with it so far otherwise, it's not perfect for sure (high idle power draw, lack of VRR over HDMI, lacklustre PCIe bandwidth, high CPU driver overhead etc), but it's definitely not the hot garbage some would have you believe.

I hope you manage to find the root cause of your problem here, it'll certainly be helpful data to the support team I'm sure.

Re: Both Intel ARC A380 and A770 crash my Windows 11 system frequently

oviano — Thu, 24 Nov 2022 12:01:59 GMT

I guess if someone bought it for gaming/are a gamer and you've come from NVIDIA you're probably going to notice glitches etc.

I'm actually only interested in evaluating for AV1 encoding for a hobby project (A Slingbox-replacement style system). At the moment its the only dual-slot hardware AV1 encoding option, although I presume NVIDIA will release less-chunky 4-series cards next year.

I will take this as far as I can anyway, and even if I don't solve it at least it'll serve as a reference for what is not the cause!

Re:Both Intel ARC A380 and A770 crash my Windows 11 system frequently

LuisGustav_A_Intel — Thu, 24 Nov 2022 18:40:49 GMT

Hello oviano,

Thank you for the information provided. Let me check this further. I will post updates soon.

Best regards,

Luis A.

Intel Customer Support Technician.

Re: Both Intel ARC A380 and A770 crash my Windows 11 system frequently

oviano — Thu, 24 Nov 2022 18:48:58 GMT

So I've now put the A770 into the following spec PC:

Dan A4 v4 Case
ASUS Z690I ROG Strix Gaming
i7-12700K
Corsair CMK64GX5M2B5200C40
Seagate Firecuda 530 4TB x 2
Noctua NH-L9i-17xx Chromax Black
Noctua NA-FD1
Corsair SF600

So the same spec except it's an ASUS motherboard and slightly higher-spec CPU.

Early signs are that the GPU is now stable in this configuration. For the first time I have been able to complete all the AV1 encodes without it freezing.

Would someone in your support team @LuisGustav_A_Intel be able to try one of these Arc cards in another MSI MEG Unify Z690I?

It's quite a rare motherboard for an mITX in that it has 2 x DIsplayPort IN ports which allows a DP signal from a discrete GPU to be passed back into the motherboard for output via TB4. This lets you do cool stuff like link the PC up to an Apple Studio Display, for example. Although I wasn't using this functionality at the time of my testing, I wonder if this additional functionality is something the Arc cards find objectionable for some reason? The ASUS motherboard does not have this feature.

Putting on my Sherlock Holmes hat, I have noticed that this person ( https://community.intel.com/t5/Graphics/Intel-Arc-A770-LE-Freezing-Computer-and-Causing-Crash-When-N...) who RMAd his ARC has the following motherboard (from the ssu.txt that he/she posted):

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/Z590I-VISION-D-rev-10/sp#sp

This also has a DisplayPort IN port.

Coincidence...?

I don't think there is much else detective work I can do. I'm happy to provide my FFmpeg source files and commands if that helps as that seems to guarantee the freeze occurring.

Re:Both Intel ARC A380 and A770 crash my Windows 11 system frequently

LuisGustav_A_Intel — Mon, 28 Nov 2022 05:11:29 GMT

Hello oviano,

In order to investigate with extra useful information, may we get the following.

Check Windows Event Logs
Generate a kernel or complete crash dump, you may follow steps on the link to perform it
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-client/performance/generate-a-kernel-or-complete-crash-dump

We have tested MSI MAG Z590 TOMAHAWK WIFI with an Intel® Arc™ A770 Graphics and did not experience any apparent issues though.

Best regards,

Luis A.

Intel Customer Support Technician.

Re: Re:Both Intel ARC A380 and A770 crash my Windows 11 system frequently

oviano — Mon, 28 Nov 2022 07:12:41 GMT

Hello @LuisGustav_A_Intel

Please re-test with a motherboard with DisplayPort IN. The model you referred to above does not have DisplayPort IN according to the spec.

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/MAG-Z590-TOMAHAWK-WIFI/Specification

I will try and generate a kernel or crash dump, but I'm not 100% sure if this will be possible because in this situation the computer freezes and does not actually crash/reboot.

I'll look into it though!

Re: Both Intel ARC A380 and A770 crash my Windows 11 system frequently

oviano — Mon, 28 Nov 2022 07:26:38 GMT

Batch file that always leads to the system freezing on my system before it completes all the commands:

ffmpeg -vcodec hevc_qsv -i football.mp4 -vcodec av1_qsv -profile:v main -preset veryslow -vb 1000k -maxrate 1000k -bf 0 -g 300 football_qsv_av1_1000k_v2_1.mp4 -y
ffmpeg -vcodec hevc_qsv -i football.mp4 -vcodec av1_qsv -profile:v main -preset veryslow -vb 1000k -bf 0 -g 300 football_qsv_av1_1000k_v2_2.mp4 -y
ffmpeg -vcodec hevc_qsv -i football.mp4 -vcodec av1_qsv -profile:v main -preset veryslow -vb 2000k -maxrate 2000k -bf 0 -g 300 football_qsv_av1_2000k_v2_1.mp4 -y
ffmpeg -vcodec hevc_qsv -i football.mp4 -vcodec av1_qsv -profile:v main -preset veryslow -vb 2000k -bf 0 -g 300 football_qsv_av1_2000k_v2_2.mp4 -y
ffmpeg -vcodec hevc_qsv -i football.mp4 -vcodec av1_qsv -profile:v main -preset veryslow -vb 3000k -maxrate 3000k -bf 0 -g 300 football_qsv_av1_3000k_v2_1.mp4 -y
ffmpeg -vcodec hevc_qsv -i football.mp4 -vcodec av1_qsv -profile:v main -preset veryslow -vb 3000k -bf 0 -g 300 football_qsv_av1_3000k_v2_2.mp4 -y
ffmpeg -vcodec hevc_qsv -i football.mp4 -vcodec av1_qsv -profile:v main -preset veryslow -vb 4000k -maxrate 4000k -bf 0 -g 300 football_qsv_av1_4000k_v2_1.mp4 -y
ffmpeg -vcodec hevc_qsv -i football.mp4 -vcodec av1_qsv -profile:v main -preset veryslow -vb 4000k -bf 0 -g 300 football_qsv_av1_4000k_v2_2.mp4 -y
ffmpeg -vcodec hevc_qsv -i football.mp4 -vcodec av1_qsv -profile:v main -preset veryslow -vb 6000k -maxrate 6000k -bf 0 -g 300 football_qsv_av1_6000k_v2_1.mp4 -y
ffmpeg -vcodec hevc_qsv -i football.mp4 -vcodec av1_qsv -profile:v main -preset veryslow -vb 6000k -bf 0 -g 300 football_qsv_av1_6000k_v2_2.mp4 -y
ffmpeg -vcodec hevc_qsv -i football.mp4 -vcodec av1_qsv -profile:v main -preset veryslow -vb 8000k -maxrate 8000k -bf 0 -g 300 football_qsv_av1_8000k_v2_1.mp4 -y
ffmpeg -vcodec hevc_qsv -i football.mp4 -vcodec av1_qsv -profile:v main -preset veryslow -vb 8000k -bf 0 -g 300 football_qsv_av1_8000k_v2_2.mp4 -y

Source input file:

https://ovcollyer-colebrooke.dyndns.org:4001/d/s/r5qm4zIURxrogQ9tAkee6Na6kMACl4NH/-YLQRSo2-6BuyfXDxkqoaMQj8nMh95jA-77vgIMDRBAo

Re:Both Intel ARC A380 and A770 crash my Windows 11 system frequently

LuisGustav_A_Intel — Tue, 29 Nov 2022 21:49:24 GMT

Hello oviano,

Thank you for the information provided.

Additionally, to generate a complete memory dump, and visit the website that explains different ways and location where to pull it from.
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-client/performance/generate-a-kernel-or-complete-crash-dump
Did you find something about it on Windows event logs?

Best regards,

Luis A.

Intel Customer Support Technician.

Re: Re:Both Intel ARC A380 and A770 crash my Windows 11 system frequently

oviano — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 05:08:39 GMT

There was nothing that stood out in the event logs after reboot.

I don’t see any option in the link above fir being able to generate a crash dump when the machine has frozen (so I cannot control it with the keyboard or login remotely) but it hasn’t rebooted or fully crashed by itself.

Are you going to follow my suggestion to try and reproduce this on a motherboard with DP IN? It’s the one common denominator between the two reports of similar instability so worth checking out?

Re:Both Intel ARC A380 and A770 crash my Windows 11 system frequently

LuisGustav_A_Intel — Thu, 01 Dec 2022 00:15:03 GMT

Hello oviano,

Thank you for the update.

About the 2x displayport/thunderbolt 4 ports from the MEG Z690I UNIFY, the allocated lanes that's through the onboard Intel® Core™ i7-12700K Processor/ Intel® UHD Graphics 770. Please elaborate what you exactly mean about this as a possible factor of consideration.

I am investigating if we can reproduce using batch file FFmpeg from the file source you provided, however normally we asked for the memory dump file, did you check other options to when it freezes.

Best regards,

Luis A.

Intel Customer Support Technician.

Re: Both Intel ARC A380 and A770 crash my Windows 11 system frequently

Bill_Mars — Thu, 01 Dec 2022 02:01:08 GMT

Sorry for jumping in but I got a little confused herre from reading this thread.

Oviano:

To clarify , that Z690 is a nice board.

It has it's own integrated graphics.

So before you plug a graphics card in on that board there is a lineup of stuff you have to do at Acer with that Mboard before it will accept the 770.

I don't know if you did this. I'm just making sure we're on the same page.

OK so you plug the 770 in. Good call, and there's a surprise waiting for you.

Go to Intel:

And please do this first; Make the account and log into Intel.

LET INTEL IDENTIFY YOUR SYSTEM.

And the rest will be smooth sailing... except for the half-dozen re-boots you might have to make.

Get:

Driver updater assistant.

Graphics command Center

Those two should be enough

But if you are ambitious or into gaming.

ARC

Optane

And the System support app.

Everything should be fine when done... except for one thing:

By the way: I did scroll up to the beginning;

and just to let you know... you never successfully got rid of all the Nvidia stuff left behind (if you even deleted the Nvidia software)

before you plugged in the 380 or the 770.

It's why they could never configure.

Now you set it all on a new board... but if you are using the same hard drive

it still has the old Nvidia stuff installed in registry, in config, in system, and the driver file repository.

If anything Nvidia loads at start up it will interfere with anything you do.

Manually it took 3 hours work to get rid of it all.

Logging into Intel and letting them identify the system helped alot!

Re: Re:Both Intel ARC A380 and A770 crash my Windows 11 system frequently

oviano — Thu, 01 Dec 2022 03:25:52 GMT

It was just that the only two reports of this issue in these forums involved these relatively raw motherboards with a DP un so it seemed worthy of investigation. Clearly it’s a rare issue.