Gigabyte R9 280X artifacting

[WhiskeyOnFire]

Hello there people.

I have an issue with my graphics card.

At random times the darn thing just starts artifacting. No consistensy in how far into a gaming session the artifacting starts. It does seem to be a bigger problem in euro truck simulater and minecraft than in any other games.

Now i don't think it's a cable/monitor issue because i can catch the artifacting in a screenshot.

The card is also shipped with a boostclock of 1100mhz but doesn't seem to want to go higher than 1000mhz.

Is the card dead or could it be something else?
(Can upload screenshots on request)

 

[Wraith]

Is this the Windforce 280X? What are your VRM temps like when playing? You state it's worse with Euro Truck Simulator and Minecraft, what other games do you play that it Artifacts with?

EDIT: Which PSU are you using?

 

[WhiskeyOnFire]

Is this the Windforce 280X? What are your VRM temps like when playing? You state it's worse with Euro Truck Simulator and Minecraft, what other games do you play that it Artifacts with?

EDIT: Which PSU are you using?

Yes it's the Windforce card.
I have small graphical errors in BF4 and league of legends aswell (league is known for bugs though) It could be doing it in other games too but if so it's not noticable.

How do i check my vrm temps on my gpu? I can only seem to find core temp in both HWM and Gpu-z. Which is never above 69-70C

My psu is a XFX Core Edition Pro 750w.

 

[Wraith]

You'll find the VRM temps in GPU-Z under the sensors tab. Your PSU seems strong enough though.

Top 4 reasons for Artifacting are as follows:

1. Overheating VRM
2. Faulty GPU
3. Bad power draw
4. Bad Overclock

The lesser reason is bad game code (bugs).

EDIT: Even though your load temps seem fine at 70c, are all 3 fans performing as they should?

 

[WhiskeyOnFire]

All 3 fans are spinning fine from what i can tell by looking/listening

As for GPU-z i don't have a VRM sensor in the sensor tab. Mine looks like this

 

[Wraith]

Oh crap my bad dude, the Gigabyte Windforce 280X doesn't have VRM sensors.. Doh... I'm such a clot.

EDIT: was that screen shot taken while idle?

 

[WhiskeyOnFire]

Oh crap my bad dude, the Gigabyte Windforce 280X doesn't have VRM sensors.. Doh... I'm such a clot.

EDIT: was that screen shot taken while idle?

Just came out of a league of legends match when i took that. It was just to show the UI though.

EDIT: Should i try and bump down the overclock/bump up the power limit to see if that makes it more stable or just RMA?

 

[Wraith]

Could you do a Totally Idle screen shot (after a 5 min cool down) and then a 100% load screen shot.

 

[WhiskeyOnFire]

Here you go

I noticed something when doing the load test. i was TS with a friend who sent me a youtube link, and when i opened the link on my second monitor and tabbed back into valley the frequency dropped from the rated 1100mhz (can almost only reach that in benchmarks) to the 1000 i usually get. When i closed my youtube tab it went back up to 1100mhz.

Is that an issue with Flash player then?

Anyway screenies are here

 

[Wraith]

It's normal for the GPU to throttle when its services are required to do something else, as Valley was using 100% and youtube needed some GPU it throttled back to share the load for a brief period I can see it on the sensor graph. your temps look fine from here 70c is on the ball for a 280X. Do you get any artifacting during Valley.

 

[WhiskeyOnFire]

It's normal for the GPU to throttle when its services are required to do something else, as Valley was using 100% and youtube needed some GPU it throttled back to share the load for a brief period I can see it on the sensor graph. your temps look fine from here 70c is on the ball for a 280X. Do you get any artifacting during Valley.

No none what so ever.

 

[Wraith]

I'd expect to at least see artefacts in Valley as well as games, have you used any other benchmarks like 3DMark Firestrike.. which AMD Drivers are you using? I've heard of a few having issues with artefacts in WoW with the 14.4 Catalyst. It could be that.

 

[WhiskeyOnFire]

I'd expect to at least see artefacts in Valley as well as games, have you used any other benchmarks like 3DMark Firestrike.. which AMD Drivers are you using? I've heard of a few having issues with artefacts in WoW with the 14.4 Catalyst. It could be that.

I am indeed using 14.4 but i had issues with this before and i updated the driver hoping that it would help.

I'll get on some other benchmarks tommorrow and let you guys know what's up

 

[Wraith]

Cool. If benches can't reproduce it and drivers don't fix it, you might have to consider it's RMA time.

 

[WhiskeyOnFire]

okay so now i've run 3DMark vantage and Firestrike

I did get a very subtle amount of artifacting (in lack of better words) during the first GPU test of Vantage but the rest of the benchmark and all of firestrike seems to be running fine other than raping my fps.

 

[Wraith]

If that's the case then you have a faulty card, it's sometimes the case with these pre overclocked cards. Some people on the Gigabyte forums have said that by underclocking and slightly increasing the voltages it fixed the problem but the majority have just decided to RMA for a replacement.

Underclocking from 1050Mhz just defeats the point IMO I'd just RMA it.

 

[barnsley]

What drivers are you using?

 

[WhiskeyOnFire]

The package on the website is the 14.4 but the Control center itself calls it 14.10

 

[WhiskeyOnFire]

*New Update*

As i went to spend the summer at my parents place i brought my computer and only brought one of the monitors. I have not had a single artifacting issue while using only one monitor.
Have any of you had that/heard of this issue before?
Could i have some settings wrong in the CCC?