ASUS Radeon R9 280X R9280X-DC2T-3GD5 3GB crashing

[ozzy214]

Need opinons .I bought this card off of ebay used. There is no artifact or anything weird going. But literally in seconds or mins, game locks up and ati display driver crashes. I have tried various drivers all with same issue. Now I found if I underclock it, it seems to stabilize. Doesnt crash and I can game for hours.

Now is this a bad card or power problem. I'm using a Thermaltake 550 watt psu. The psu does have the 6 and 8 pin pcie connector. But they seem to be all on the same rail. It is a dual rail psu.

So whats you thoughts? I know there maybe some bottle necking as older board and cpu. But I monitored system. I dont see vid card dropping below 11.8v at time of crash. System is only 1.5gb ram and cpu at 20% when crashes.

System is asus p5q se plus with 8gb ram and q8300. One 160gb storage drive and one 256gb ssd.

[dmill89]

Re: ASUS Radeon R9 280X R9280X-DC2T-3GD5 3GB crashing

How old is that PSU and have you ever checked the caps, also what is the amperage on the rail with the PCIe connectors?

You don't mention the specific model of PSU, but being a Thermaltake I would suspect that it is a CWT build with mediocre to poor caps.

The R9 280X is a pretty power-hungry card drawing over 250W under load.

Also have you gotten the latest drivers from AMD? The early drivers for the R7/R9-2xx/3xx series were known to be very buggy.

If it works with an underclock I would suspect a power or heat issues since underclocking will reduce both power consumption and heat output.

[ozzy214]

Re: ASUS Radeon R9 280X R9280X-DC2T-3GD5 3GB crashing

Latest and few generations older drivers crash. But drivers on install cd and underclock stable. I think its 28 amps but dont quote me. I would have to pull it from pc. Its several years old though. Was perfectly stable till this card went in.

I found a cheap Antec 850 used on ebay Im bidding on. Will get it and see what happens! Thanks for the input and confirming what I suscpecT!

[ozzy214]

Re: ASUS Radeon R9 280X R9280X-DC2T-3GD5 3GB crashing

Wasnt power supply. Put a 730 watt psu in and same thing. So sent card back to ebay seller as defective. I was able to get card stable by under clocking it, so im thinking the factory clock was unstable or something was failing on the card.

[junktv]

Re: ASUS Radeon R9 280X R9280X-DC2T-3GD5 3GB crashing

I been chasing issues with my r9 270x. Mine was monitor but haven't figure out the why. Any chance you use chrome or have it installed? If so does it not crash when you uninstall it?

OS?

[momaka]

Re: ASUS Radeon R9 280X R9280X-DC2T-3GD5 3GB crashing

Wasnt power supply. Put a 730 watt psu in and same thing. So sent card back to ebay seller as defective. I was able to get card stable by under clocking it, so im thinking the factory clock was unstable or something was failing on the card.

Probably early signs of BGA issues for the GPU chip (or possibly RAM too). With video cards these days easily consuming 100 Watts or more with only a single or dual-slot heatsink cooler, the BGA is just bound to fail sooner rather than later.

I don't care how many times GPU manufacturers claim that their GPUs are capable of withstanding running temperatures of 80-100°C safely - it's f***ing irrelevant, because RoHS Lead-free solder will *NOT* last at those temperatures, especially with rapid and repetitive thermal-cycling involved (as is the case with many modern GPUs).

If you want your shiny new hardware to last, keep the temperatures under 70°C to slow down the tin-wisker growth. And also try to keep the idle-load temperature rate of change under 10°C/second to reduce thermal stress on the solder.

The reason underclocking helped your card is because it dissipated less heat at the lower clocks. And with less heat, the thermal-cycling between idle and load temps probably wasn't as drastic as before - perhaps just enough to keep the card stable.

[dmill89]

Re: ASUS Radeon R9 280X R9280X-DC2T-3GD5 3GB crashing

Probably early signs of BGA issues for the GPU chip (or possibly RAM too). With video cards these days easily consuming 100 Watts or more with only a single or dual-slot heatsink cooler, the BGA is just bound to fail sooner rather than later.

In the case of the R9 280X the TDP is 250W, definitely a power hungry and hot running card.

[ozzy214]

Re: ASUS Radeon R9 280X R9280X-DC2T-3GD5 3GB crashing

Probaly that is the key. IDK..sent it back. I love how the seller kept telling me it was fine and ran dual monitors. They even said they were going to file a usps claim as it must have been damaged in transit. Ya ok buddy, what ya smoking? Running dual monitors is not the same as gaming....

[momaka]

Re: ASUS Radeon R9 280X R9280X-DC2T-3GD5 3GB crashing

In the case of the R9 280X the TDP is 250W, definitely a power hungry and hot running card.

Yep.
Pure insanity, if you ask me. A card like that should come with 3-4 slot heatsink. Preferably something resembling a beefy, multi-heatpipe CPU heatsink. Or better yet, liquid cooling.

It's funny how people panic when their CPUs run over 60°C under load, but have no problem with their GPU hitting 80-90°C constantly.

I love how the seller kept telling me it was fine and ran dual monitors.

That video card just for a dual-monitor setup?!?! Talk about overkill right there!
Yes, that seller clearly has no clue what they are talking about.

[junktv]

Re: ASUS Radeon R9 280X R9280X-DC2T-3GD5 3GB crashing

Looks like they do have a v2 that is a 3 slot but that has some good size what 120mm fans.

Mine runs similar clocks and 3 smaller fans and stays cool(under 40 dusty and and watching a movie) with a 2 part 4 pipe cooler.




The amount of monitors doesn't mean diddly to what card you want.


OP what case? That is a big card.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: ASUS Radeon R9 280X R9280X-DC2T-3GD5 3GB crashing

Yep.
Pure insanity, if you ask me. A card like that should come with 3-4 slot heatsink. Preferably something resembling a beefy, multi-heatpipe CPU heatsink. Or better yet, liquid cooling.

afaik, only arctic cooling makes decent gpu heatsinks. their heatsinks take up a couple of adjacent slots. but the cooling even for 250-300w tdp cards is astounding. a 250w tdp card that ran at 85-90°C on the stock cooler got tamed to 60°C on an arctic cooling triple fan cooler. excellent i must say. pity they charge a liver and a kidney for their gpu coolers...

It's funny how people panic when their CPUs run over 60°C under load, but have no problem with their GPU hitting 80-90°C constantly.

aye, these days, the cpu will more likely be thrown away because its too slow for general use of that time rather than it failing. cant say the same for gpus tho. because gpus dissipate more power than cpus now, that means they'll have to run even cooler than cpus using massive heatsinks and fans to get them to last. of course, we dont care about that now, do we? this is the age of buy and throwaway hardware...

Ya ok buddy, what ya smoking? Running dual monitors is not the same as gaming....

Yes, that seller clearly has no clue what they are talking about.

thats the problem with many trashbay sellers. they have no darn clue how to properly stress test stuff to certify its working. most of the sellers just say it boots to bios and than say its fine. no furmark, occt gpu test error check or much less, no gaming test checks for artifacts/freezing/black/blue screens done.

some sellers even have the balls to say that they go thru thousands of items a day and have no time to take the time to stress test things for hours. okay fine, if there's a problem, i'll be sure to take up your time for hours. got milk? i mean time?

[junktv]

Re: ASUS Radeon R9 280X R9280X-DC2T-3GD5 3GB crashing

Had a old card run the fluffy donut of death for 2 days at like 80c to test a oc when i got it. Worked great since except the oe arctic cooling fan (iceq) that HIS put on it.

[nick122]

Re: ASUS Radeon R9 280X R9280X-DC2T-3GD5 3GB crashing

A crashing driver is usually a sign of bga failure. The balls (contacts) on all modern gpus are lead free (ROHS) and they are prone to cracking. Usually 1 or 2 balls crack and they do not provide good connection to the board. That causes a driver to crash. The same thing happened to my laptop. 3 months later the gpu bga completely failed. A week ago i reflowed it and it's working again. That gpu has probably been repaired before.

[ozzy214]

Re: ASUS Radeon R9 280X R9280X-DC2T-3GD5 3GB crashing

A crashing driver is a sign of a bga failure. The balls (contacts) on all modern gpus are lead free (ROHS) and they are prone to cracking. Usually 1 or 2 balls crack and they do not provide good connection to the board. That causes a driver to crash. The same thing happened to my laptop. 3 months later the gpu bga completely failed. A week ago i reflowed it and it's working again. That gpu has been probably repaired before.

Exactly my thoughts. I played with it for several days and crashed every time. No matter what I did. Different drivers, etc. Became stable with lower clock, but ran like shit performance wise. Very low score in 3dmark etc. So it went back where it came from...

[nick122]

Re: ASUS Radeon R9 280X R9280X-DC2T-3GD5 3GB crashing

There are many services that can reflow your gpu for about 15$ Then it should be ok.
EDIT
You've returned it?

[ozzy214]

Re: ASUS Radeon R9 280X R9280X-DC2T-3GD5 3GB crashing

Yes ssent it back...

[momaka]

Re: ASUS Radeon R9 280X R9280X-DC2T-3GD5 3GB crashing

Mine runs similar clocks and 3 smaller fans and stays cool(under 40 dusty and and watching a movie) with a 2 part 4 pipe cooler.

A movie doesn't really push those cards either, hence your low temperatures. You need a real load to determine the maximum temperature - typically a modern game running at 1080p (or whatever maximum resolution the card can run) with anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering set to 4x or more. Then get an utility to log the temperatures while the game is going. I bet you will see that 40C temperature double within 20 minutes. Dissipating 250 Watts is no joke and requires a big heatsink with lots of airflow (or water flow).

this is the age of buy and throwaway hardware...

Yes, unfortunately.

thats the problem with many trashbay sellers. they have no darn clue how to properly stress test stuff to certify its working. most of the sellers just say it boots to bios and than say its fine. no furmark, occt gpu test error check or much less, no gaming test checks for artifacts/freezing/black/blue screens done.

Well, think of eBay is a online garage (and sometimes garbage?) sale - sometimes you get lucky and get a good score on something. Other times, not so much. But either way, never take any seller's word that the item works, unless you can clearly see the seller knows what they are doing (like, for example, I've seen sellers who test their used HDDs and check SMART logs extensively to make sure the drives are working).

There are many services that can reflow your gpu for about 15$ Then it should be ok.

Not in America.
Here, parts are cheap and labor is expensive - essentially the reverse of many Eastern European countries, where parts are expensive and labor is cheap.

There also aren't that many places left around here that do electronics repair - at least not down to component level or not properly.

[junktv]

Re: ASUS Radeon R9 280X R9280X-DC2T-3GD5 3GB crashing

A movie doesn't really push those cards either, hence your low temperatures. You need a real load to determine the maximum temperature - typically a modern game running at 1080p (or whatever maximum resolution the card can run) with anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering set to 4x or more. Then get an utility to log the temperatures while the game is going. I bet you will see that 40C temperature double within 20 minutes. Dissipating 250 Watts is no joke and requires a big heatsink with lots of airflow (or water flow).

I will bet you a broken 939 cpu cooler retention bracket for a good one that it doesn't double?

[momaka]

Re: ASUS Radeon R9 280X R9280X-DC2T-3GD5 3GB crashing

I will bet you a broken 939 cpu cooler retention bracket for a good one that it doesn't double?

lol, okay!
I don't have any broken 939 retention brackets that I can give you (if I lose), but I am sure I can whip one up from scratch that will work just fine.

Either way, give your video card a try and let us know what temps you get.