Frequent driver crashes/game freezing with Zotac GTX 780 AMP!

[CADDrummer]

Hey guys,

I'll start with my rig:

Intel i7-4790k @4.3GHz
MSI Gaming 5
Zotac GTX 780 AMP!
Kingston Hyper X 16 GB DDR3
Corsair TX 750W PSU
BenQ 1ms 144hz 27" monitor

My problem is my drivers/card crashes... I think it's pretty frequent. Depending on the settings for whatever reason I get crashes on games like Rocket League, Path of Exile, Dragon Age: Inquisition. I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong? Is the 780 too weak to run these games on too high of a setting?

Even when I do the "NVidia Control Panel suggested" settings I still get crashes now and then. There's no crash error, only that the driver (Current version) has crashed and the video card has recovered. The game then freezes and I need to alt+f4 and relaunch it. It's become really annoying.

I've emailed NVidia and they were pretty useless, I've been looking all over google for things similar to this but every situation is relatively unique and I haven't been able to fix my issue.

I was wondering if anyone could provide any insight into this. I'd like to have a stable gaming experience and I feel like my rig should be more than enough for most current games at 1080p@60FPS on high/ultra settings for almost any game. Or am I completely mistaken?

Thanks in advance!

 

[RobCrezz]

The card isnt weak, should run them games fine.

Has this only happened with a recent driver update? I would try reverting to an older driver first.

 

[CADDrummer]

The card isnt weak, should run them games fine.

Has this only happened with a recent driver update? I would try reverting to an older driver first.

I guess I should have specified what I've tried. I've tried beta drivers, current drivers, reverting to old drivers, fresh install of the card/drivers and uninstalling/reinstalling it. None of these have worked.

It's been doing it for maybe 6-8 months now? I've had it for about a year. It doesn't look/sound like it's failing in any way. I haven't damaged it that I know of and it's not dusty at all. It's mind blowing.

It doesn't even overheat. My case has decent airflow and it's not overclocked and the stock cooler keeps it running at around 60 degrees C even after hours and hours of gaming.

 

[RobCrezz]

Ok, as a test, install MSI afterburner (or other GPU overclocking program of choice), then clock down the GPU by 50mhz on the core clock, then test. (make sure you click the button to apply "overclock" at startup, even though this is an underclock).

Occasionally with factory overclocked cards (like your AMP edition) they can be stable at release, but then with driver updates and changes they might end up unstable with the overclock. Sometimes a particular clock speed can randomly be unstable also.

 

[ERIC J]

I had this same issue with my gtx 980 classified when i first got it and i KNEW it was not the card since it ran fine on my other tower.
For me the issue was caused by the RAM the tower had,(16g's)
All i did was change the ram sticks and the problem went away and never happened again.
I cannot say this will work for you, but i figured i would throw it out there just in case.
Also is your MB set to it optimal default settings or do you overclock?

 

[CADDrummer]

Ok, as a test, install MSI afterburner (or other GPU overclocking program of choice), then clock down the GPU by 50mhz on the core clock, then test. (make sure you click the button to apply "overclock" at startup, even though this is an underclock).

Occasionally with factory overclocked cards (like your AMP edition) they can be stable at release, but then with driver updates and changes they might end up unstable with the overclock. Sometimes a particular clock speed can randomly be unstable also.

No one has ever suggested that to me. Interesting. I will do that when I get home, as I'm at work. This makes perfect sense to me and I feel silly for not having thought of it before. I'm excited to get home tonight and try it... in 10 hours. Damn 13 hour shifts.

I'll keep you updated. For the sake of failure, is there anything that I could provide to you from my end that might help you or anyone else to solve my issue?

Thanks for all of your help.

 

[CADDrummer]

I had this same issue with my gtx 980 classified when i first got it and i KNEW it was not the card since it ran fine on my other tower.
For me the issue was caused by the RAM the tower had,(16g's)
All i did was change the ram sticks and the problem went away and never happened again.
I cannot say this will work for you, but i figured i would throw it out there just in case.
Also is your MB set to it optimal default settings or do you overclock?

I recently changed from 8 GB of G. Skill Sniper series RAM to the Kingston Hyper X and the problem persists. So I think I can rule out the ram.

Thanks for the idea though.

My Mobo is at factory settings + a BIOS update from the MSI website. Nothing is overclocked except for the Processor, which can handle a BIOS overclock from 4.0 to 4.5 without any hitches at all. I even tried bringing it back down to 4.0 and nothing changed so I just bumped it back up to 4.3.

 

[RobCrezz]

Ok, as a test, install MSI afterburner (or other GPU overclocking program of choice), then clock down the GPU by 50mhz on the core clock, then test. (make sure you click the button to apply "overclock" at startup, even though this is an underclock).

Occasionally with factory overclocked cards (like your AMP edition) they can be stable at release, but then with driver updates and changes they might end up unstable with the overclock. Sometimes a particular clock speed can randomly be unstable also.

No one has ever suggested that to me. Interesting. I will do that when I get home, as I'm at work. This makes perfect sense to me and I feel silly for not having thought of it before. I'm excited to get home tonight and try it... in 10 hours. Damn 13 hour shifts.

I'll keep you updated. For the sake of failure, is there anything that I could provide to you from my end that might help you or anyone else to solve my issue?

Thanks for all of your help.

If it doesnt work, my next suggestion would be to try going a bit lower still say, -100mhz. If still no different then we can assume its not a unstable overclock.

Then, I would say the next step would be to try a clean windows install, to rule out any weird software issue.

Finally, I would suggest "breadboarding" it, running the bare minimum components outside of the case and test again.

 

[CADDrummer]

Ok, as a test, install MSI afterburner (or other GPU overclocking program of choice), then clock down the GPU by 50mhz on the core clock, then test. (make sure you click the button to apply "overclock" at startup, even though this is an underclock).

Occasionally with factory overclocked cards (like your AMP edition) they can be stable at release, but then with driver updates and changes they might end up unstable with the overclock. Sometimes a particular clock speed can randomly be unstable also.

No one has ever suggested that to me. Interesting. I will do that when I get home, as I'm at work. This makes perfect sense to me and I feel silly for not having thought of it before. I'm excited to get home tonight and try it... in 10 hours. Damn 13 hour shifts.

I'll keep you updated. For the sake of failure, is there anything that I could provide to you from my end that might help you or anyone else to solve my issue?

Thanks for all of your help.

If it doesnt work, my next suggestion would be to try going a bit lower still say, -100mhz. If still no different then we can assume its not a unstable overclock.

Then, I would say the next step would be to try a clean windows install, to rule out any weird software issue.

Finally, I would suggest "breadboarding" it, running the bare minimum components outside of the case and test again.

Alright. I just installed 2 Samsung EVO 850s (250GBs each) and did a fresh Windows 10 install so I think I can rule out any strange OS software issues.

If the - 50-100Mhz doesn't work then I'll try breadboarding it. Thanks again.