How do I RMA my graphics card?

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bayonet14

bayonet14

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Jun 4, 2011
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hi, I have a Sapphire R7 260x OC 2GB and it's a piece of crap. Black screens, instability and more black screens. I'm using 14.12 omega drivers and it's still crashing, and no it's not a power issue. Me and a lot of people who have a good psu have the same problem. I give up on AMD products, I've read from a lot of people who suffer from this damn worthless piece of plastic that they RMA their cards and got Nvidia. How do they RMA it? I got mine from a store and their warranty policy says it can only be replaced with the same thing. My warranty ends in february 2015 and I've already replaced it twice. I don't want this card anymore, how do people RMA their cards and how do I get rid of this living nightmare from AMD?
 
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bayonet14
I've sold my 260X for a 750ti. I cried when I saw my PC without blackscreens for the first time. Just kidding lol.. Sold my 260X for a 750ti, never had a problem with nvidia.
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If you can back track to that thread I linked earlier you'll notice a list of PSU's. If you can manage to get a hold of Tier 1 units then you've hit jack pot. Good PSU's can take some heavy beating with high components as well as heat before they die. How they die is the key factor. Cheap/bad build quality PSU's can take out practically everything they are connected to. I'm not saying this out of reading but from experience. My first home built machine featured a $20 case with $1200 of hardware inside and my PSU was a 350W paper weight(came free with the case). It blew up with a blue spark and some grey smoke. The machine didn't power up after that but with a new PSU it powered up albeit the components I had were all dying off one by one until I realized everything I bought from the get go was dead or dying except for the case and the PSU.

I'm a little short on time to read through 9 pages of the thread you've linked with the issue but can you state the power supplies that similar owners of R7+R9 have been using alongside their system specs(to get the whole story right)?

Newegg and amazon isn't available in my country so I'll have a hard time looking for a specific power supply...
Click to expand...
thus my request on posting a link to a site you prefer purchasing off of from Philippines. You could also visit your local computer shop and get back to us with a list of all the PSU's you have access to however the site would provide the fastest responses and you've already gone through this problem long enough.

The GPU is fine by my assumption after scoping out your hardware list. Lastly buddy can you post back with your ram's Make and model? 2x4GB sticks, frequency, voltage? the whole story 😀

P.S: you didn't state the chassis either. If your PSU is top mounted, it might be subjected to higher temps than regular(nowadays a norm) bottom mounted PSU chassis'.
 
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My PSU is at the bottom.
I have a GT Aerocool white
This is the best one I can find... It's like a search engine for hardware and it tells you where you can buy them. http://www.priceme.com.ph/
For my RAM:
RAM
Memory slots
Total memory slots 2
Used memory slots 2
Free memory slots 0
Memory
Type DDR3
Size 8192 MBytes
Channels # Dual
DRAM Frequency 665.1 MHz
CAS# Latency (CL) 9 clocks
RAS# to CAS# Delay (tRCD) 9 clocks
RAS# Precharge (tRP) 9 clocks
Cycle Time (tRAS) 24 clocks
Command Rate (CR) 1T
Physical Memory
Memory Usage 30 %
Total Physical 7.90 GB
Available Physical 5.45 GB
Total Virtual 9.15 GB
Available Virtual 6.08 GB
SPD
Number Of SPD Modules 2
Slot #1
Type DDR3
Size 4096 MBytes
Manufacturer Kingston
Max Bandwidth PC3-10700 (667 MHz)
Part Number 9905471-006.A01LF
Serial Number 241AEB04
Week/year 10 / 11
Timing table
Frequency CAS# Latency RAS# To CAS# RAS# Precharge tRAS tRC Voltage
JEDEC #1 457.1 MHz 6.0 6 6 17 23 1.500 V
JEDEC #2 533.3 MHz 7.0 7 7 20 27 1.500 V
JEDEC #3 609.5 MHz 8.0 8 8 22 30 1.500 V
JEDEC #4 685.7 MHz 9.0 9 9 25 34 1.500 V
Slot #2
Type DDR3
Size 4096 MBytes
Manufacturer Unknown
Max Bandwidth PC3-10700 (667 MHz)
Week/year 01 / 12
Timing table
Frequency CAS# Latency RAS# To CAS# RAS# Precharge tRAS tRC Voltage
JEDEC #1 381.0 MHz 5.0 5 5 14 19 1.500 V
JEDEC #2 457.1 MHz 6.0 6 6 17 23 1.500 V
JEDEC #3 533.3 MHz 7.0 7 7 20 27 1.500 V
JEDEC #4 609.5 MHz 8.0 8 8 22 30 1.500 V
JEDEC #5 685.7 MHz 9.0 9 9 25 34 1.500 V
JEDEC #6 761.9 MHz 10.0 10 10 28 38 1.500 V
 
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It's a zepellin, it's generic I think. I plan to get good rams sooner..
What's with my power supply that I need to have it replaced? I'm not into overclocking or tweaking. If HEC is that bad why do they sell power supplies in the first place. I don't need a killer psu, I just need everything to work.
 
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Some manufacturers are a little 'optimistic' with their specifications. To make cheap they use cheap, and then to sell them they provide things like peak wattage instead of average wattage, or even just make it up.

Look through this for some examples, including a 400 W supply that couldn't deliver more than 240 W.

We can't say that it's definitely your PSU that's the issue here, but not every single 260X card is a failure so either you've been sent three in a row from a bad batch or there's something else in your system causing the problem. The usual culprits are the PSU being over-stressed or the video card overheating - have you been monitoring the GPU temps?
 
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If HEC is that bad why did do they sell power supplies in the first place.
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So they can line their pockets with money ripped out of yours. My colleague and I as well as one other member ,Moonstick2 ,has stated how important each component is in a build. The PSU isn't killer it'll keep you afloat.

With home built systems, out of all the components you buy the Case, PSU and HDD(and now SSD's) should remain constant in your build while the mobo, CPU and ram as well as GPU can change according to platform or requirements see fit. If you skimp out on the PSU due to budget constraints, you will likely end up with entire chassis full of components to use as a paperweight or maybe a vessel anchor 😛

That being said, I'm now going to take a stab at the rams as well for an unstable machine and is not AMD Omega Driver's fault.

To rule out the two issues, its best if you can borrow off of your neighbor; a good quality PSU and a matched kit. If both are daunting for you, then I'd suggest taking the machine to the place you bought it from as they will surely have hardware to test out the machine.

FWIW, brudda, I have come to appreciate that most people in the computer sales industry are illiterate and can't tell the difference between a Tier 1 and a Tier 5 PSU. All they care about is the Price of a component, the wattage it has stickered on the unit and the weight of such a unit. No disrespect there though!

Lastly, when you get things right you'll have a working machine for years to come with tasks to delegate. Just getting it to work somehow would just produce more headaches than productivity.
 
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I'm not a tech expert, but these are what the solutions R9 and R7 users found out.. Screenshots and full thread: http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2089881/sapphire-260x-black-screen/page-8.html
GPU gets stuck in a low power state after it was previously stressed to max power"

Its the problem GPU lowers down the power but at a extreme level and for that memory controller also stops. and thats the reason of the black screen. thats why some peoples lowers the memory clock and fix it there.

Holy craps, it appears you might actually be right.
How I verified it? I started up afterburner 4 and let it log all data from the GPU (including voltage), waited for the black screen to happen, and put all of this data into an exel table and added some charts to it, you can download the document here (please open it with LibreOffice): https://www.dropbox.com/s/sz08ddgzlwh3d3k/HardwareMonit...

I have split the data into a green and a red section. The green background marks that everything is still going well, whereas the red section marks the time span during the malfunction. I have also added a dotted red line to over all charts blow, marking the exact point of where the malfunction starts. The charts show a clear break the consistency that existed prior - note that this has all happened during total idle!


My conclusions after considering the data and general observation:

Obviously, unlike I thought before, this process take a certain time of "instability" (~10min in this case) and then finally if no user input/activity is being given. If you happen to catch the graphics card during this instability time span you will probably prevent the card from a crash
Well as you see the behaviour is comparable to what I have in my exel document and it successfully recovered.
Also note that some data is obviously distorted: There's no way for the graphics card to constantly switch between ~30 and 0 degree Celsius. It may be that there are simply some gaps in logging or whatever.
However other data may indeed be accurate: For example you may notice that the logs report the fan speed being constanlty at 0% -- well I opened my PC and holy craps, this is indeed the case!

However I noticed there is also a bug which causes exactly the opposite: During normal usage (e.g. browsing the www) the Win7 areo effect suddenly turns off... so apparently something is not right with the driver/graphics card. So I looked into afterburner and saw, that my graphics card was constantly a a very high power state. Since it did not stop I manually reclocked my card using afterburner and suddelny everthing whent to normal.

Apparantly the cards reclocking somehow hangs. I don't know if the bug has the same cause as the first one, however there are some clear similarities.

What do you guys think of it? Any thoughts or feedback? And don't forget to take a look at my document, since I really made an effort to put extensive information into it.

So now I would like to try modifieing my voltage ahnd see if it fixes those issues... does anyone know how much I need to raise it?

Thanks in advance and have fun with the data! 😛
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
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Folks at the sapphire forum posted this. R9 and R7 have similar issues..
https://www.sapphireforum.com/showthread.php?33235-R9-290-Black-Screen
This is exactly my issue and the solution.

Symptoms
1: Black screen on cold boot.
2: Random Black Screen while at desktop / browsing web / youtube
3: No Black Screen Issues while gaming.

Solution
1: Upped my core voltage to plus 25mV using MSI AB.
This upped my VDDC to 1.008V at idle and stabilized the Memory controller for those jumps from 300/150 to 450/1250 at the desktop and now no more Black Screens.

I still occasionally see one on cold boot if it happens before Windows and AB loads to set the new voltage.

The Permanent Solution would be a bios with the slightly higher core voltage.
Or a way to edit the bios and set it manually myself.
Click to expand...
 
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We have the same issues and we have the same graphics card.
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That's like saying you and I own a car with 4 wheels each. You - Ferrari Enzo, Me - Bugatti Veyron. while you ask me: "why doesn't mine go as fast as yours?" Likewise they would be having different specs altogether. The only way you can shoot this issue down is if you replicate the same issue on a similarly built rig as well as a higher spec'd build ruling out each component in the process.

We did suggest adding some more dough and getting your GPU swapped to the GTX750Ti...courtesy of the folks you bought it off of at the mid of this thread.
 
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I'm talking about the graphics card alone. We have the same issue with the gpu even though we all have other different components. I'm planning to get a GTX 760, what do you think of that GPU for my pc?
 
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I'm talking about the graphics card alone. We have the same issue with the gpu even though we all have other different components.
Click to expand...
I've explained this more than it needs to be said and enough time has gone behind it.

I'm planning to get a GTX 760
Click to expand...
Its a good step up from what you are currently using and I will whole heatedly support the move provided you sort these out...

Operating System
Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit
CPU: Intel Core i3 4130 @ 3.40GHz 41 °C
RAM: 8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 665MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. H81M-DS2 (SOCKET 0)
Graphics: 2048MB ATI AMD Radeon R7 200 Series (Sapphire/PCPartner)
Storage: 149GB Seagate ST3160215AS (SATA) 465GB Seagate ST500DM002-1BD142 (SATA)
Optical Drives: HP DVD Writer 1265d
PSU: HEC Cougar SL 600 watts

Issues are in bold.
 
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Further to the above, there's only so many 'symptoms' a computer can show, similar to the human body. Some can be very specific and diagnosed easily, some can be caused by a whole raft of things.

Saying 'they get black screens and instability like me, we must have the same problem' is the same as saying 'they've got a headache and a skin rash like me, we must have the same illness'. Maybe you have, but maybe you haven't.

When I had instability issues just like that with a previous card, it turned out to be overheating due to a poor heatsink solution by the manufacturer. With another system I had artifacting which is usually down to overheating, but in that case it was down to the AGP driver not accessing the full VRAM.

If your problem is the same problem that they've had, have you applied the fixes that cured their issues?

From your opening post and your later ones, you seem dead against the idea that your PSU could be at fault. And maybe it isn't, but you don't seem to have eliminated it. Nor have you mentioned checking the temperatures. All you've really done as far as I can tell is upgrade the drivers.

Three 260Xs with the same issue...either you keep getting sent them out of a bad batch, or there's something else causing the problem. Has the retailer confirmed issues with the cards you've been returning?

Look up GTX 750 ti "black screen" and there are lots of people complaining about issues with their 750 Tis. That doesn't mean the card is junk, it just means it's always easy to find people reporting common symptoms.
 
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My spidey senses tell me someone will come along and say "Google it" :sarcastic:

Good post there Moonstick2. I also hope the issue is resolved. I happen to run an APU system and I too see reboots and intermittent black screens but that is due to my undervolting and I'm yet trying to fine tune it but that doesn't mean AMD have a bad product in the pipelines.

http://pcx.com.ph/components/power-supply/fsp-aurum-500-80-gold-sli-500w.html
http://pcx.com.ph/components/memory/gskill-ripjaws-8gb-f3-12800cl9d-8gbxl.html
should be more than enough for the current build and later system upgrades.
 
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@Moonstick My temps are 45 celsius idle and 85 celsius (max) while gaming, depending on the game. Sometimes I get 65 sometimes 50. We've tried underclocking the memory clock to a lower speed(because they say the memory meter is buggy) - the random black screens disappeared, but only until the 14.9 drivers. The 14.9 drivers gave us new problems like losing signal to monitor.
The retailer can replace it but won't refund or replace it with another brand. Right now I don't have much choice but to believe this is a power issue.
 
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Reading around, those temperatures do seem a bit on the high side for a 260X. I can't find a benchmark that breaks 80 C under load, and it shouldn't really be a lot over ambient at load - 30-35 C would be more typical, 45 C seems pretty high just to run Windows. Maybe you can try improving the cooling through the case and see if that helps - has it been dusted out? Inlets clear? Fans all set up well? No cable mess? What kinds of CPU temperatures do you see?
 
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I clean my pc twice a month and I'm thinking of buying a side fan on my casing (GT Aerocool white) . It has a 120mm fan sucking hot air out the back and a front 120mm fan blowing cool air in. They say those temps are normal for the 260X, it's a power hungry card and of course, it's amd. My cables are well set
 
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'They' say...like I said, all the temps I can find barely break 80 C and never get anywhere near mid forties when idling.

Anyway, it's clear that you've taken against the card and will only be happy with a GTX, so you'll have to persuade the seller by hook or by crook or just stick your hand in your pocket again. Nobody here can help you with that.
 
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I've sold my 260X for a 750ti. I cried when I saw my PC without blackscreens for the first time. Just kidding lol.. Sold my 260X for a 750ti, never had a problem with nvidia.
 
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