Question Games keep crashing with RTX 3080

[Pathomeon]

I have been getting random crashes to desktop playing most games since I put my new system together. I was hoping someone had some insight into why this might be. I have some ideas but none seem to work. My system is:

Intel i7-13700k 13th gen
MSI Z690 Carbon wifi Intel motherboard
Nvidia RTX Ventus 3x plus 3080 12GB GDDR6x OC edition
Trident Z5 DDR5 32 gigs ram
Corsair RM850x PSU
Nocturna fan on CPU
Windows 11

Most of the games I have played have had from 1 to about 30 crashes in the last couple of months. For example, Shadow of the Tomb Raider has had a lot of crashes and I don't know why, being it is an older game. The crashes happen randomly but usually an hour or two of playing. The settings are only on high and not ultra high. I underclocked and undervolted my graphics card because I heard that they have bad capacitors and they are unstable when overclocked, which is what my graphics card is out of the box, but still getting crashes. The temp of the gpu gets to about 74 C before it crashes which doesn't seem that hot. The fans get to about 1600RPM which is about 55% of speed. After underclocking the card the speed is maxed at 1950 Mhz (the overclock is about 2040 MHz) and the voltage is at 1.0 (the original is at 1.1 volts). I have the games ran as administrator. Is my system not up to the task of playing these games or could it be something else? Any help would be appreciated!

 

[rgd1101]

cpu/gpu temp and usage during the gam?
ram usage?
what the storage?
what the crash said?

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

It would help if you could list what things you have tried. My first inclination with a new system would be to check bios version, check chipset drivers, sound drivers, lan drivers, check for Gpu drivers and Windows updates. Another thing would be to go into the control panel and line by line check for any updates in that manner.
Do you have any programs running in the background like antivirus (other than Windows), Afterburner or any game booster app?

 

[Pathomeon]

cpu/gpu temp and usage during the gam?
ram usage?
what the storage?
what the crash said?

The temp is around 74C when it crashes I don't know the temp of the ram. The storage I use for my games is Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB. There is no message after crash, just goes straight to desktop. I did change the refresh rate from 120 Hz to 85 Hz and it seemed to drop the temp and gpu clock a good amount. Apperently the refresh rate is tied in with frame rate so it was trying to do 120 fps. I havn't had crashes since doing that. My guess is this card is just unstable because it is overclocked out of the box and I have to underclock it and drop the settings in game which is a terrible standard to make for a graphics card.

 

[Pathomeon]

It would help if you could list what things you have tried. My first inclination with a new system would be to check bios version, check chipset drivers, sound drivers, lan drivers, check for Gpu drivers and Windows updates. Another thing would be to go into the control panel and line by line check for any updates in that manner.
Do you have any programs running in the background like antivirus (other than Windows), Afterburner or any game booster app?

My drivers are all up to date. I updated the BIOS when I got the motherboard installed because it needed it for the CPU which is 13th gen. I only have windows defender in back ground and I have my games to run as administrator. I was getting these crashes before I installed afterburner, and I only got it to downclock and undervolt the graphics card as well as see the temp and clock speed while playing the games, so it can't be afterburner causing the problem. I havn't installed any booster apps so anything in the background will have come with Windows 11 and Steam and Nvidia. I recently have dropped the refresh rate from 120Hz to 85Hz and it dropped the temp and gpu clock about 30%. I haven't had crashes since. I think the refresh rate is tied with fps and so was trying to get 120 fps. I tried 60Hz and the frame rate was terrible, 85hz is doable. I assume because this card is overclocked right out of the box it is just unstable so I have to underclock it a lot and lower settings in games, which is a terrible standard to put into a card IMO. My old cards would just have bad fps if the settings were to high, this card just crashes. I keep up to date if I still have problems, thanks for the reply.

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

When I had a problem with my 3080 it turned out my memory was overheating. When I opened the card the cooling paste had all but dried up and shrunk to nothing. Have you checked the temps on the memory? Reducing the refresh rate and clock rates may indicate a temperature problem somewhere.

 

[Pathomeon]

When I had a problem with my 3080 it turned out my memory was overheating. When I opened the card the cooling paste had all but dried up and shrunk to nothing. Have you checked the temps on the memory? Reducing the refresh rate and clock rates may indicate a temperature problem somewhere.

I checked the memory temp with gpu-z and it was around 80C, which is within normal range for memory temp on 3080 of what I can find. This is a new card and it's hard to believe it has dried up already. I'm also not a technician so I'm not going to take apart my card and mess with it. Thanks for the reply though.