Need Help Fixing Matrix Platinum 290x Artifacts

[SlaughterSmurf]

Yea, that's the plan SlaughterSmurf.  You don't think I could get anymore off of Ebay then $300?

You can try.... I mean it is a non-functioning card so who knows. I was just pulling a number out of thin air.

[dragoon20005]

post on Craglist too or any other auction sites

 

 

Lesson of the week:

 

Asus AMD cards still suck

 

ARTIFACTS, ARTIFACTS everywhere

[Blake mcBlake]

What PSU do you have

[Osirez]

XFX PRO650W Core Edition 

 

I also have a Seasonic 520 watt i hooked directly to the aux connectors on the card to see if it was getting enough power. 

[dragoon20005]

well your PSU is fine to power the 290X

 

i think you just got a shitty Asus AMD Card which they have yet to solve the overheating VRAM and VRMs

 

sell it and get other 290X or 290 like the Tri-X or Vapor-X

[Raudi_]

well your PSU is fine to power the 290X

 

i think you just got a shitty Asus AMD Card which they have yet to solve the overheating VRAM and VRMs

 

sell it and get other 290X or 290 like the Tri-X or Vapor-X

Well then why doesn't this issue show up on their Nvidia cards?

[dragoon20005]

Well then why doesn't this issue show up on their Nvidia cards?

the DCU II cooler was meant for the Geforce card which runs cooler 

 

for the AMD cards they just reused the DCU II cooler design and the VRMs and VRMs are exposed with no contact with the heat sink

 

I open up the 280X which has the same problem to find only the GPU is the only thing that the cooler is touching

[Osirez]

I can confirm that this cooler was never made for AMD cards. From the research I've done its actually a Nvidia cooler retro fitted to the AMD GPUs.  And he's right.  None of the chips are touching the cooler like they do on Nvidia cards.

[Raudi_]

the DCU II cooler was meant for the Geforce card which runs cooler 

 

for the AMD cards they just reused the DCU II cooler design and the VRMs and VRMs are exposed with no contact with the heat sink

 

I open up the 280X which has the same problem to find only the GPU is the only thing that the cooler is touching

AH thank you for that info, I actually never new that.

[Osirez]

Whats normal memory temperature.  During a run of Unigine Valley my card is showing 71c.

[Osirez]

I think I may be onto something.  I upped the voltage on the GPU from 1250mV to 1400mV.  The artifacts did not completely disappear but they're is definatley much much less artifacts.  Almost unoticable in the Valley benchmark.  Going to do more testing and see what happens.

Any advice would be much appreciated since I usually don't deal to much with changing voltages. 

[Razzaa]

I think I may be onto something. I upped the voltage on the GPU from 1250mV to 1400mV. The artifacts did not completely disappear but they're is definatley much much less artifacts. Almost unoticable in the Valley benchmark. Going to do more testing and see what happens.

Any advice would be much appreciated since I usually don't deal to much with changing voltages.

I had a similar issue but my card would stop working on stock voltage. If I ran it with a voltage bump it worked flawlessly even at 1300/1600 @ 1.33v I would suggest you RMA. If it is not running properly at stock voltage it will only continue to get worse imo

[dragoon20005]

I had a similar issue but my card would stop working on stock voltage. If I ran it with a voltage bump it worked flawlessly even at 1300/1600 @ 1.33v I would suggest you RMA. If it is not running properly at stock voltage it will only continue to get worse imo

not when they are charging him like a few hundreds for RMA

[Razzaa]

not when they are charging him like a few hundreds for RMA

More like a deposit but ya.

To OP:

Only other option is to raise as much hell as you can with Asus. Start firing emails to head office and leaving bad reviews on Newegg and such. If you yell loud enough they will pay attention eventually.

[Osirez]

Video demo of what happens when I bump up the voltages to 1410mV

 

[Raudi_]

Post the video on their Twitter and facebook pages to bring it to their attention?

[Osirez]

Post the video on their Twitter and facebook pages to bring it to their attention?

 

Most definitely.  Ive been bugging the hell out of their Twitter account already, lol. 

[dragoon20005]

looks stable with higher voltage why is this?

 

what the hell?! Asus

[Razzaa]

looks stable with higher voltage why is this?

what the hell?! Asus

Because the card is starting to fail and it requires more voltage to run properly.

[Raudi_]

Because the card is starting to fail and it requires more voltage to run properly.

Only if that was true he had the card 1 day and was artifacting, so the card is not failing. its bad VRAM

[Razzaa]

Only if that was true he had the card 1 day and was artifacting, so the card is not failing. its bad VRAM

So under clocking mem doesnt fix it but raising the voltage does? He is getting artifacting under normal load and its not overheating so its VRAM.........

[rcarlos243]

The artifact is due to poor DirectCU II cooling design having several VRAM exposed without anything in it.

 

Sending the card back to Asus for RMA will NOT fix the problem.

 

There is an aftermarket fix for it but you need to get a small VRAM heatsink to cover the exposed ones.

 

the process is similar to this

 

 

more info:

http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?43057-R9-280x-DirectCU-II-Top-Artifacts!!&country=&status=

[Face2Face]

I hate to say it but Asus Matrix cards are notorious for problems. I will say the artifacts you're showing in the video are the same artifacts I see when overclocking and not having enough core voltage applied. Just out of curiosity, what is your ASIC? You could have just got a chip that needs more voltage to operate at it's stock speeds. If that's the case, then it's RMA worthy.

[Osirez]

I hate to say it but Asus Matrix cards are notorious for problems. I will say the artifacts you're showing in the video are the same artifacts I see when overclocking and not having enough core voltage applied. Just out of curiosity, what is your ASIC? You could have just got a chip that needs more voltage to operate at it's stock speeds. If that's the case, then it's RMA worthy.

My asics was 78% if i remember correctlly.

I dont know enough to comment on the VRAM being bad or good or anything like that.  I just know I shouldn't have to modify it for it to work stock.

[Midnitewarrior4]

U need to put heatsinks on the vram !!!!! Asus doesnt attach the heatsink to most of the vram so please dont do anything else that is your problem theres a video showing how to do it, theres s kit of vram heatsinks for under 50$ and it worx