MSI R9 280X Won't POST - Advice?

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Gawd
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Sep 9, 2005
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While I was in Japan on vacation last month, I purchased an MSI R9 280X GPU from Sofmap. I was planning to build a friend a computer for Christmas and such, and all I needed was a GPU as all the ones I had were pretty old and long in the tooth.

I finally got home and got around to assembling it, and the card has no video at all. When I hook up the monitor to the iGPU ports, and go into the BIOS, I see it says PCIE16X at 0X link speed.

The fans and everything else spin and such fine. I picked an MSI card strictly because I knew that their warranties were based on manufacturing dates, so I requested an RMA.

MSI is coming back stating because it wasn't purchased in the US, I'm basically SOL. No where on their site at all does it mention cards are based by regions and such. The card's box was all completely in English too :|

The mainboard is an ASUS P8Z77-V LX motherboard. Does anyone possibly have any ideas or tricks I can try, to salvage this card and get it functioning?
 
Make sure you are using two 8 pin pcie connectors. Won't work with 6's or 8 plus 6. Two 8's.
 
Actually it seems some cards have two 6 pin or 8 plus 6 configurations. Just make sure all pins are populated.
 
Send a PM to Eugene Kuo, he's the MSI rep on [H], and he should hopefully have a better answer than "sorry no US no warranty".
 
This is a fairly regular problem with new AMD cards and old BIOS releases, I suspect the card isn't dead...
 
Ocellaris said:
This is a fairly regular problem with new AMD cards and old BIOS releases, I suspect the card isn't dead...
Click to expand...


I can confirm that when I went to update the BIOS on my MSI Z77 MPOWER, there was a bios released in Oct. 2013 which was solely to update compatibility with AMD's 7970 (which had launched nearly 2 years earlier!!!)..The Moral is, never assume the BIOS doesn't need to be updated!!:p
 
Haha that was the first thing I thought, BIOS is at the latest.

I did PM Eugene but it seems he hasn't been around since the summer.

And yeah, connectors are all plugged in. Tried flipping the BIOS switch both ways, no dice. Pretty frustrating.
 
Yeah, won't post in another PC too, dropped in a 560Ti to make sure it wasn't the slot and stuff, everything worked fine with that one. I have another one of these cards on it's way I bought from eBay. I tried sticking it in the second PCIe slot, still nothing.
 
Just bought a 970 for my older mobo and nothing would work without a BIOS update.
 
All cards from the 7 series (nV) and 7xxx series (AMD) need bios updates for older motherboards that don't use UEFI bios. Some older motherboards don't have updated bios to support UEFI bios cards even if the card has a legacy bios switch, this all depends on if the motherboard has not reached EOL. So this motherboard that you have does have UEFI so most likely that is not the problem.


Ok you tried it in another system so most likely the card is not working.

You tried both cards in another system and both don't post?
 
Heh was about to suggest it might be a legacy/UEFI bios issue but you beat me to it. Do you know which chipsets or boards specifically have issues with UEFI vbios? Z77 really isn't that old of a chipset so probably a board specific issue?
 
Yeah, the mobo has a full UEFI BIOS and such. In fact Secure Boot and all that fun stuff is turned on, Win10 boots hella fast off the SSD. lol

The GPU does not get hot at all from what I can tell. It doesn't seem to see it at all when I put it in the secondary slot. I'm awaiting to get a second one of these cards, at which point I'm kind of hoping if I drop this one into the second slot and the new one into the first and CF them together, maybe it will work then, but I'm really not hopeful at all. I would try to reflow the GPU and such at work as a last resort,but since it's still technically under warranty I will avoid doing that and hope Eugene pops up.
 
is there a switch on the card? what happens if you put the switch in the other position?
 
Does the card have a Display Port? Specially is it empty?

You could try the following:
- Boot PC with iGPU
- Install Teamviewer or equivalent
- Go into BIOS to insure you boot into discrete external GPU
- Boot PC with 280X
- Remote connect to PC with another PC using TeamViewer
- Go to Display Settings
- See if PC thinks it has a Monitor connected to DP.
- If so disconnect DP Screen, make other Display Main Monitor.

My R9 285 has this problem sometimes.
 
primetime said:
is there a switch on the card? what happens if you put the switch in the other position?
Click to expand...

Yup, tried both ways, no dice. :(

SpeedyVV said:
Does the card have a Display Port? Specially is it empty?

You could try the following:
- Boot PC with iGPU
- Install Teamviewer or equivalent
- Go into BIOS to insure you boot into discrete external GPU
- Boot PC with 280X
- Remote connect to PC with another PC using TeamViewer
- Go to Display Settings
- See if PC thinks it has a Monitor connected to DP.
- If so disconnect DP Screen, make other Display Main Monitor.

My R9 285 has this problem sometimes.
Click to expand...

I've tried booting setting the BIOS to initialize the PCIe GPU first, nothing happens, it just reverts to the iGPU. I've also looked at Device Manager and such, it doesn't see it at all nor does GPU-Z. I've also tried connecting monitors via DVI and DP, no dice. :(

I emailed MSI's RMA department back and they also still haven't replied. I doubt they will either.

My next trick was going to see if it shows up to ATIFlash at all.
 
No dice there either. Card is completely cold on the back right where the GPU die is.

I don't think it's even powering up at all.
 
Uhmmm, looks like it is time to fire up the oven!

Sorry, I'm out of ideas.
 
Let us know what happens with the second card when you get it. If it posts, then you know its definitely a problem with the original card. If it doesn't then its something with the motherboard.

Oh you might want to look at the vrm's and see if there is any color changes to any of them?
 
Warrior said:
I think I found your problem....
Click to expand...

:D Yeah, I mainly got the MSI one too as it stated 36 month warranty and I looked at their site and saw nothing about it being locked by regions. Ugh.

I called them too and they stated there's nothing they can do as the serial number wouldn't be in their database at all. I was told to contact MSI in Japan, but then I think I'll run into the issue where they won't ship a replacement outside of Japan.
 
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Well, I thought it's common knowledge to everyone that the RMA process is regional/country-locked?

To the OP, not much else you can do to be honest. You can try shipping it back to Japan for RMA, that's about the only option. But that'll mean every time it breaks you have to RMA in Japan.
 
trandoanhung1991 said:
Well, I thought it's common knowledge to everyone that the RMA process is regional/country-locked?

To the OP, not much else you can do to be honest. You can try shipping it back to Japan for RMA, that's about the only option. But that'll mean every time it breaks you have to RMA in Japan.
Click to expand...

No I wasn't aware of it. Now I am. To me it seems a pretty shitty policy.

I will just end up holding onto the card for a little while to see if Eugene ever answers my PM and then if not I'll end up selling it on eBay as-is for parts explaining the whole situation and see whatever money I can recoup out of it. The heatsink and fans work fine, so there's always that.
 
I also noticed he hasn't been around...but the pm might send him an email? If not then thats the end of that idea:(
 
Got the second MSI R9 280X in, everything works, this one is about a half an inch shorter in PCB height. Original one is still deader than a dodo bird, but at least now I can get this PC out.
 
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