RX 480 card is artifacting

fastcar123 · February 6, 2020

Hi all,

I have a Sapphire nitro+ RX 480 8GB card with an issue.
The card has constant artifacts across the screen. Even during idle on the desktop.

I had a similar (but much worse) problem with this exact model about 2 months after I bought it new back in 2016 (I think). I RMA'd that car back to Sapphire and they said they could not replicate my issue but they sent me a brand new card anyway.

When I got the replacement, which is the card I have now, it still had the issue to a lesser degree.

I have tried this card in multiple different computers with multiple OS installs.

I have tried updating the driver multiple times.

I have tried both BIOSes on the card itself

I have tried under-clocking the GPU and memory
I have tried multiple displays and display outputs

I cant seem to get rid of it.

up until recently It has been use in our HTPC and didn't really get used much.

I suddenly care about it because that PC is the 3rd most powerful PC in the house and thus we are running an oculus rift on it.

Here's what I can say about the artifacts themselves.

-They do not move. Once they are on a certain element they will stay in that spot until the element goes away

-The artifacts are never like flashes of light or anything like that. Instead it fails to render like 3% of the overall element on screen and just leaves black or grey spots behind. (see my picture)
-on this particular setup, it has problems in the BIOS (need to test this on other setups) Not only are the artifacts far worse in the BIOS, but it causes a BIOS freeze too. not sure why though. (see my other picture [that little red dot in the middle there was where my mouse cursor was. The stuff on the bottom appeared after I had my cursor over it.])

Am I stuck having to buy another graphics card or is there anything I can do to fix this one?