AMD Radeon R9 270X boot issues.

So, here is the situation. I pull out the old card, make sure to scrub all the old drivers first, then pop in the new Radeon card and boot up into macOS.

Next, I install the latest drivers and reboot. Right after the macOS logo appears, I get hit with a black screen. I try restarting, going into Safe Mode, wiping the drivers, and trying different versions—same result. Just a black screen. Tried a few different driver sets, nothing works. Hmm.

The GPU seems fine in Safe Mode or when running without drivers in macOS. I have already updated to the latest BIOS, and the power supply isn't the issue; I am using an EVGA 430W. The indicator lights on the card are glowing green.

I attempted to disable the AMD startup via msconfig, but no luck. I also tried switching between HDMI, DVI, and VGA, but the outcome is always the same. The system boots perfectly fine, but once that OS logo hits, the screen goes black.

The motherboard is an ECS Z77 and the CPU is an Intel Core i5-2400. Honestly, I am at a loss. I even went into the BIOS and set the PCI-E settings to default, but it changed nothing.

Does anyone have a solution? Both 6-pin connectors are plugged in securely.

I noticed there are plenty of people asking about the R9 series on some US forums.

There’s actually a switch right by the CrossFire connector on the card. According to the official site, it toggles between BIOS and Legacy mode. I haven't touched it—it's set to Legacy mode by default—but I suppose it's possible that could be a factor here.

Benjamin King2? I feel like calling you in 🙂. Perhaps you have some insight into what I'm dealing with. I've been scouring international forums, and apparently, this entire R9 lineup is plagued by these kinds of issues regardless of which manufacturer you go with. It seems like Gaibward is the only one immune to it.

Legacy mode is really just there to play nice with older systems that don't support BIOS. Is there actually a video BIOS update out for that card? Have you messed around with the Sapphire drivers or maybe just tried the generic AMD ones? Honestly, your best bet might be to just throw the card into another PC and see if it behaves there.

Problem solved. I tried messing with the BIOS and even swapped it into a different rig, but nothing worked. Finally took it back to Best Buy and they approved a replacement. They’re actually pretty familiar with this specific issue. Since I picked it up used, I'm just glad the warranty actually held up.

According to the guys at Best Buy, the card was throwing out insufficient voltage levels, which triggered some kind of safe mode or whatever. Typical.

The new Sapphire card is running like an absolute beast.🙂

I attempted to score an NVIDIA GTX 760 through a trade, but it didn't quite pan out, haha.