Evga 970 overclocking

[jollypirate]

I was overclocking my gtx 970 ( EVGA sc acx) and i was runing it stably at 1497-1504 mhz with power limit at 110% and 74C (fans at 25%) so i started to oc the memory and i got to a 100mhz overclock and lef it runing for a minute. I didn see any artifacts or other glitching then my screen suddeny went blank and said its going into power saving mode, the computer was still runing. I turned of the pc by pressing the physical power button and turned it on again (boot took a bit longer than usual). Does anyone know why this happend?
I have a XFX Pro 650w semi modular so power shouldnt be a problem
I was overclocking by runing heaven benchmark and precision x over it and slightly increasing clocks at a time and leaving it a bit to see if it was stable.

 

[spentshells]

dont bother with the memory, try to run a benchmark with just the gpu overclock and put the fan up to 50%, when your card actually hits 14xx the temps will jump massively

 

[jollypirate]

I tried twice more now. The second time i overwolted to +12mV and had the core runing at 1517mhz and the memory at +200 from stock. The third time i had the core speed at 1480-1497 and the memory at +180 from stock without overvolting. Both times the temps never went above 75C, and the screen just went blank like described in my original post.
I had the power target at 110% both times too

 

[spentshells]

hey quit overclocking the memory and try again

 

[jollypirate]

I did as you said this time and didnt overclock the memory, i had it overvolted +12mV and runing 1507 mhz it still crashed but it lasted a lot longer than the other times
Edit: I did it again now, had the same setting as before but i upped the core clock to 1519mhz ran the test for about 20 min. and nothing crashed

 

[spentshells]

wow, what are the temps?

 

[jollypirate]

I got 71-72C right before i closed the benchmark

 

[spentshells]

That is pretty impressive. I would continue to play around but complete a benchmark.

https://unigine.com/products/benchmarks/heaven/

 

[Vellinious]

First, go into the NVIDIA control panel and in Manage 3D Settings, set the power management mode from adaptive to performance. Next, download GPUz and the next time you test your clocks, make sure to have it running with the sensors tab open. You'll want to watch your voltage (bottom line), clock speed (top line), memory clock (2nd line) and the perf cap reason line (2nd from the bottom). The perf cap reason line is pretty critical for your GPU, as it only has a 187 watt power limit with the stock bios.

GPUz will also be able to tell you what the ASIC quality of your card is. Once you have it open, right click in the top left corner of the window, and select "show ASIC quality" or something like that. Let us know what is is. It will also tell you what kind of memory it has. On the main page of GPUz, toward the bottom there's a window for "Memory Type". It'll say GDDR5 and either Hynix, Elipda or Samsung. Tell us what kind of memory you have. It'll make the process of getting the memory overclocked a LOT easier.

Also...what program are you using to adjust your settings? Precision X? Afterburner? Doesn't really matter which, there are just some tools on each that we can use to help get your clocks and testing a tad more stable.

This is what GPUz looks like on the sensors tab:

In this, as I said before, the "PERF CAP REASON" line is going to be critical in getting your card dialed in. With the lower power limit set in the stock bios, we'll have to navigate around the power limitation. So, if you start seeing green pop up in the perf cap reason line, you've hit PWR. PWR is power limit perf cap reason, and we'll need to make some adjustments to get your card's clock set.

 

[jollypirate]

Ok
I changed the power managment settings and downloaded GPU-z. My asic quality is 77.3% and my Vram type is samsung. Im using evga's precision x to overclock.

 

[jollypirate]

I tested it agian here are the screencaps i took during testing, after the final pic u upped the clock again and after a few minutes the benchmark crashed
http://imgur.com/a/0ccRY

 

[Vellinious]

OK. First, without any overclock on the GPU, add 400 offset to the memory and run that benchmark again. In all testing, keep GPUz sensors tab open. Watch for green in the perf cap reason line.

Report back with temps, core clock, memory clock and voltage

That's a very good ASIC, btw.

 

[jollypirate]

I did as you said. These are the results after runing for a few minutes

 

[Vellinious]

That's running pretty warm....have you created a custom fan curve? If not, you need to. The stock fan curve is horrible.

 

[jollypirate]

i did, i didnt want it to get too loud so i set it like this

The temps never went above 70C when i was testing. Do i need to make it more aggressive?

 

[Vellinious]

That's personal preference. If you want much more of an overclock, you're gonna need it. if you're looking for a little extra performance and a relatively quiet GPU, then we can do that too.

 

[jollypirate]

I dont mind setting it to be a little louder, i use headphones most of the time

 

[Vellinious]

Just play with it. I water cool, so it's something that you're going to need to research on your own. Now try to add the +100 on the core with the +400 on the memory.

I really don't think you should have to add any voltage here.....

 

[jollypirate]

+100 and +400 is working, the power consumtion is quite hgh at around 107-109% or even 111% .Saw those green lines you were talking about in gpu-z
but after overvolting to +12 they stopped/are less common
Looks like i cant go over 100+ on the core withouth the green apearing in gpu-z

 

[Vellinious]

+100 and +400 is working, the power consumtion is quite hgh at around 107-109% or even 111% .Saw those green lines you were talking about in gpu-z
but after overvolting to +12 they stopped/are less common
Looks like i cant go over 100+ on the core withouth the green apearing in gpu-z

Yeah, I figured you'd start seeing them pretty soon. The samsung memory is the best memory on the 970. So you can likely push it to +500 or even +600 on the memory offset. Just watch the perf cap reason and try to navigate around the power limits.

If you REALLY get into it, PM me, and I can help you flash the bios, but.....that's getting pretty far down the rabbit hole.

 

[jollypirate]

After running at +100 core, +400 memory and +24mV rthe blank screen thing i described in my first post happend. No green lines in cpu z.
Il try to push the memory a bit more and keep the core clock below +100. Thanks for the help. I dont think il be flashing custom buos though

 

[Vellinious]

After running at +100 core, +400 memory and +24mV rthe blank screen thing i described in my first post happend. No green lines in cpu z.
Il try to push the memory a bit more and keep the core clock below +100. Thanks for the help. I dont think il be flashing custom buos though

Do you have some power saving feature in windows enabled, that if there's no activity that the screen turns down, turns off, or.......

 

[jollypirate]

The only power saving feature i have is balanced under power plans (turned it to preformance now) my screen and sleep time were set to never.

 

[Vellinious]

The only power saving feature i have is balanced under power plans (turned it to preformance now) my screen and sleep time were bofed set to never.

Hmm. Does it actually power down the PC? Or is the screen just turning black? Does it come back up if you tap the space key or shake the mouse? Or do you have to restart when it does that to bring it back up?

 

[jollypirate]

The screen goes blank, i cant wake it up and have to restart my computer.
2015-12-02 18:03:57 , 1493.4 , 1951.7 , 70.0 , 41 , 1866 , 1246 , 99 , 62 , 0 , 0 , 110.9 , 12 , 1.2120 ,
2015-12-02 18:03:59 , - , - , 0.0 , 0 , 0 , 1244 , - , - , - , - , - , 0 , 0.0000 ,
2015-12-02 18:03:59 , - , - , 0.0 , 0 , 0 , 1244 , - , - , - , - , - , 0 , 0.0000 ,
2015-12-02 18:04:00 , - , - , 0.0 , 0 , 0 , 1244 , - , - , - , - , - , 0 , 0.0000 ,
2015-12-02 18:04:04 , - , - , 0.0 , 0 , 0 , 1180 , - , - , - , - , - , 0 , 0.0000 ,
2015-12-02 18:04:05 , - , - , 0.0 , 0 , 0 , 1115 , - , - , - , - , - , 0 , 0.0000 ,
2015-12-02 18:04:06 , - , - , 0.0 , 0 , 0 , 1115 , - , - , - , - , - , 0 , 0.0000 ,
2015-12-02 18:04:07 , - , - , 0.0 , 0 , 0 , 1115 , - , - , - , - , - , 0 , 0.0000 ,
Date , GPU Core Clock [MHz] , GPU Memory Clock [MHz] , GPU Temperature [°C] , Fan Speed (%) [%] , Fan Speed (RPM) [RPM] , Memory Used [MB] , GPU Load [%] , Memory Controller Load [%] , Video Engine Load [%] , Bus Interface Load [%] , Power Consumption [% TDP] , PerfCap Reason [] , VDDC [V] this is the gpuz sensor log from when it happend