Am I doing this correctly (GTX 680 4gb)?

[Lowsdp]

So for the past 20 or 30 mins I've been messing around with my GPU (GTX 680 4gb) using EVGA precision. I'm not that skilled in overclocking as this my first attempt. After watching a video tutorial to get started, I set the Power Target to 115%, and increased the gpu clock offset and the mem clock offset to reach stability. While I was increasing them, my display driver crashed. I'm not sure if this is normal or if I messed something up by pushing it too far... I lowered the settings and found what seemed to be a stable settings at a GPU Clock Offset of +182 mhz and Mem clock offset of 502 mhz. The tutorial that I watched said that my voltages raised automatically so there was no need to adjust. I was just looking for some feedback or suggestions because I can't seem to find any stable setting for my games and don't want to mess things up any further.

 

[Hramzyn]

Download a stress test program like MSI Kombustor. Choose the resolution, Direct X version, settings, etc. and run it for a few minutes. If it shows artifacts (white spots, lines or anything else that is not a part of the furry object displayed) then your overclock is not stable and you should lower it to the point where there are not artifacts. You need to pay attention, since those artifacts only appear for a brief amount of time.

Also, check your GPU temperature. I'm not sure about safe temps for your card, but anything above 80 Celsius is not recomended.

A driver crash is a sign that you pushed your GPU too far, but as far as I know it is not that harmful. Modern cards have safety features which revert everything to stock speeds if you push it too far.

 

[smjpl]

So for the past 20 or 30 mins I've been messing around with my GPU (GTX 680 4gb) using EVGA precision. I'm not that skilled in overclocking as this my first attempt. After watching a video tutorial to get started, I set the Power Target to 115%, and increased the gpu clock offset and the mem clock offset to reach stability. While I was increasing them, my display driver crashed. I'm not sure if this is normal or if I messed something up by pushing it too far... I lowered the settings and found what seemed to be a stable settings at a GPU Clock Offset of +182 mhz and Mem clock offset of 502 mhz. The tutorial that I watched said that my voltages raised automatically so there was no need to adjust. I was just looking for some feedback or suggestions because I can't seem to find any stable setting for my games and don't want to mess things up any further.

Don't overclock the core and memory clocks at the same time. Do the core clock first, use furmark/kombuster to check for artifacts and keep increasing till you do find them. Then you can either drop the speed back a little to make it stable or increase voltage to same effect (more volt more heat and you may need to unlock voltage control in settings if using MSI Afterburner). I don't even think you have overclock the memory at all but look that up specific to gtx 680. Memory clocks can lose stability very quickly and most likely that is your issue.