Afterburner not allowing voltage adjustment on R9 280

[Rogue Leader]

So I downloaded MSI Afterburner to Overclock my XFX R9 280 DD 3GB Boost Edition. According to the box it has unlocked voltage but in Afterburner the voltage adjuster is greyed out, there is no voltage reading in Afterburner, and no matter what I select in the options I cannot change the voltage. I went into the options menu and enabled Voltage control and set it to boost edition but it straight out doesn't even show the voltage. The voltage does show up fine in Overdrive so I know the sensor works. The two issues I can think of is maybe in v4.1.0 they disabled support for non MSI cards on that feature, or secondly that my MB is PCIe 2.0 not 3.0. Am I doing something wrong?

 

[krells]

Try checking "extend official overclocking limits" and "disable ULPS". If that doesn't work see if this program allows you to change voltage:
https://www.sapphireselectclub.com/ssc/TriXX/

 

[Rogue Leader]

Try checking "extend official overclocking limits" and "disable ULPS". If that doesn't work see if this program allows you to change voltage:
https://www.sapphireselectclub.com/ssc/TriXX/

I tried "extend official overclocking limits" and it didn't work, but I will try the other setting tonight.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Try checking "extend official overclocking limits" and "disable ULPS". If that doesn't work see if this program allows you to change voltage:
https://www.sapphireselectclub.com/ssc/TriXX/

MSI Afterburner still doesnt work with those settings but TriXX does, thanks for the help!

EDIT: well this sucks. Yes it does work, BUT I raised VDDC to max (1250) but can't overclock any more then before (went up 50 mhz, 5% power, 50 mhz memory, still less than anyone else runs) (Firestrike crashed while loading). I can't overclock the memory which is what most people do, maybe contributing to the issue. I think its not doing what I need it to do. Any ideas?

EDIT 2: Just tried to set it to what I had it at yesterday, and it crashed mid 3D mark test. Ugh it like this thing just doesnt want to overclock at all. Firestrike seems to work fine with yesterdays settings, but the first test crashes midway through the demo. I hope something didn't get cooked yesterday somehow, but I doubt it I mean I'm not even pushing it all the way....

 

[krells]

I would set the voltage back to stock and see what you can get on stock voltage first. Set the power limit to +20 and bump the core clock up 25mhz test and repeat until you crash or get artifacts then drop down 5mhz at a time until it is stable. I wouldn't touch the memory clocks until you get the core clock stable.

 

[Rogue Leader]

I would set the voltage back to stock and see what you can get on stock voltage first. Set the power limit to +20 and bump the core clock up 25mhz test and repeat until you crash or get artifacts then drop down 5mhz at a time until it is stable. I wouldn't touch the memory clocks until you get the core clock stable.

Ok so power limit looks like it did the trick, I was able to get it to run the full Ice Storm test (finally) at 1025 mhz/1325mhz memory and 20% power (I was only at 10 before). Oddly it was about 10,000 PC marks less than stock, so it runs worse (in that test) overclocked. So I think this is the best I can do before changing the voltage...... which doesn't seem to be possible.

It just doesn't make sense though I've read online people have been able to squeeze so much more out of this card using just Overdrive. And its not a cooling issue, its only hitting 60C at full load.

 

[krells]

I would set the voltage back to stock and see what you can get on stock voltage first. Set the power limit to +20 and bump the core clock up 25mhz test and repeat until you crash or get artifacts then drop down 5mhz at a time until it is stable. I wouldn't touch the memory clocks until you get the core clock stable.

Ok so power limit looks like it did the trick, I was able to get it to run the full Ice Storm test (finally) at 1025 mhz/1325mhz memory and 20% power (I was only at 10 before). Oddly it was about 10,000 PC marks less than stock, so it runs worse (in that test) overclocked. So I think this is the best I can do before changing the voltage...... which doesn't seem to be possible.

It just doesn't make sense though I've read online people have been able to squeeze so much more out of this card using just Overdrive. And its not a cooling issue, its only hitting 60C at full load.

 

[krells]

You can probably get a bit more out of it before touching voltage. My old card ran 1070 with no overclock. One you are maxed out on stock voltage you can keep the 20 power level and slowly add voltage and increase clocks.

 

[Rogue Leader]

You can probably get a bit more out of it before touching voltage. My old card ran 1070 with no overclock. One you are maxed out on stock voltage you can keep the 20 power level and slowly add voltage and increase clocks.

It looks like what I thought was voltage on TriXX was not, so I still can't modify voltage. 1050 causes Ice storm to crash so I don't think I'm getting much over 1025 stock.

At 1025 I ran 3 of the 4 tests, Firestrike was faster than stock, but Ice Storm and Sky Diver are slower than stock.

I guess I will need to put a query into XFX as to why I can't modify voltage on a card that has "unlocked voltage"

Edit: ran cloud gate, also slower than stock.....

 

[Rogue Leader]

Ok update did a bit more research this morning. I've found people to have similar issues to mine and its kind of a tossup as to what card you get. Basically the card is "Unlocked" as in you can change the GPU voltage, but its locked to a max voltage of 1250mV, and set to 1125mV at the factory. So it seems the VDDC line in TriXX is the voltage selector which only got me to 1250, but I would assume that works. (will try tonight or soon). I think my problem earlier was not setting my power limit to +20%. Also due to variations in the card people are only averaging 1050 mhz on stock voltage, some more some less, which is to be expected. Also it seems people say on forums "stock voltage" when they mean the stock limit of 1250mV. So I think that there is nothing wrong with my card, just that every card is different. Now that doesn't explain HardOC's ability to adjust every voltage on their R9 280, maybe it was a reference unit? I'm not sure. I have an email into XFX regarding this as well. Any thoughts welcome....

 

[Rogue Leader]

So tried TriXX again, and it didn't seem to help. While it does show VDDC as adjustable, when I went in it was already at 1250 (should be 1125 stock), so I don't think it works. Tried to bring up clock speed and memory and had the same problems, so yeah probably doesn't work.

Still waiting on an answer from XFX

 

[Rogue Leader]

XFX response was..... surprising. The tech basically denied the card had unlocked voltage. I forwarded him a link to a pic of the box and their own website saying it does.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Got clarification from XFX. The original runs of the R9 280 did have unlocked voltage. Current ones do not and the box has not been changed. Only the BE cards are unlocked. I advised him that I was unhappy with that, it says it on the box it should have the feature.

Either way I will live with it. Thanks for your help.