Sapphire AMD R9 280X 3GB GDDR5 TRI-X OC won't run at boost or overclock

milcs

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Aug 3, 2015
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Hello everyone!

I have just recently bought a Sapphire R9 280X Tri-X OC (http://www.sapphiretech.com/productdetial.asp?pid=A70D30F5-C1A1-4D75-91B0-29C4DA612103&lang=eng).

I have installed it on my desktop and have been playing a bit with it and testing it.

I seem to be having a bit of problems though. It is supposed to run at 1000GHz stock and 1100GHz boost clock.

The first issue... The clock is always at 1000GHz and never (or rarely) going to 1100GHz.
Second issue... I can set the overclock on Trixx, Afterburner, ATI Overdrive... doesn't matter. The GPU clock doesn't go up one Hz!!! The clock ALWAYS sits at 1000GHz, no matter what.

This card is sold as new, but has been refurbished by Sapphire. I am a bit worried that I got a bad card... Not that I want to overclock a lot, but I can't move the clocks at all.

Can anyone help me please???
 

Brandon-

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Aug 1, 2015
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Hello milcs, could you post a screenshot of your AMD Overdrive?
 

milcs

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Aug 3, 2015
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So... After a bit of testing, I realized that sometimes the graphic card would boost to 1000MHz. On top of that, I could increase the clock and memory speeds via Trixx (I still can't change GPU voltage through the software... is this locked?). The problem was that this was very erratic... It would work fine for a bit, then be stuck at 1000Mhz. Then I would have to restart again for it to work properly again... only to stop working after a while!

Then I realized that, after a 3dMark Test that I run straight away after restart, all seemed fine. The test ends, opens a webpage with my results and, at the same time, lots of other tabs open (some including video and flash). I repeat the test and the clocks are stuck at 1000Mhz. That's when I realized that it was the chrome pages with videos that were causing the GPU to be stuck at 1000Mhz. Once closed, everything seemed normal again...

Is this normal? Is this known? Can I now rest my mind at ease??? :)
 

TesseractOrion

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Jul 8, 2014
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18,515
Hi, I've got a similar problem (hope I'm not derailing thread here)! Old Sapphire Trixx (4.*) was able to unlock voltage. New (5.*) cannot seem to. And my card will not get to it's rated 1.1GHz without overvolting :-(