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Disabling fast startup resolves my AMD GPU problem

Joined
Sep 20, 2019
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Processor i9-9900K @ 5.1GHz (H2O Cooled)
Motherboard Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Master
Cooling CPU = EK Velocity / GPU = EK Vector
Memory 32GB - G-Skill Trident Z RGB @ 3200MHz
Video Card(s) AMD RX 6900 XT (H2O Cooled)
Storage Samsung 860 EVO - 970 EVO - 870 QVO
Display(s) Samsung QN90A 50" 4K TV & LG 20" 1600x900
Case Lian Li O11-D
Audio Device(s) Presonus Studio 192
Power Supply Seasonic Prime Ultra Titanium 850W
Mouse Logitech MX Anywhere 2S
Keyboard Matias RGB Backlit Keyboard
Software Windows 10 & macOS (Hackintosh)
Little bit of a PSA kinda post. Using a RX 5700 XT in my main build for a couple years until I upgraded to a RX 6900 XT. Later building a separate SFF system and repurposing the RX 5700 XT in that SFF system this issue got even worse it seemed. (to clarify, regarding the RX 5700 XT in the SFF system is what got worse) I would now constantly get an error from AMD Radeon Software that "Default Radeon WattMan settings have been restored due to an unexpected system failure" and this always happened whenever I entered in custom settings in Wattman. The major problem here is there was no system failure....so wtf was causing it to think there was? Mind you this didn't happen because I had out of bounds settings entered, something the card or system cannot handle.....not the case at all. Also keep in mind this occurred right at startup of the OS, it only happened on cold boots, rather than warm boots/reboots. This never occurred when putting a heavy load on the card. I never noticed this issue much at all on my main rig because I would leave default settings and only load custom profiles based on game ABC or program XYZ booting. So the GPU always had default settings on a cold boot. But when I was "dialing in" custom settings I would sometimes make those settings defaults just as I test them out and this is when I first noticed the issue. Not until the RX 5700 XT went to live in the SFF system where I purposely wanted to put a 24/7 undervolt and powerlimit on it to keep temps in check did I start to experience this on a 100% repeatable and frequent basis.

The nail in the coffin that something was fishy was when I tried selecting the "custom" button in Wattman but did not change a single setting so still had default gpu and mem clock, voltages, fan curve etc and it STILL produced this error on a cold boot. At first I thought it got worse in my SFF system because I only plugged in a single PCIe cable that had a Y at the end to populate both the 6 and 8pin PCIe ports. After changing that to two dedicated cables the situation didn't improve. I only used a single cable at first to keep clutter down in the small case, but adding the 2nd cable was an effort made in vain.

I dealt with this for a while and it's wide spread enough that there are lots of posts out and about going back several years detailing this issue with lots of suggestions, none which worked for me except for disabling fast startup.

Turning fast startup OFF in Power & Sleep Settings fixed this for me. The only connection I can draw is the issue did occur only on cold boots, and this setting has something to do with how the system deals with a shutdown and cold boot. Sounds like it goes into pseudo hibernation (closing programs and log out users instead of leaving your session in tact) instead of a true shutdown just so it boots a little quicker?! I really cannot tell a difference with it on or off, so whatever time save happens seems to be minuscule for me. So if you happen to have this error occurring when you are certain your custom settings are not the culprit, this would be a good first thing to try because it's such an easy low hanging piece of fruit to go after, just disable this setting! The picture shows it as enabled, so make sure there is no check mark to set it to disabled. You likely will need to click the text "Change settings that are currently unavailable" in order to change it one way or the other. You can find the fast startup setting in "Power & Sleep Settings" > "Additional power settings" > "Choose what the power buttons do".

1690993143634.png
 
Yep... this is an issue with radeon since at least a year now. annoying workaround but at least i don't have to load my fancurve after every boot.
 
Thanks, I'll try this as I see this issue on occasion (just started up PC and it's fine this time but I got the Wattman settings reset yesterday).
 
Yep... this is an issue with radeon since at least a year now. annoying workaround but at least i don't have to load my fancurve after every boot.

Would explain i never had the issue, i always disable fast startup in the bios.
 
Would explain i never had the issue, i always disable fast startup in the bios.
That is different than the "fast startup" setting in the actual operating system. isn't it usually called "fast boot" when it's a BIOS option? as far as I know, these are different settings and serve different purposes. Google "fast startup vs fast boot" for the details.

Thanks for reporting!
I have being disabling Hibernate(that also disables the Fast Startup), for years...
Anyway, I also like to do some other tweaks :)
the pic I took was from my work laptop (which is why I cannot disable the setting there - work has it locked down and you need admin privleges to do this)
as you can see hibernation is disabled, but the fast startup option is enabled. and on my personal systems at home I never enable hibernation either but fast startup is still enabled by default.

So I'm curious about where you are disabling hibernation and it also takes care of disabling fast boot? My experience didn't go like that as they seem independent of each other
 
So I'm curious about where you are disabling hibernation and it also takes care of disabling fast boot? My experience didn't go like that as they seem independent of each other
From https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...-startup/5362cd29-86ca-4b39-be60-718446f9d5f8
"Fast startup requires that hibernate be enabled. If you disable hibernate, then it will also disable fast startup."

From https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/w...-startup-and-shutdown-experience#fast-startup


With Hibernation disabled we have no file hiberfil.sys, so Fast Startup can not work.
 
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Creative Sound Blasters also do not like fast startup since ever.

Usually disable that crap.
 
From https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...-startup/5362cd29-86ca-4b39-be60-718446f9d5f8
"Fast startup requires that hibernate be enabled. If you disable hibernate, then it will also disable fast startup."

From https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/w...-startup-and-shutdown-experience#fast-startup


With Hibernation disabled we have no file hiberfil.sys, so Fast Startup can not work.
Thanks but I meant where in the operating system do you change hibernation to be disabled? I was wondering if there is a different spot to disable it from where I know, as in the "choose what the power buttons do" area is the only spot I know where. But I very clearly can have fast boot enabled, even though hibernation is disabled. Every single Windows 10 and 11 device I have has fast startup enabled by default, and hibernation disabled by default. Whenever I make fresh installs, the check boxes are ticked like my first post's screenshot. Does my screen shot not contradict your comment and the one from the microsoft answer forum or am I missing some perhaps obvious detail? (just not obvious to me lol)

Or are you saying even though fast startup is enabled, due to hibernation being disabled, fast startup doesn't really work as intended (even though it's checked as enabled)? I couldn't tell any time difference one way or the other, but I also didn't bust out a stop watch either. The only difference I can tell is it stops creating the AMD WattMan error. Which seems to have to do how it handles (re)loading drivers at boot with fast startup enabled
 
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Fast startup was a huge PITA for my 5700-series mining rigs.

Honestly, fast startup has been really bad for just about every configuration I've ever built or used. At some point I always find an issue that goes away when I eventually remember to disable it. I've had licensing utilities that don't like it, display detection that didn't like it, GPU detection issues, VPN services that screwed up. It's a nice idea but it's not 100% compatible with everything out there and tbh I wish Microsoft just stopped hiding "suspend to disk" behind this obfuscated terminology. Just let us have the option to shut down AND suspend to disk like we used to (though that might have been with powertoys).
 
Would explain i never had the issue, i always disable fast startup in the bios.

same for me, I have always disabled it, and I run a command prompt that disables hibernate too. lol

I don't even know why fast startup exists, its dumb, my rig already boots so fast its crazy.
 
Thanks but I meant where in the operating system do you change hibernation to be disabled?
I disable with admin command prompt powercfg -hibernate off
Does my screen shot not contradict your comment and the one from the microsoft answer forum or am I missing some perhaps obvious detail?
Or are you saying even though fast startup is enabled, due to hibernation being disabled, fast startup doesn't really work as intended (even though it's checked as enabled)?
As I understand, no c:\hiberfil.sys = no hibernate or fast startup.
 
Fast startup was a huge PITA for my 5700-series mining rigs.

Honestly, fast startup has been really bad for just about every configuration I've ever built or used. At some point I always find an issue that goes away when I eventually remember to disable it. I've had licensing utilities that don't like it, display detection that didn't like it, GPU detection issues, VPN services that screwed up. It's a nice idea but it's not 100% compatible with everything out there and tbh I wish Microsoft just stopped hiding "suspend to disk" behind this obfuscated terminology. Just let us have the option to shut down AND suspend to disk like we used to (though that might have been with powertoys).
I always knew this setting existed, but never knew it was problematic until recently. And I have more than one OS on a single system. So I found myself corrupting disks the last couple months due to accessing the disk that was "locked" by OS "A" when I would access it with OS "B". Sometimes chkdsk could fly in and save the day, other times I was just left with a disk with a F'd file system and left everything RAW. Quite a bummer to want to just sit down on a rainy Sat to play a game and be met with the realization I just lost ~4TB of data. And worse, when I put my backup disk in the system, it F'd that one in the same way (doh!). The silver lining here I now invested into redundant backups. I haven't had any of those incidents since disabling fast startup but it hasn't been very long either, so time will tell if that was the real smoking gun. My new stance on fast startup is like everyone else here....disable that right away lol!

For context of my last post about fast startup creating the potential to corrupt data or disks....
1691091441973.png
 
same for me, I have always disabled it, and I run a command prompt that disables hibernate too. lol

I don't even know why fast startup exists, its dumb, my rig already boots so fast its crazy.
yeah then their is a chance it could be the problem as it's not a fresh reboot. Disabled any of that crap.

When i shutdown i expect it to do just that not some version of sleep, after all it's why it's called that in the first place.

Then again the PC Used to be called My Computer, kinda saying it's yours.
 
In my opinion, fast startup should be disabled by default ever since everybody has an SSD.
 
error from AMD Radeon Software that "Default Radeon WattMan settings have been restored due to an unexpected system failure" and this always happened whenever I entered in custom settings in Wattman. The major problem here is there was no system failure....so wtf was causing it to think there was?

View attachment 307341
That will happen, just because Windows wasn't shut down properly. I suspect Adrenalin reads the event log. When this happens, Adrenalin will delete custom fan settings. I don't have such type of issue with Nvidia and Afterburner.
 
quick and dirty way to turn off hibernation (and also quick startup by association)
command window (needs admin rights pretty sure):

> powercfg -h off

also if you want to double check, you can enter

> powercfg.cpl

to go straight to the power settings control panel. And yes it's super confusing they're both called powercfg but are different bits of windows.
 
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