HELP please! PC rebooting in games after geforce 980 TI upgrade

[axed75]

Hi all,
I have a problem with my PC: I've just upgraded from a 2 geforce 570 SLI to a single geforce 980 Ti (Inno3d Ichill X3 Ultra).
The rest of the rig is: Core i5 2500 (non-K), 4x2GB corsair DDR3 1600 mhz, Asus P8P67 Pro, Xonar Essence-STX, SSD samsung 840evo 250Gb, 1 WD caviar green 1.5 Tb, 1 WD caviar green 3 Tb, PSU Corsair HX750 80 plus Silver (750 W), 1 DVD-RW, 3 x Benq 24'' monitors.

I'm very happy with the 980 Ti, it's a real beast. But every time I begin the benchmark of the game Thief, the PC shoots down and reboots. The same happens sometime when I play Rfactor 2 on my triple screen setup.
At first it seems a PSU problem, I know...but it can't be! The minimum requirement for 980 Ti is a 600 W PSU: my PSU is a 750 W and it's a very good quality PSU, not even close to cheap, check this review where they pull out 913 watt:

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/corsair-hx750w-power-supply-review/8/

The PSU it's able to deliver 62 A on the +12V line, and the 980 Ti only needs 38 A:

(found on the web)
…..
GeForce GTX 980ti - 38A and a 600W PSU minimum
…..
GeForce GTX 570 - 35A and a 550W PSU minimum
…..

Moreover, as you can see the geforce 570 SLI was far more watt and ampere demanding than the single 980 Ti.
I used a wattmeter during the Thief benchmark: just before the reboot it read 318 Watt.
Even more strange: I was able to play other intense games (assetto corsa on triple screen) without a problem for some hours, no reboot.
The PC was able to sustain many loop instances of 3dmark Firestrike, even with a 4 core CPU stress test on the background: 100% usage on all 4 CPU cores and 100% usage on GPU, wattmeter read 410 W: no reboot.
The case is a cooler master HAF 912 Plus very well ventilated, CPU under stress tests stays always far below 60 °C as well as the GPU.
What's going on???
Please help me, I don't know what else to try…
thanks in advance guys.
G.C.

 

[Janus67]

Did you do a full driver wipe prior to installing the new 980ti? Sometimes left over driver files can cause issues. Uninstall the nvidia software in windows, boot into safe mode and run DDU, and boot back in and install the latest drivers. If you only do a single screen does it reboot?

Your PSU should be fine (wattage wise) assuming it is still in good shape.

Are you getting a BSOD?

 

[Nebulous]

Hey Janus, that review the OP linked is from 2009 which makes his power supply 6 years old. Average lifespan for a good quality unit is like 5 years.

 

[axed75]

I forgot to mention that I've just reinstalled windows 10 (all licenced, as all the software involved), so no driver wipe needed.
Maybe Nebulous is right, my PSU has 5 years. But how is it possible that it reboots only in those games and not in the other games and under the heavy stress benchmark?
anyway, is there a way to test if the PSU is still good? I don't want to end up with a new 120 $ PSU and find out that it still reboots...
any ideas?
thanks gusy for your contribution

 

[Mr.Scott]

Hey Janus, that review the OP linked is from 2009 which makes his power supply 6 years old. Average lifespan for a good quality unit is like 5 years.

Not true. I have units here older that get benched harder than any gamer. Besides, 2 570's suck way more juice than that 980 will.

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I agree with Janus. It's driver and W10 related.

 

[axed75]

I forgot again: no BSOD. Just reboot in the OS, no notification even in the OS...
I don't understand what's going on.


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Not true. I have units here older that get benched harder than any gamer. Besides, 2 570's suck way more juice than that 980 will.

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I agree with Janus. It's driver and W10 related.

I was under Windows 10 with the 570 SLI, the driver now is just a little newer than the one used for the SLI.
So it can also be related to the 980ti and Windows10 and Driver..
or the PSU.

- - - Updated - - -

Did you do a full driver wipe prior to installing the new 980ti? Sometimes left over driver files can cause issues. Uninstall the nvidia software in windows, boot into safe mode and run DDU, and boot back in and install the latest drivers. If you only do a single screen does it reboot?

Your PSU should be fine (wattage wise) assuming it is still in good shape.

Are you getting a BSOD?

Yep. It reboots even with one single screen. The Thief benchmark was always on single screen.
The problem is that the driver is already up to date, and the wipe is not needed, since I reinstalled windows.

 

[Janus67]

Thanks for the quick replies, does it happen when running single monitor instead of all 3?

 

[axed75]

Thanks for the quick replies, does it happen when running single monitor instead of all 3?

sadly yes, even on single monitor (thief benchmark)

 

[Dlaw]

It could be the GPU. Do you still have the 570s so you can throw them back in and run the bench? If so, uninstall the drivers, and swap the cards. Then install the same drivers, and run the benchmark. I have a feeling it's drivers, but if the bench doesn't crash, I'd be leaning towards the card.

 

[axed75]

that's a good idea. I still have both the 570 cards. I will sure do this test, using the same driver.
thanks, that's a start!

 

[EarthDog]

I'd swap drivers to something older before I swapped cards (easier).

 

[Nebulous]

Not true. I have units here older that get benched harder than any gamer. Besides, 2 570's suck way more juice than that 980 will.

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I agree with Janus. It's driver and W10 related.

I've had several quality psu's just go bad after 3/4 years. Upon desktop it's all good. Put a load on them like gaming and I had the same exact issues as the OP. Strange

 

[axed75]

I've just tested:
1) 980ti with old 570 driver: still reboots
2) 570 SLI with updated driver (and I tested the old driver just before the format): no reboot.
The funny thing is that with the 570 SLI the wattmeter read 430 W (and no reboot) and with the 980 read 318 W just before the reboot.
But...
..I wonder if it can be that the 980ti needs 38 A on a rail, and the 570 only 35 A. Maybe now the PSU cannot provide 38 A on one single "channel", while can supply 35 on two, even if the sum of the two is higher than now.
Even if the tech specs of the PSU read 62 A on the +12 line, maybe are meant distributed on multiple rails. Is it possible? I can't belive the brand new card is factory broken.
in this case it wouldn't be a driver problem, neither a PSU failure or a VGA problem.

 

[Janus67]

I don't think the hx750 is a multi-rail psu, so that shouldn't be the issue. I would doubt it to be a psu issue if you're not having an issue with two 570s. May be a long shot, but do you have any friends/spare machines you can toss the 980ti into to verify it works properly there?

 

[axed75]

I don't think the hx750 is a multi-rail psu, so that shouldn't be the issue. I would doubt it to be a psu issue if you're not having an issue with two 570s. May be a long shot, but do you have any friends/spare machines you can toss the 980ti into to verify it works properly there?

unfortunatelly I haven't any friends with some decent gaming rig to test the 980ti. Just "office" PCs

what else could I test?
thanks anyway to everybody

 

[Janus67]

Does it continue to only happen in game benchmarks? If you run uni gene heaven and/or valley does it work just fine?

Also, I assume the Temps are fine throughout your system?

 

[axed75]

I haven't run those yet, I will soon. Untill now it happened only in Thief benchmark (whitch is based on the real game engine) and sometimes on a heavy racing game (rfactor 2). Under other heavy games (assetto corsa, triple screen) or 3dmark firestrike (even with a CPU test in background!!) no problems at all. And they were squeezing far more power from the PSU.
Temps are excellent, both GPU and CPU, very cool.
I tried even to change PCI slot, to change the PSU modular ports used for the VGA power, to remove the audio card.
Nothing changed.
I don't know...