Slight GTX 970 issue - anyone know a fix?

[Bellcheese]

I bought a GTX 970 and have had it for a few days, card's amazing and everything seemed fine. However, there is a small problem - if the card is overclocked then in some games the core clock will suddenly drop drastically and the only way to reset it is to reboot my computer. It seems that it happens in games/area's that cause the GPU to drop into very low usage (%).

Here are two instances: 1) Wolfenstein: New Order - the game has a unmovable 60fps cap, I have everything at max graphics and when I'm an indoor environment the GPU usage drops to around 25% then the clocks drop > reset PC/remove overclock. 2) Wildstar - Ultra High preset, caps FPS at '100' and again, indoor environment > clock drops to 560mhz (roughly).

Obviously I realise it's not a huge deal, the games are running so well for the most part that an overclock seems overkill, there are a couple of reasons though. In certain circumstances I see the FPS drop to 50 in Wolfenstein in very intense scenes and obviously an overclock would help close this gap. However, clearly I can't just it on as if I go into an area where my FPS rockets and thus usage dips (due to fps cap) then my card essentially falls to its knees.

Things I've tried: Forcing constant Voltage, forcing constant clocks through 'K boost' and removing the overclock (only thing to work, as stated I'd like to find another route).

Any thoughts and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Woomack]

It happens when you overclock too high and driver is restarting , then clocks back to stock.
I have no idea why but I see that overvoltage is not really working on some cards or drivers. On my card ( Gigabyte ) I see no difference if I raise voltage or not. Also depends from test it's running between 1450 and 1530MHz.

I will modify bios when I find any working nvflash version for these new cards.

 

[Bellcheese]

I don't feel this is the reason. I've ran furmark for two hours and around 20 variations of benchmarks including: Unigine Heaven, Valley, Firestrike and various game ones too. Also it doesn't clock back to stock, it clocks back to anywhere from 400mhz to 560mhz. Really not sure why. But either way, I'd assume that 2 hours of furmark with the overclock running would signal that the overclock is fine. I just can't get my head around what is doing it. Any other ideas?

 

[dejo]

when running furmark. your card clocks are usually much lower. which would alleviate the issue of clocks causing the driver to crash.

 

[ratbuddy]

While Furmark is by no means a perfect test of an OC, it sounds like the card might going into low power 3d mode (is that still a thing?) and getting stuck there. Not sure if they can fix it with a driver update, or it'll need a bios.

Try going to nvidia control panel, 3d settings, power management, and change it from adaptive to prefer maximum performance?

It could also just be an unstable OC, does it still happen when you clock down a bit?

edit: ooh, ignore me, I like Dejo's answer better.

 

[Bellcheese]

I've tried with just +20mhz on the core, it stills does it (this morning). This surely cannot be tipping my GPU over the edge?

 

[NiHaoMike]

What does nvidia-smi return if you run it?

 

[Bellcheese]

What does nvidia-smi return if you run it?

Nothing, a CMD windows briefly pops up - which I had to print screen to be able to read as it was that quick. All it says is the name of the card, temps and fan speed. Nothing about clocks etc and I can't find any output log for it either.

 

[Bellcheese]

Anyone else have any ideas? I'm at a loss here and I don't think it's defective, I tried this morning with just +5mhz bump on the core and it STILL does this. I've tried setting nvidia to maximum performance, forcing full clocks, keeping GPU-Z open (read somewhere that it helped some people prevent random downclocking). I've also used DDU to wipe drivers and do a clean reinstall twice with 344.11 and 344.16. Running out of options it seems.

 

[ratbuddy]

What are the rest of the system specs?

 

[Bellcheese]

What are the rest of the system specs?

i5 4690k @ 4.6ghz (1.16v)
MSI Z97I AC mobo
8gb RAM Corsair Vengeance 1866mhz
120gb Samsung SSD 840 EVO
1TB WD Blue HDD
MSI Dragon CPU Cooler
EVGA 500w PSU 80+
Galaxy OC GTX 970
NZXT Sentry 2 Fan Controller
Corsair 250d Case

 

[Galaxy]

i5 4690k @ 4.6ghz (1.16v)
MSI Z97I AC mobo
8gb RAM Corsair Vengeance 1866mhz
120gb Samsung SSD 840 EVO
1TB WD Blue HDD
MSI Dragon CPU Cooler
EVGA 500w PSU 80+
Galaxy OC GTX 970
NZXT Sentry 2 Fan Controller
Corsair 250d Case

This is the first I've heard of any clock issues with our GTX 970 EXOC, but R&D did send over a new firmware update just this morning so you might give it a shot and see if it solves the problem:

http://www.adrive.com/public/8zdfKM/GTX970EXOC_5240C updatebios.rar

Please let me know if this helps.

 

[Woomack]

Do you have non-simplified version of nvflash ?

 

[Bellcheese]

This is the first I've heard of any clock issues with our GTX 970 EXOC, but R&D did send over a new firmware update just this morning so you might give it a shot and see if it solves the problem:

http://www.adrive.com/public/8zdfKM/GTX970EXOC_5240C updatebios.rar

Please let me know if this helps.

Thank you very much for the response, it's actually kind of shocked me to get a response from a company representative. I've update my cards bios and so far... so good! Fingers crossed it stays that way but I've gone from not being able to even run +50mhz on the memory to +175 on the core and +300 on the memory without the downclocking!

I'm very grateful for your response, you've definitely got a repeat customer here.

Edit: Just tested it with Firestrike, usually it would crash with any overclock but now after the bios it's doing just finehttp://www.3dmark.com/3dm/4204905

 

[ratbuddy]

This is the first I've heard of any clock issues with our GTX 970 EXOC, but R&D did send over a new firmware update just this morning so you might give it a shot and see if it solves the problem:

http://www.adrive.com/public/8zdfKM/GTX970EXOC_5240C updatebios.rar

Please let me know if this helps.

Got a copy of the stock BIOS? I'd like to compare..

 

[w00t69]

That's incredible. User has issue and dude rolls up and fixes it no problem with an updated firmware, nice stuff

 

[Galaxy]

Do you have non-simplified version of nvflash ?

What you see is what I've got. I assume alternate tools could be used to flash the included rom if you so choose but the simple route's always worked fine for me.

 

[Galaxy]

Got a copy of the stock BIOS? I'd like to compare..

Not off hand, but I'm told the primary purpose of the update was to optimize cooling under abnormally stressful loads from software like Furmark by upping default max fan speed to 80% (vs. ~60% previously). According to the engineers this shouldn't have any noticeable effect on regular gaming under normal circumstances, but either way I'm glad it fixed whatever was causing problems in this particular instance.

More optimization's always a good thing, though I've never personally been a big fan of Furmark for benchmarking in the first place. I think it's like testing a sports car by driving in gravel and shifting without the clutch.