Asus Matrix r9 280X CF = nothing but the issues

[b3ka]

Testings are going to be continued today. Right now I see two possibilities
1) 80 degree causing throttling
2) driver issues

Will report back

 

[itsmydamnation]

have you tried undervolting and down clocking the GPU's to see if your issue continues?

 

[RussianSensation]

OP, run the system for 2-3 hours with only 1 of the cards, and then repeat with the 2nd card. Let's first isolate if one of those cards has a problem.

What are your CPU temperatures? What is the minimum and average reading in HWMonitor for the PSU's 12V rail when the system is loaded with games?

 

[b3ka]

I have some issues with DVI-D cable at the moment, switching to Display Port and continuing tests. I will provide all info later today.

 

[b3ka]

Just finished reinstalling and setting everything. Looks like the issue changed a little.
Right now usage on both cards is synchronized, but it's never staying at top level of 90-99%, very jumpy.

Right now will try undervolting the cards.

+12V rail is in average 12,314 with max 12,408. Power metter show maximum usage of around 600W in BF3.

 

[b3ka]

One more test, Valley Benchmark. With everything on default settings, just power target of 120%. Looks much better 90+% usage.
CPU stays not overclocked, it might be bottlenecking cards a little as CPU usage was often 99%.

620W usage on full stress. Temp on top card was around 85 degrees but seems it didn't slow down for a second. Very strange. Continuing.

(All done on 750W Seasonic so far)

 

[b3ka]

OK, seems everything is magically solved after 2nd clean windows installation.
Usage in BF3 is 90%+

Working on lower voltage now.

 

[railven]

Not sure if someone here recommended, check the actual cards. I forgot which reviewer got a shoddy built card. Sometimes screws need to be tighten.

Eitherway, it seems it's all fixed now. COuld have been a software gremlin. GL and happy gaming!

 

[el etro]

Return the cards to manufacturer OP... redeem two new Matrix from them. You are doing workaround to solve a problem not caused by yourself...

 

[Stuka87]

OK, seems everything is magically solved after 2nd clean windows installation.
Usage in BF3 is 90%+

Working on lower voltage now.

I doubt the OS reinstall fixed it. It was undervolting them. This can drop power consumption significantly. Which means they will run cooler.

Also, you are most likely CPU bottlenecked in many cases causing the second card to drop in utilization. BF3/4 is not a good game to measure GPU utilization in due to them being so CPU bound.

 

[thilanliyan]

Have you checked CPU temps as well?

 

[b3ka]

I didn't undervolted them, actually I'm trying at the moment but no matter what I set in GPU Tweak it's still at 1,2560V for CORE.

As for CPU, yeah I think it might bottleneck it a little in BF3. Unreal benchmark don't use that much CPU and GPU usage for both stays at 90+ Levels.

CPU temps are around 70 @4.3, but it's mainly due to super passive settiings.

 

[Stuka87]

I didn't undervolted them, actually I'm trying at the moment but no matter what I set in GPU Tweak it's still at 1,2560V for CORE.

As for CPU, yeah I think it might bottleneck it a little in BF3. Unreal benchmark don't use that much CPU and GPU usage for both stays at 90+ Levels.

CPU temps are around 70 @4.3, but it's mainly due to super passive settiings.

Oh, I mistook "Working on lower voltage settings now" as the cards were functioning better. Not that you were trying to lower it.

Have you tried with MSI Afterburner? And are you sure those cards are voltage unlocked?

 

[b3ka]

Well on the box they say that overvolting is as easy as pushing +/- button on cards. I will have to test it tomorrow. It needs some kind of VGA connection to motherboard in order to work. Never had matrix before, I have no idea how it works.

MSI Afterburner shows empty space in mV for core. GPU Tweak doesn't react on mV changes on core, but it does on Core/Mem MHZ.

 

[ocre]

Is the voltage unlocked in the advanced msi settings menu? There should be a check box to unlock voltage controls

 

[railven]

MSI AB (perhaps because of ZeroCore) doesn't let you adjust Volts until it sees both cards. This is how I had to get the Volt slider to work on my CFX setup:

Close MSI AB. Launch game in fullscreen so CFX is working, once game is up, alt-tab and reopen MSI AB. You'll now see all the options for the second card (volts/clocks/mem/mem clocks/etc).

This is the only way I could adjust volts in MSI AB with CFX outside of disabling ZeroCore/ULPS.

 

[SlickR12345]

I think its a power supply issue. I can't think of any other reason to have such experience otherwise.

Either your PSU can't handle the load consistently or its just defective from the factory.

 

[RaulF]

From what you have posted OP I'm going with PS also.

 

[b3ka]

Hey not it was not PSU. 750W was enough but upgraded to 1050W anyway.
Everything runs awesome right now. Let me tell you what were the issues:
1) Not reinstalled system from previous Nvidia cards - that gave me the issue of one card running at full clocks and another one on 50-100 usage (most probably)
2) Matrix cards have dual bios - I didnt know that and one of my cards was switched to bios "U3" while other was on bios "U2" version. It's minor changes to max voltage, but could be problematic
3) Voltage is not locked but only GPU Tweak can show correct values of current V. MSI won't do it, HWInfo won't do it - they will always show 1,256V
4) GPUTweak running in the background cause major FPS drops in 3DMark benchmarks, so it had to be switched off.
5) Using newest V6 drivers helped too I guess.
6) i5 3570k is not enough for CPU heavy games like BF3 and won't be for BF4 - with 3770k all cores are utilized at ~70% levels so it can't bottleneck the GPUs

To sum up, that was a lot of troubleshooting to do, but right now... well waiting for BF4 to launch, all is good.

PS. Card didn't thermal throttled me even once and I managed to get it hot to mid 90s levels.