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R9 280x replacement.

Grimley

Grimley

Grimley

Soldato
Joined
18 Nov 2007
Posts
8,233
Location
Deepest Darkest Essex!!
As per title folks.

Got a phone call last night from my 14 year old nephew saying hes getting no display on either of his monitors, but the case fans are spinning, which lead me to suspect that said GC in the thread title has died. I bought it off the MM about 10 months ago so no warranty.

I'm going to his on sunday to investigate the fault - I may need a replacement quickly if it is what I think it is. I'm taking one of mine with me because I know it works! to test various bits.

His fave Game last time I spoke to him was SW battlefront @ 1080p. His mum bought him an AOC 144mhz monitor last xmas & he's also got my creaky old Samsung 226 circa 2010 as his secondary monitor. He likes both on at the same time to be flash like most boys his age.

case is this one (his choice) I suspect the card has died due to overheating.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/aerocool-xpredator-cube-micro-atx-case-black-red-ca-131-ae.html

Question is - what do I replace said card with? Budget under £200 as I want a new card in there & I'm not made of money you know. AMD/NV he's not fussed.

I was thinking AMD R9 380/ Nvidia 960 (probably the latter as his elder brother has a 760 & he's never had a problem) & the fact it probably runs cooler.

Thoughts?
 
380 is the same thing (can it do free sync?) as the 280x.

My suggestion is a 2nd hand 280x / 7970 for <£100 to tide him over till next gen cards come out in 3/4 months. Or as he's 14, Christmas.
 
Xmas? He had a new board, my old CPU (Haswell i5) My old PSU, brand new SSD & HDD with W10 thrown in for Xmas! :D The things uncles do eh? I want a decent care home to go in 30 odd years time when he chooses it.

Thanks for the suggestion - If he wants pascal/polaris he'll have to pay for it out of his pocket money though. ;)
 
The problem you have there, is that £200 will only get you similar performance with a 380/x or 960, whereas raising the budget to £260 will get you a 390 or 970 which is a good bit faster. Myself I could even think about spending £200 for the same as I had. (I know this isn't for you but for your nephew, but the premise still stands)
 
don't say that! I think he reads this forum & knows my username - if he does there'll be a phone call tomorrow. I just wish I could wait for the next gen to be released so I can get an older card for a bit cheaper, not me though as teenage boys are not known for their patience (in my family anyway)
 
I don't know the model no of the monitor - all I know that his mum bought it off the rainforest.

I can't help but think he's breaking it on purpose in order to get 'upgrades' If I find out - :mad:
 
Flick the BIOS switch before you do anything else. The flashable BIOS on mine got corrupted and stopped displaying.

After a bit of faffing around I got it reflashed and it works perfectly again.
 
/\/\/\/\/\ thanks for that, I've done a bit of digging & there appears to be an overheating/vrm issue with these cards that may be resolved by doing what you said. If I'm successful I may well save myself having to buy a new card for him. If I'm not then He'll get my GTX950 instead until I can get round to buying him a new card.
 
My dads pc did the same 280x etc, no signal fans on etc i tried a different gfx card still didn't work so i replaced the motherboard and voila working. So it may not be the gfx card.
 
/\/\/\/\ went there today. The PC speaker was making a funny noise (a quiet click & not the usual beeping) Thought it was faulty ram, turned out to be an intermittent fault with the 2nd ram slot on the board (I bought it off the MM) so new board time.

1st board off the MM I've had a problem with & it turns out to cost me a 200 mile round trip, a new board & having to install W7 then a W10 upgrade again (wish me luck)

Card switch was in legacy bios mode so that may solve the occasional screen crashes he had too (card bios is up to date) I hope the new board solves the problems. I upgraded the PC in January after a RAM stick & Ram slot failed on the old board after 3 years.

Thanks for the suggestions folks.
 
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