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MSI 280x artifacts

Associate
Joined
12 Dec 2003
Posts
929
Location
Scotland
I received my MSI 280x Gaming OC GFX card a few days ago and have been getting artifacts in games while running stock clocks of 1020Mhz Core, 1500Mhz Memory. I have tried updating my motherboard bios to the latest, reinstalling the GFX drivers (13.12) and reinstalling Windows 8.1 without any luck.

Idle temperature is around 30-35c, gaming in BF4 is 70-75c & Skyrim around 60c.

I tried running MSI Kombustor and it was able to run a total of 4 minutes 46 seconds, reaching 80c before the artifacts showed up and the AMD driver crashed. This was with the fan on auto which reached 46% speed.

I tried a second attempt of running MSI Kombuster, this time with the fan on manual running at 60% and power limit set to +20% (I don't know if this made any difference). I ran it a total of 20 minutes, reaching 82c without the driver crashing or artifacts. Artifacts did however show up after Kombustor had been quit while moving the mouse around the taskbar.

I then put the clocks around reference 7970 levels of 925Mhz Core, 1350 Memory and ran BF4 for around 45 minutes without any artifacting. It usually takes 5-10 minutes for them to show up at stock clocks.

The temps seem fine to me so I don't think it's overheating? Do I just have a duff chip and am going to have to RMA the card?
 
Associate
Joined
31 Jan 2014
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157
Location
Bristol, UK
I had exactly the same issue with an MSI 280x GE that arrived friday morning - was in my machine for a matter of hours before I reboxed it and called for an RMA number. Will be shipping it off as soon as I find an outer box.

Pain in the bottom. Shouldn't have recycled the outer box when it arrived! (I did eat the haribo though..)

Got a Gigabyte card coming tomorrow so hoping that'll be nicer.
 
Soldato
Joined
20 Nov 2005
Posts
4,732
Location
Redditch
Also RMA'ing mine after a week of owning. :(
Tried various drivers, settings stock & below stock etc & still had artifacts so back it'sgoing.

Still, decided to upgrade to a 290 while i'm at it :)
 
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OP
Joined
12 Dec 2003
Posts
929
Location
Scotland
Mine will be going back as I have tried everything and it's not working. I think I will try another and if that's the same I'll get an Asus. I have considered a 290 instead but this card has great performance and I cant really justify £100~ more when it's not needed at 1080p.

These MSI cards seem to have very poor QA, I was half expecting it to have dodgy fans (leaking oil,not working at all) or really bad coil whine when I got it as there's nothing but reports of that on American sites. Here in the UK we don't seem to have much of those problems instead we are having artifacts at stock clocks.
 
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OP
Joined
12 Dec 2003
Posts
929
Location
Scotland
Is everyone having issues with a MSI 280X Gaming Edition?

Hope mines not a dud since I've ordered one

While there does seem to be quite a few MSI 280x's artifacting at stock clocks (one guy has even had 4 cards doing it) I doubt it's as big of a problem as it seems as OCUK have been selling loads of these due to having some good deals on them and the number of complaints doesn't near match the number sold.
 
Associate
Joined
31 Jan 2014
Posts
157
Location
Bristol, UK
I just ran up cgminer with everything at stock - didn't take too long to crop up. Fans at full whack and case open - clearly not right!

Lets hope my gigabyte card is better tomorrow! :)

That said, there is another post on this forum praising how good they run - so indeed, could be a poor batch. Shame really.

Edit- Yes, this was the gaming OC edition.
 
Associate
Joined
3 Aug 2003
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2,028
Location
Plymouth, UK
GLad I found htis as have been having a few issues with my MSI 280x that I got the other day.

Sometimes on boot the mouse pointer will not be present, yet mouse functions fine (can right click and see pop up menu) and have also noticed artifacting when playing EVE.

Thought it may have been down to me running it with a 7970 in X-Fire, but that may not be the case.

Out of interest, is it this card that everyojne is having issues with? I have another thread on this card here about trying to get a waterblock to fit it. The standard 7970/280x block will not fit due to the top left hole on the PCB being out of whack. One point that was raised in that thread was about the product code. It appears the code on the box i received is different to the one that is listed. Anyone else have this?
 
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Joined
8 Nov 2008
Posts
265
Sent both of mine back , 1 would artifact on the desktop!, the other when gaming/mining the temp would just keep rising till it crashed the machine! Spent 3 days trying to sort em.

Had 1 refunded, waiting on the other.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
12 Dec 2003
Posts
929
Location
Scotland
GLad I found htis as have been having a few issues with my MSI 280x that I got the other day.

Sometimes on boot the mouse pointer will not be present, yet mouse functions fine (can right click and see pop up menu) and have also noticed artifacting when playing EVE.

Thought it may have been down to me running it with a 7970 in X-Fire, but that may not be the case.

Out of interest, is it this card that everyojne is having issues with? I have another thread on this card here about trying to get a waterblock to fit it. The standard 7970/280x block will not fit due to the top left hole on the PCB being out of whack. One point that was raised in that thread was about the product code. It appears the code on the box i received is different to the one that is listed. Anyone else have this?

I'm not sure about the mouse issue as I haven't had any problem except artifacting when the GPU is at load for a while and bf4 crashes every 10~ mins unless I under clock the card (still get artifacts but it can take a while longer to appear).

In my case at least it's the same card yes. About the water block question, I seem to remember someone bought two of these cards and they were different sizes with different model numbers.
 
Associate
Joined
3 Aug 2003
Posts
2,028
Location
Plymouth, UK
Am going to be taking some pics later on for CS, so will link them through.

As I have to rip the card out of my 'puter to take them, will also take the 7970 out and run in single 280x mode for a while.

Have noticed that cgminer was having some driver failures too, but that may have been to do with the clocks I had set in the .bat file

Watch this space....
 
Associate
Joined
3 Aug 2003
Posts
2,028
Location
Plymouth, UK
Here are some pics of the card.

First one shows 280X (right) mirrored against a 7970

Second one shows product label on the card

Third one shows a 7970 waterblock (not the one I want to return) sat on card, showing obvious mis-alignment with 280X PCB holes

Last pic shows labels that are on the box

Not run the card in single mode as yet, but from when I had it before I re-jigged to X-fire, seem to recall it was OK.
 
Soldato
Joined
30 Sep 2004
Posts
5,382
Location
Belfast/Edinburgh
I'm having the same problem with a Sapphire 280 that I bought about 2 weeks ago. Artifacts mostly on 2d performance. I can play a game for ages no problem sometimes.

I've disabled the low power settings for the card and that seems to stop it but if it's faulty I'd rather just RMA it while it's still in the 28 day warranty.
 
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