XFX R9280x Random Artifacts On HDMI

[AphexDreamer]

So this is a brand new card, bought it at frys last Friday (2 days ago).

Here I am browsing the net when all of a sudden my second display via HDMI starts glitching out! The entire screen, full of odd lines on the top of half and rectangles on the second half of different colors just flashing about. I think it actually happened right when I clicked to play a youtube video.

I thought maybe my screen gave out, old monitor, using an adapter to get HDMI working. But then it hit me, that kind of glitching, its probably the card. I unplugged it nothing. I was just about to get another HDMI cable when I decided to restart (NOTE: monitor on DVI port is fine). PC restarts and everything is back to normal.

What the heck man? New Card, I started thinking if I should return back at frys or go through XFX.
In retrospect I should have taken a picture but the restart fixed it.

I should also note that it is running on stock clocks except for the RAM, upped 50mhz.

Does this happen? Is it the beta drivers? Should I take it back? Wait for it to happen again? So lame man, brand new card.

EDIT: Just played a youtube video, gonna try some games out, see if it happens again.

EDIT: Played 7 minutes so far of WD, gonna keep playing a bit more.

 

[THE_EGG]

yup welcome do the wonderful world of the r9 280x. I've had 3 r9 280xs. 2 out of the 3 were defective (artifacts and crashing etc). The third was a little bit defective but I just turned down the voltage and it worked great. 2 were asus and 1 was gigabyte. I really wanted to like the R9 280x but the issues were overwhelming.

Normally I'd say just downclock the vram or what have you but because of the high failure rate, I'd recommend taking it back. I don't know what it is like in your country but here in Australia you are entitled by law for a refund or replacement if the item does not perform the way it should (as it clearly is not happy running at the specified clocks, I see that as a valid excuse for replacement or refund). This being said even though it is law most shops will try everything they can to fix it even though it can take months.

EDIT: Ah I see you have changed the vram clocks. I'd turn that back to stock or over/undervolt the vram (if possible) to find a stable level. And yeh try out different drivers too. A 50mhz clock increase on the vram won't increase performance noticeably so it might as well be left at stock.

 

[AphexDreamer]

yup welcome do the wonderful world of the r9 280x. I've had 3 r9 280xs. 2 out of the 3 were defective (artifacts and crashing etc). The third was a little bit defective but I just turned down the voltage and it worked great. 2 were asus and 1 was gigabyte. I really wanted to like the R9 280x but the issues were overwhelming.

Normally I'd say just downclock the vram or what have you but because of the high failure rate, I'd recommend taking it back. I don't know what it is like in your country but here in Australia you are entitled by law for a refund or replacement if the item does not perform the way it should (as it clearly is not happy running at the specified clocks, I see that as a valid excuse for replacement or refund). This being said even though it is law most shops will try everything they can to fix it even though it can take months.

EDIT: Ah I see you have changed the vram clocks. I'd turn that back to stock or over/undervolt the vram (if possible) to find a stable level. And yeh try out different drivers too. A 50mhz clock increase on the vram won't increase performance noticeably so it might as well be left at stock.

I'm not convinced its the card just yet but your info is disheartening. Just had a full 20 min session of Watch Dogs no issue. Doesn't XFX have life time warranty?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150678
Most negative review seem to be about sreen jumping, which I don't have.

Someone did report having a similar issue as I. Gave it two stars. XFX said it might be the cable.

I sent XFX a support ticket to get their perspective. Again its only a 50mhz overclock on RAM, shouldn't matter.

 

[THE_EGG]

I'm not convinced its the card just yet but your info is disheartening. Just had a full 20 min session of Watch Dogs no issue. Doesn't XFX have life time warranty?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150678
Most negative review seem to be about sreen jumping, which I don't have.

Someone did report having a similar issue as I. Gave it two stars. XFX said it might be the cable.

I sent XFX a support ticket to get their perspective. Again its only a 50mhz overclock on RAM, shouldn't matter.

Don't get me wrong it's a great card if you can get a working one the price/performance is simple amazing imo. I hope you find a solution. And yes XFX has a lifetime warranty iirc.

 

[AphexDreamer]

Anyone know if it would be safe to flash the Regular DD to the Black BIOS? Also I might just try updating the BIOS to .43 I'm on .41 anyways. Still curious about flashing to black though.

 

[URBAN303]

Hi! ^^

artifacts and crashing => bad OC (staff or manufacturer) ; your GPU vddc or your freq. is too high.

Question : Do you have artifact only with HDMI or in DVi (and DisplayPort) mode also ?

edit: Ok I just read your message (google translation) because I'm not English ^ ^

Then! ... The artifacts usually appear when "overclocking is bad." Or your graphics card not getting enough power; is a gpu frequency / ram is too high. From the Catalyst including the new PowerTune it is recommended to oc using the "AMD Catalyst Control Center" utility / Performance / Graphics OverDrive "maybe you should activate" Graphics OverDrive "without modifying Just activate it. .

What is the temperature of your graphics card in IDLE when you are on the Windows desktop with two monitors on? and when you read video on your second screen ?

 

[AphexDreamer]

Hi! ^^

artifacts and crashing => bad OC (staff or manufacturer) ; your GPU vddc or your freq. is too high.

Question : Do you have artifact only with HDMI or in DVi (and DisplayPort) mode also ?

edit: Ok I just read your message (google translation) because I'm not English ^ ^

Then! ... The artifacts usually appear when "overclocking is bad." Or your graphics card not getting enough power; is a gpu frequency / ram is too high. From the Catalyst including the new PowerTune it is recommended to oc using the "AMD Catalyst Control Center" utility / Performance / Graphics OverDrive "maybe you should activate" Graphics OverDrive "without modifying Just activate it. .

What is the temperature of your graphics card in IDLE when you are on the Windows desktop with two monitors on? and when you read video on your second screen ?

Temp has never gone above 68C on load and ideals around 40-45C

 

[URBAN303]

Temp has never gone above 68C on load and ideals around 40-45C

Do you have test " From the Catalyst including the new PowerTune it is recommended to oc using the "AMD Catalyst Control Center" utility / Performance / Graphics OverDrive "maybe you should activate" Graphics OverDrive "without modifying Just activate it. . " ?

 

[AphexDreamer]

Do you have test " From the Catalyst including the new PowerTune it is recommended to oc using the "AMD Catalyst Control Center" utility / Performance / Graphics OverDrive "maybe you should activate" Graphics OverDrive "without modifying Just activate it. . " ?

Yeah I use CCC. I got the artifacts once, I think it was probably the 14.6 Beta. I'm on 14.4 and have been good so far. Before when OC my card would throttle down to stock clocks until I raised the power limit to at least 10%.

All in all I've been good since that moment but I still don't know what caused it exactly. So long as it doesn't happen again.

 

[Sasqui]

Why not just go back to Fry's and swap it out? Dealing with an RMA is NEVER fun. XFX was good with my botched 5870, but it was slowwwwwwwww. And $ for shipping the card to them. And waiting 2 weeks while they determined that the card was kaput.

 

[AphexDreamer]

Why not just go back to Fry's and swap it out? Dealing with an RMA is NEVER fun. XFX was good with my botched 5870, but it was slowwwwwwwww. And $ for shipping the card to them. And waiting 2 weeks while they determined that the card was kaput.

Like I said the card has been working fine since I restarted my PC after that once artifact off the HDMI port. I'm leaning towards a beta driver issue rather than the card. Since then I've been gaming at 1100/1600 flawless so far. If it kept giving me issues I would have deffiently taken it back. At this point even if I did, I'm not sure the next card would be much better.

 

[URBAN303]

AphexDreamer what is your vddc ?

For information.'' My Sapphire R9 280X Tri-X OC (uefi)" default 1100/1600 and vddc = 862 When I used Sapphire Trixx overclocking software for my graphics card I was getting artifacts so I used Sapphire Trixx only. indicate "Synchronize cards in crossfire" and "disabled ULPs." and I used to tell AMD Control Center 1150 Mhz (without changing anything more.) Since I do not have any artifact and overclocking is stable. I think it has to do with the new PowerTune from Catalyst 14.4 ... that's why I told you to turn on 'Graphics OverDrive'' without changing anything

This allows me to have the R9 280X Tri-X OC + the R9 280X Tri-X Vapor-X frequency of R9 280X Toxic.

AMD Control Center allows activating "Graphics OverDrive" self-regulate cards without resorting to further adjustments.

note: If "vddc" is too high your will have artifacts.

Yeah I use CCC. I got the artifacts once, I think it was probably the 14.6 Beta. I'm on 14.4 and have been good so far. Before when OC my card would throttle down to stock clocks until I raised the power limit to at least 10%.

All in all I've been good since that moment but I still don't know what caused it exactly. So long as it doesn't happen again.

Often the Beta version are for Crossfire configuration. Sometimes beta allow improvements when the WHQL release have malfunction. So install a beta when everything works well with WHQL is not helpful.

Sometimes beta introduces new features such as was the case with openGL 4.4 and / or the introduction of the third generation of Eyefinity.

 

[AphexDreamer]

So it has happened again to me.

Took a pic this time. Again a simple restart and its gone.

 

[OneMoar]

most likely AMD's shitty power management at work
disable ulps, disable power play. and lock the card to nominal clocks using msi-afterburner and the problem should go away I have had this exact issue on 4 different AMD cards
its combination of terrible vendor bios pstates and amd's garbage clock gating code

 

[AphexDreamer]

Seems to happen when I load youtube videos or any flash video for that matter.

 

[OneMoar]

Seems to happen when I load youtube videos or any flash video for that matter.

yea its the gpu changing clock speeds /comming out of standby you have two options
1. disable power play and use something like afterburner to setup 2d/3d clock profiles
2. flash the card with a different vendors bios and hope that corrects it
you will still get the flicker with AB but it won't be nearly as bad and will only happen when starting or exiting a game

 

[onyachamp]

yea its the gpu changing clock speeds /comming out of standby you have two options
1. disable power play and use something like afterburner to setup 2d/3d clock profiles
2. flash the card with a different vendors bios and hope that corrects it
you will still get the flicker with AB but it won't be nearly as bad and will only happen when starting or exiting a game

Just had the same issue with the same card/vendor as the OP
disabled upls and power play as you said and viola, solved.
no need to RMA and the missus can watch flash video until the cows come home.
cheers Onemoar

 

[Mussels]

Again its only a 50mhz overclock on RAM, shouldn't matter.

100% the issue. 280x cards are well known for problems with RAM and graphics corruption, many owners had to downclock them to get them stable.

Reference cards tended to be fine, but factory OC'd models had serious issues for some reason a few years after launch - AMD changed something in the drivers i guess, or the types of load commonly used changed and they just don't work right.

 

[Hoyt Ridge]

Hi guys, same problem here on 7970 @ 1GHz GPU / 1,5 GHz VRAM.
At first, I bought my video card 3 years ago, and used at this frequency all the time, it was completely fine (no artifacts or display driver failure), but recently I got second display, and display connected via HDMI-DVI adapter gets artifacts on random youtube videos. It never happened on single display setup via DVI. It is not HDMI-DVI adapter problem, because adapter does not contain any logic. I am sure it is not defect VRAM or GPU, and not overclock problem, it is hardware or firmware bug in HDMI implementation, 7970 and 280x are almost revisions of the same GPU. If it was opposite (overclock or defect GPU/VRAM) I would notice it in 3 full years of usage.

 

[Mussels]

dual monitor uses different clock speeds on 7970/280x - the same as 'low 3D' used for hardware acceleration in web browsers, video playback etc. This was not common when they were released but is now, and hooray - it shows a lot of faults with the cards. There was not always a fix, as different revisions and firmwares behaved differently.

 

[Hoyt Ridge]

Okay, I shall try to switch from HDMI-DVI to Display Port-DVI, and report if this bug disappears.

 

[PCGamerDR]

OP you need to check idle volt as most AMD cards share VRM volt with core/mem some cards can go below the 1.005v required for the RAM chips to be completely stable, as an example my 290 can go as low as 0.991v on idle, i fixed the black/color screen corruption by increasing volt by +19 which leaves the gpu at 1.008v on idle, you can try to underclock RAM but it wont do much if they're not taking in the volt they want to begin with.

Without volt changes on idle:

With volt changes on idle:


You can also try getting Memory Info, if you google the model you may get a website/pdf with your ram chips specs for further voltage info. That's how i found out my Samsung chips required 1.005v for optimal operation.

 

[Hoyt Ridge]

I am back with kind of report. This bug desappears after rebooting a PC, so cold switch between HDMI an Display Port is not an option. So I got two cables on my table - one is connected to HDMI, other - to DP.

Today I catched youtube artifacts bug again on HDMI, and hot-switched to DP, opened "bugged" youtube video - bug wasn't there. Switched to HDMI, opened video again, and got artifacts. Switched to DP again, reopened video - no bug.

I shall test Display Port and DVI port two-display setup for a while, and will report again in a week or two, or as soon as I get youtube artifacts again.