R9 280x DirectCU II Top Artifacts!!

[d1versify]

HEllo i just upgraded from an 7870 to the R9280X-DC2T-3GD5

I followed these steps for drivers

1. Ran Catalyst control center from C:/ AMD and did a custom uninstall. Removed all
2. Restarted computer
3. Ran Driver Fusion and deleted everything from AMD
4. Restarted computer
5. Installed latest 13.12 R9 drivers from AMD site

I get artifacts (shapes, lines , squares) flashing everywhere in screen , when in Chrome, in Dota 2 and Planetside 2. Haven't tested in more games , but I guess it will be the same.
The card will need a replacement? I have a Corsair CX600 , AMD FX 8350, Corsair Vengeance 2x4gb 1600 mhz
I read somewhere about GPU bios update. I ran the GPU ASUS TWEAK software that came in with the CD, and i tried to update something but i got a message ROM programming fail. But then it seemed to installed the update and forced me to restart the computer.
But still i get artifacts.
What do you suggest?

[Steve1703]

ktfzone wrote:
Out of curiosity, has anyone used a full watercooling solution on these cards ? If so , any feedback on that ?

I am having issues reproducing the artefacts on mine and the shop from where I bought it only uses benchmarking programs to test it (Furmark, Heaven etc etc) and in those programs usually these cards are rock solid. They fail mostly in games and in 2D in Chrome, if hardware acceleration is on.

Im using full waterblock for 280x matrix. fyi, artifact still exist. its a dead card.

[ktfzone]

Ok, so watercooling is not a solution, thank you for the confirmation.

[ktfzone]

A quick follow-up on this issue : I enabled "unofficial overclocking support without PowerPlay support" in MSI afterburner, disabled hardware acceleration in Chrome and I didn't have any more driver crashes.

I suspect that the thing with driver crashes is related to UVH and its bugs, explained best here :

http://forums.guru3d.com/showpost.php?p=4637743&postcount=99

And as we can see in the latest Asus Radeon 280x Top BIOS, the highest UVD frequency is the stock one (970) , instead of the OCed one (1070).

[Anzejk]

Well, i just flashed the non-TOP version BIOS, same as couple of guys here, and oc'ed GPU clock from 1000 to 1100Mhz. I'll play some more with core clocks if i get any artifacts, but i'll be pretty happy with default 1000Mhz as long as the artifacts go away. We'll see...
The Crew beta is always giving me "the square" after 15 mins or so, so at least i have a quick test tool. 🙂

[nuclear465]

I got my replacement card back in July and it has been working flawlessly until today...

I got out to buy some groceries and when i got back home my screen was like this:


Do you guys think my Graphics Card is dying ? I can't see any artifacts though... I reboot the system and it's back to normal, for now.

[Anzejk]

nuclear465 wrote:
I got my replacement card back in July and it has been working flawlessly until today...

I got out to buy some groceries and when i got back home my screen was like this:


Do you guys think my Graphics Card is dying ? I can't see any artifacts though... I reboot the system and it's back to normal, for now.

Maybe it was just some power saving failure or something that made your screen all f.up.
If you have no other problems with your GPU i think you're ok. If the problem persists and happens
more and more then i would probably be scared of having a dying GPU or some other component.

It could be PC's BIOS settings or windows power saving features not set up correctly.

[vsucharda]

i finally decided to return my card as the artifacts in some games show up in relatively short time now and make games pretty ridiculous to try to play.

i called cust service and we talked about the usual troubleshooting steps which i had tried and ended up agreeing to rma the card. i specifically asked about them sending me prepaid labels because i was prepared to argue with them if they didnt offer this. i felt it would be unfair to pay any sum of money to send back a card which was defective from day 1 and which so many people have had problems with, policy or not.

to my surprise the cs rep said oh yes, within 24-48 hours you will have your rma instructions and labels and everything you need to send your card back. "GREAT" i think, no arguing involved, i even confirmed with the guy i would get labels because i was worried i wouldnt

"yep, everything you need will be sent to you within 24-48 hours"

fast forward to 72 hours later and no email regarding any kind of status. meh, sometimes cs takes a bit longer, they do offer chat support so i figured why not send them a message asking for status. i talk with a helpful gentleman who informs me the rma wasnt setup and he would take care of it for me. he states everything is all ready and i check the email RMA and what do ya know, no labels.

i ask cs rep about this and he states that they dont/cannot provide them, i proceed to explain that i had already confirmed this was not the case on my previous phone call and go into the details of why it think its unfair to expect me to pay for something that was broken from day 1.
hold please
hold please
disconnected
motherf*****asfasjh

OK, calm down,

chat again, connect immediately to another cs rep

explain the situation, ask to speak with previous rep

sorry sir i cannot transfer you
sorry i cant give you labels
sorry i cannot escalate this
sorry please call this number, or i can let them know and they will call back in 24-48 hours
*eye twitching*
these unhelpful answers have taken roughly 45 minutes to get out of him, not to mention the first 30 minutes chatting with rep # 1

i cave and decide to call said phone number after he give me a reference ticket number.

ring ring, thank you for calling, please hold, please hold, please hold, we will be with you shortly, 18 minutes later - beep beep beep call disconnected

*colon twitching*

ring ring, thank you for calling, please hold, please hold, 15 minutes later, HELLO SIR HOW MAY I HELP YOU
YEAAAAAAH BOIII!!

i was falling asleep and calming down listening to the 10 second asus hold message so i calmly explained the situation and listened calmly to the reps response

"sir i would love to help you, i do not have the authority to offer you labels and it is normally not policy but please let me check with my boss and we will see what we can do"

2 minutes later

'sir we can definitely help you in this situation, you should see a prepaid fedex label in your email within 10-20 minutes, please note that this is not standard procedure but we can make an exception in this case'

THANK YOU! YOU HAVE BEEN GREAT!

*hang up*

think to myself, am i a huge penny pinching dickhead? i got what i wanted and i stood up for what i thought was right and wasted 2 and a half hours doing it to save 10-15 bucks tops

what say you fellas? was it worth it?

[Vlammenzee]

When the time comes i'm fed up with the card and its problems, ill just replace it, and completely trash the fugg out of it with a hammer ^^, will do more research on my next videocard, regarding manufactering on the chips, asus has just put down a bad serie with the e1y/e2y and e3y release of the r9 280x dc2t, june/july releases of the card are more stable, id still advise to just go for something els though.

[Mottoman216]

Hey guys, as Drogean mentioned earlier Changing from Top Vbios to regular non Top version does trick! it worked on both my Asus Directcu ii 280x tops. Here is what i did to not only fix also overclocked it to 1.1ghz 1600mhz ram works just fine.


Anyone with this video card having artifact issues, here is your fix!

FIRST: (Steps 1 & 2 might no be needed after Vbios downgrade but i did it anyway)
Removed the heatsink, cleared all traces of thermal paste from the GPU and re-applied.

SECOND:
Purchased an Akasa Thermal gap filler (5mm) http://www.akasa.com.tw/update.php?t...model=AK-TT300

One piece of this will cover two adjacent VRAMs, for the ones that are in an angle you should cut it in half.

My thought was that the VRAMs have a very small surface to dissipate the heat. So with this thermal gap filler you increase the surface that the heat is dissipated to by a large factor. Since the 5mm Thermal Pad is made from silicone elastomer it is not hard and will be compressed by the heatsink even in the places that there is only a 2mm gap! Be carefull to tighten the heatsink screws in a diagonal fashion.

THIRD:
Downgraded the BIOS of the card to the R9280X-DC2-3GD5 BIOS (Stock GPU 1000 / VRAM 1500)

BIOS: http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/1...-130828-1.html
ATIWINFLASH: http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads...inflash-2-6-7/

Procedure:
1. Make a folder in your C: drive (eg ATIBIOS)
2. Using GPU-Z save your current BIOS to the folder you just made (click the icon next to the BIOS Version window)
3. Save the BIOS you downloaded from the link above to the folder you just made
4. Extract the files from the ati_winflash_2.6.7.zip to the same folder
5. Open a command prompt as an Administrator (Right click "Run As Administrator")
6. Type the following commands:
cd c:\{folder name}
atiwinflash -f -p 0 Asus.R9280X.3072.130828_1.rom (if you have more than one card you should change the number after the "p": 0 for the first, 1 for the second etc.)
Reboot and check the BIOS version and stock clocks in GPU-Z

Profit!
I have done this to both mine and my brothers 280x (also an asus r9280x-dc2-3gd5) Both video cards have been 2 months free of artifacting, crashing, instability. Enjoy!

[Widlcard]

I RMA'ed my 280x TOP about a month ago. Got it back, and they did absolutely nothing claiming it passed all their testing (not even the sticker on the heatsink was touched). I then RMA'ed again after being on chat support for 5h 8m 11s (according to transcript) and convincing the guy to finally let me RMA it again. I even took videos of the artifacts in BF4 and Titanfall and uploaded to Youtube and provided links in my RMA form (along with print-out of chat transcript) for them to observe the issue. This was about a week and a half ago. Just this morning I got shipping confirmation of a different card being sent to me. I sent in an E1YVCM card and am getting back a different E1YVCM card. I hope it is not another card that passes useless Unigine benchmarks and actually does well in games.

It should come in tomorrow. I'll keep you all posted.