I'd built my computer for the first time not too long ago with a PowerColor R9 280x (around September 28th) and it had been running excellently for several weeks. Sometimes, it would make odd noises but I'd accounted it for the fact that I'm using a stock Intel i5 CPU fan.
However, I'm starting to notice some things that might point towards artifacting or a faulty GPU. Some signs I noticed since I built my computer were:
A faint sound that sounds akin to that of a component on high load whenever I scroll up/down (Coil whine?). This occurs pretty much whenever I turn on my computer.
One instance where my computer crashed without any indication or warning (screen suddenly turned black, then BIOS screen). I did not have any high intensity programs/games launched that time. This was less than a week ago.
The GPU making really weird random sounds under heavy load (like something was dying?). I had recently been running a heavily modded Skyrim at Ultra at that time but it had only occurred since yesterday night.
A moment of artifacting when under base clock speeds (I tried overclocking the first week after building my PC, but decided the marginal benefit wasn't worth it). I also noticed this artifacting yesterday night when the computer wasn't running any high intensity games.
Not sure if this is also artifacting, but one time when I was reading an online novel, I saw there was a graphical glitch (a line spanning the length of my monitor) in the middle of my monitor where it'd look like a the text were being sucked in (sorry not good at describing it). This occurred not long after the artifacting which panicked me into turning off the computer.
Prior to that, I've heard the R9 280x fan presumably spin really fast as though under high loads, then suddenly cease on random occasions but I do not know if that too is related to the problem at hand.
Should I start considering an RMA? I did not realize the R9 280x had any sort of problems until I actually looked into it and saw various other people having artifacting problems with their R9 280x. My problems appear to be relatively minor, but I can't help but believe that it could be related to this.
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Update 1:
My screen just had a full screen artifact for half a second. The only active applications I had was Firefox and Furmark (was about to stress test the R9 280x)
Update 2:
Just finished running Furmark to test stability.
Base clock for both core and memory
Settings: Burn-in test, 30 minutes, 1080p, windowed, 8x msaa, dynamic background, burn-in, xtreme burn-in, post-fx
Max temperature: 88c
Min temperature: 44c
Did not see any artifacting or signs of instability... Getting confused...
Update 3:
Have tried using OCCT to check for errors.
Settings: Automatic Test Type (1 hour), 1 minute idle beginning, 5 minutes idle end, DirectX 11, AMD Radeon R9 200 Series, 1080p, full screen, error check, shader complexity 7, FPS limit 60.
Zero errors...
Is there anyone that can shed light on this issue? I definitely saw the artifacting occur on base core and memory clock, but both Furmark and OCCT doesn't indicate there's any errors or artifacts. The artifacts does not occur on a constant basis, and I can't seem to replicate any of the problems I had... Should I RMA my R9 280x or not???