Sapphire Radeon Graphics Card Problem

54and56

Hi all,

I've a gaming PC with a Sapphire Radeon R9 280 Dual-X OC graphics card - http://www.sapphiretech.com/productdetial.asp?pid=C4D1B443-6105-4A63-85DE-1732CC9C443D&lang=eng

For the last few weeks I've been getting a very annoying flicker on the screen after about 30 minutes of gaming. It's a square area which starts to flicker and doesn't stop. My PC is housed in a Cooltek GT-01 case which has a good set of fans and the case itself is well ventilated. I don't get any over heating errors but when I contacted Radeon all they suggested was that the machine must be over heating. Any suggestions as to how I can actually diagnose the root cause of the problem?

Here's a short video showing the flicker

yoyo

Do a clean driver uninstall using DDU. After download the latest/non-beta AMD graphics driver from amd.com and see if the issue remains.

Nick

ED E

The fact that its artifcating like that after a period of time does say its a heat/stability issue. Update the drivers as above but its not super likely to fix it.


Chances are if you try running Furmark right now you'd crash the machine completely after 10-15 minutes. A hot spot is all you need to cause problems, one IC on the edge/top of the card that isnt getting air blown over it is enough. Blower style fans can have issues where air circulates vs being evacuated quickly.

First thing I'd do is place the PC on its side with the door off, run it like that for two hours and see if theres an improvement.

54and56

Thanks Guys, I'll uninstall the drivers using DDU and see if that makes a difference and if not I'll take the side panel off the case and see if it problem persists.

I just ran the Furmark "Preset 1080p FHD" test which takes just over a minute and the results are



Is that the right test to run?

ED E

Nah, in your case the problem isn't instantly apparent so you need to run the torture test for at least 15 minutes, maybe more.

54and56

ED E wrote: »

Nah, in your case the problem isn't instantly apparent so you need to run the torture test for at least 15 minutes, maybe more.

Thanks Ed, I'm now running the stress test on full screen. Five minutes in and everything is whirring away. I'll see how long it can take it!!

Skerries

is the fan attached properly to the card?
I had a brand new card arrive years ago and I was having problems with artifacting, turns out one of the clips on the fan was gone so I used a small zip tie to keep it in place

54and56

OK, 15 minutes in and all appears well.

Average frame rate is 42 and GPU temp has been a constant 79c from about 30 second's after the test started.

How long should I let the test run for?

54and56

Ran the full screen stress test there for 25 minutes without any problems.

Scratching head time

ED E

Well, yes and no.

We've proven the GPU isn't overheating by itself, but not the entire case. Your CPU will likely be throwing another ~100W into the case while gaming. Try running Prime95 and Furmark together and see if the temp goes much above 79*C after 10 mins or artifacts appear.

If that's all clear then its really a strange one. Maybe bad GDDR but hard to say.

54and56

Thanks Ed,

I'll run both tests simultaneously later this evening and see what the outcome is.

A Google of "Radeon R9 280 Dual-X artifacting" returns a lot of complaints about this problem. I've a bit of reading to do tonight!!

Now back to work

54and56

Popped home at lunchtime and ran both the Prime95 Torture Test and the FurMark Stress Test simultaneously for 20 minutes and the box handled it without a problem. The GPU frame rate remained at an average of 42 and the temperature remained at a steady 79c. I guess that means the hardware and fans etc are fine and the problem is likely to be with the graphics card drivers.

I'll follow the http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html uninstaller method later and reinstall the latest non beta driver to see if that fixes the problem.

If it doesn't I really don't know what to do!!! Fingers crossed.

54and56

yoyo wrote: »

Do a clean driver uninstall using DDU. After download the latest/non-beta AMD graphics driver from amd.com and see if the issue remains.

Nick

Did the clean uninstall and reinstall of the latest AMD driver using DDU and I initially thought it had done the trick but unfortunately not, after about 30 minutes of gaming the artifacting has returned

Now I am a bit stumped and particularly annoyed as I'm 10 weeks outside the 12 month warranty!!

ED E

Is it only with one title, or several?

54and56

ED E wrote: »

Is it only with one title, or several?

It's with any game with a heavy graphics component.

ED E

You could try this:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/video_memory_stress_test.html

You'll have to start it from command line (cmd.exe) to set a large memory buffer as its reallllly old.

54and56

ED E wrote: »

You'll have to start it from command line (cmd.exe) to set a large memory buffer as its reallllly old.

I don't know what that means