MSI r9 270x hawk graphics issue

[Terramoto]

Hi,

I think i have a problem with my graphic card, i bought it about 6 months ago and i've been playing games like, planetside 2, Contract Wars. about a week ago i was playing and the screen froze similar to this (this image was taken from google its the only thing i was able to find close to what happen)

now when im playing it keeps showing an horizontal line with a magnifying glass effect or wave that goes up on the screen its not annoying or noticeable, also when im watching some videos, the videos slow down sometimes and i get some bits with those primary colors like green, blue, etc... Could it be from the motherboard (which is the weakest link) or is this really a graphic card issue? I've ran a stress test and all went good (i think) max temp was around 80ºC.

All the gear was bought at the same time.

Specs:
CPU: FX-6300 (not overclocked)
RAM: G.Skill 4gb (also not overclocked)
Motherboard: Asus M5A97 R2.0
GPU: MSI r9 270x hawk (not overclocked)

 

[Supernova1138]

I had a similar problem with my R7870 HAWK, it would pass stress tests, but it would occasionally spew out a screen full of artifacts and freeze on a rather old game from 2003, and also show some strange artifacts on my browser toolbar if I kept my web browser open long enough. Eventually it just spewed out a screen full of artifacts while web browsing, crashed the system, and wouldn't boot up again. That was the third card I got from MSI after my first card died within a month and my second one spontaneously started burning for no reason.

I think your card is dying, which is not good because you have to deal with the incompetency of MSI's RMA department, do not expect your replacement to last any longer than a year. I would suggest if you have to RMA the card, that you sell the one you get back so that you can buy a new card from a less crappy vendor.

You can try rolling back to an earlier driver revision if you think it might be a driver problem, and if you have some extra monitor cables lying around, that might help rule out any problem on that end.

 

[Terramoto]

Ok, i've tested the graphic card with new drivers and the problem presists, i post it on the MSI forum and as i was posting there i saw some posts about this graphic card some of them were fixed with a new vbios.

 

[Supernova1138]

If you think you are up to flashing the card, you can try it, just make sure MSI will still honor your warranty if the flash goes wrong and the card gets bricked in the process.

 

[Terramoto]

So, as a end user i should just send it back to the store and wait for them to fix it? I was thinking about flashing vbios because that's what most people are doing in their forum, but if that voids my warranty i prefer to send it to the store.

 

[Supernova1138]

It may or may not void the warranty, I am not sure. You may want to check with MSI first before your proceed.

 

[Terramoto]

Does anyone knows if this graphic card uses leadless solder?