290x - Desktop Only Artifacting?

[IceDogg]

I've heard some others having a similar issue, but after further testing & new cards via RMA, figured I'd see if anyone has any suggestions.

A few weeks back, my Sapphire 290x ran in crossfire started artifacting on the desktop only. If I played a video file or started a game up, the artifacts would stop. Once returning to the desktop, artifacts resumed. It's almost a flickering horizontal artifacts, hard to take pictures of. If I uninstall all AMD Catalyst drivers, issue stops as well. To recap steps I've taken.

-Updated to latest drivers (tried past 2-3 for testing, used DDU to remove under safe mode
-Updated from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10
-Received replacement cards via RMA
-Performed clean Windows 10 install with replacement cards, still occurs

Upon placing cards in the system when I received them, system would power on but not post. Ended up re-seating memory & video displayed just fine. Tested the cards in another machine & booted into Windows without issue. Currently started a memtest86 before going to bed last night, it's still running. Received a couple errors before heading into work this morning.

Do you guys think issue is related to my desktop RAM or more so the video cards? I'm totally stumped on this

 

[ccityinstaller]

Do you guys think issue is related to my desktop RAM or more so the video cards? I'm totally stumped on this

Sounds like the issue is the 2D power saving speed of the GDDR5 on the GPU...It's easy to test...Grab Sapphire Trixx/Afterburner and set your 2D memory clocks to 1Ghz instead of 300Mhz..I had the same issue, and I flashed a Bios to keep my memory @ 1Ghz all the time while still allowing the GPU to downclock in 2D, haven't had it since.

 

[mnewxcv]

Sounds like the issue is the 2D power saving speed of the GDDR5 on the GPU...It's easy to test...Grab Sapphire Trixx/Afterburner and set your 2D memory clocks to 1Ghz instead of 300Mhz..I had the same issue, and I flashed a Bios to keep my memory @ 1Ghz all the time while still allowing the GPU to downclock in 2D, haven't had it since.

why didnt you RMA it?

 

[ccityinstaller]

why didnt you RMA it?

At the time it was a known issue with AMD's drivers..You couldn't OC the cards etc, so I fixed it via the BIOS...Also the fact that it clocks MUCH better then most 290/290Xs (it is WC'd with a full GPU block)..Most seemed to top out @ ~1150Mhz, while my card is good to 1275Mhz under a gaming load, and 1.3Ghz under bench loads..