GTX 970/980 BIOS update for DisplayPort issues

[yeasah]

There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding surrounding the updated reference Maxwell BIOS -- there are several threads inquiring on this topic but many of them are confused as to what the necessity of the BIOS update or whether it applies to the ASUS cards at all.

Background: many Maxwell cards have had significant issues with output on the displayport connector, exhibiting a black screen in various situations: on initial boot, after restoring from sleep, etc. Different driver revisions appear to express the problem differently, and more recent releases solve the problem entirely for some people -- but not all. The thread on the nvidia forums describing the issue is here https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/777412/geforce-drivers/black-screen-on-windows-login-344-16... -- this link goes directly to the nvidia response, which indicates a two part solution to the problem: a new driver (344.80) and a new reference BIOS (84.04.31.00.00). The suggestion is that the driver *may* fix the problem alone, and if it does not that the new BIOS will be required.

In my case, I have an ASUS STRIX 970 connected to an ASUS ROG SWIFT -- so displayport is the only possible option for me. The problem occurs for me even with the latest driver or that specific hotfix driver, and the other suggested PCIe setting related hacks are not effective or applicable (I have a somewhat older motherboard, an ASUS P6T). If my system goes to sleep for long enough for the SWIFT to enter its sleep state (i.e. the ring light turns off), I can expect that when I bring the system out of sleep that the monitor will be indicating "no signal" and no amount of power cycling of the monitor, unplugging/replugging of the displayport cable, etc. will bring it back. A system reset is the only reliable way. Not to belabor the point: this is *really* inconvenient.

So, back to the BIOS. Running the ASUS gpu tweak software informs me that I have the latest BIOS for my card, which is:

Sep 19,2014 84.04.1F.00.2B

There appears to be some confusion (i.e. in this thread https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?54246-Asus-gtx-980-strix-new-vbios) as to whether this BIOS is actually newer than the one specified in the nvidia thread (84.04.31.00.00) -- the fact that the version number includes hexidecimal digits is perhaps part of the problem, maybe along with the fact that 1F in hex happens to be the same value as 31 in decimal. I will present two pieces of evidence that the currently shipping ASUS BIOS version is older than the version specified by nvidia.

First of all, the date. The nvidia post that advertises the newly available BIOS was in November 2014, but the ASUS BIOS was compiled much earlier than that, in September 2014. Second, let's look at the BIOS release history of a vendor with a more active policy of BIOS releases -- MSI in this case:

2014-09-10 84.04.1F.00.F1
2014-10-09 84.04.28.00.F1
2014-10-29 84.04.2F.00.F1
2014-11-19 84.04.31.00.F1

(This data is from the techpowerup database of BIOS: http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/index.php?architecture=&manufacturer=&model=GTX+970&interface=&me...)

Clearly there have been many releases of BIOS made available since September's 84.04.1F -- revision 84.04.28 in early October, 84.04.2F in late October, and finally 84.04.31 on the 19th of November: this is the revision that nvidia is referring to in their post about the resolution to the displayport problems.

I'm not demanding that ASUS match the frequency of firmware release of other manufacturers -- it's a point of competitive disadvantage, but I'm sure there's a cost to producing new releases and it's up to ASUS to determine what their policy is for this. But in this case, there is a firmware release that corrects a defect in the product that is causing real issues -- this forum already has several threads asking about BIOS releases and/or complaining about displayport issues: it is causing actual customers significant problems right now, including me.

Please, can we get a direct, non-evasive answer as to when we can expect an updated BIOS produced in November 2014 or later based on the 84.04.31 reference code for Maxwell-based ASUS graphics cards?

[Simbiat]

Just suddenly lost signal midwork right now. Been a long time since I had this one.

[RuneB]

Simbiat wrote:
Just suddenly lost signal midwork right now. Been a long time since I had this one.

Update on progress on my card. I got it back after 1 month of RMA... They had tried it out and found no errors. Unfortunately I can not reinsert the card into my pc as the tester in Germany have bend some parts of the card.
Monday I will talk to the shop where I purchased it and see what they think next step is...

cheers!

update: the reseller will give me my money back. Wondering what to purchase instead...

[Cypz]

I have the same issue. Sometimes when my system goes to sleep the monitor will be stuck in power save mode. Sometimes on boot the monitor goes immediately in to power save mode and it can take several hard resets until the monitor recognizes the displayport connection. This issue is extremely irritating.

Asus Z97-A motherboard - Latest BIOS 2401
Asus GTX 970 Strix - Later VBIOS 84.04.36.00.AS15 / Nvidia driver 353.62
Dell U2715H Monitor
EVGA G2 850w PSU

[Simbiat]

Cypz, this is not a monitor's issue, though (=

BTW, I upgraded to Win0 yesterday and issue persists on it as well. Furthermore right after the upgrade, while the card was still in Adaptive power mode it lost the signal 3 times within ~10 minutes. Switching power mode to maximum performance helped random loses, but issue with no signal after sleep still persists as usual.

edit: Nope. Just got a random blink =( Did not lose the signal completely, but still.

[Cypz]

Simbiat wrote:
Cypz, this is not a monitor's issue, though (=

BTW, I upgraded to Win0 yesterday and issue persists on it as well. Furthermore right after the upgrade, while the card was still in Adaptive power mode it lost the signal 3 times within ~10 minutes. Switching power mode to maximum performance helped random loses, but issue with no signal after sleep still persists as usual.

edit: Nope. Just got a random blink =( Did not lose the signal completely, but still.

Yes, I realize it is not a monitor issue and the fault lies with my graphics card. Has anyone had any official comment from Asus on this issues. Upgrading to the latest drivers and latest vbios failed to fix the problem. I have also upgraded to Windows 10 and the problem persists. Extremely frustrating... I considered doing a RMA request, but I assume that it will not fix the issue.

[Simbiat]

I have a.. "comment", but I am not sure I am free to share this. And even if I am, I'd prefer to keep it down until it actually goes through, if it does go through at all.

[computerninja]

I have an ASUS Strix GTX 970 and a 27" ROG Swift. This same problem started happening to me about 3-4 weeks ago. I removed my video card via Device Manager and reinstalled the driver to two versions back. Seemed to fix it until I rebooted my system today.

I use Windows 8.1 64-bit and I have tested the monitor to rule out that it's not at fault and it works just fine with my MacBook Pro plugged into it.

I even just updated to the latest drivers from nVidia that got released today or yesterday for Windows 10 system compatibility.

What else can we do? What has ASUS done for folks with these cards? Pretty pissed off actually.

[yeasah]

Definitely try the VBIOS update if you haven't already.

computerninja wrote:
I have an ASUS Strix GTX 970 and a 27" ROG Swift. This same problem started happening to me about 3-4 weeks ago. I removed my video card via Device Manager and reinstalled the driver to two versions back. Seemed to fix it until I rebooted my system today.

I use Windows 8.1 64-bit and I have tested the monitor to rule out that it's not at fault and it works just fine with my MacBook Pro plugged into it.

I even just updated to the latest drivers from nVidia that got released today or yesterday for Windows 10 system compatibility.

What else can we do? What has ASUS done for folks with these cards? Pretty pissed off actually.

[computerninja]

I have VBIOS 84.04.36.00.5E.

After a few reboots yesterday, my card sent a signal to my monitor. I hate the flakiness. I'll try a VBIOS update.

Your graphic card no need to update VBIOS!

So I guess I'm already up to date.

[yeasah]

I believe you do have the latest VBIOS then. One thing that strikes me as a little odd is that the problem just started happening for you out of the blue -- for me at least, the STRIX 970 + ROG Swift combo always had the problem from day 1 (after upgrading from a 770 which never had the problem).

I wonder if you are actually hitting an issue with the Swift PSU, which has a somewhat similar presentation but the root cause is apparently very different. If unplugging the monitor (from the AC jack at the wall) restores a picture on the monitor, it might be this issue.

Here's a link to one thread about the issue (there have been others I think but that's the best I can find right now):

https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?52964-PG278Q-issues-does-not-turn-on-on-first-power-on-new...

computerninja wrote:
I have VBIOS 84.04.36.00.5E.

After a few reboots yesterday, my card sent a signal to my monitor. I hate the flakiness. I'll try a VBIOS update.



So I guess I'm already up to date.