Question GTX 1060's Core and Mem clocks crash during video playback after a while; video freezes at a frame

[Dark Magician]

During video playback, after a couple of hours, the Core and Mem clocks drop precipitously, locking in at 608MHz.

- A video freezes at any scene, sometimes erratically displaying a couple of scenes, as if flashing two images, one semi-transparent.

- The video player's interface and the computer are unaffected. I can still use the video player's interface, including for seeking, and the computer.

- Audio works as expected, even when the video freezes at a scene or erratically displays different scenes.

The GPU's temperature fluctuates between 79 and 80 degrees Celsius, never exceeding 80 degrees Celsius. I adjusted the fan curve, bringing the GPU's temperature down to 76-77 degrees Celsius, but the problem occurred again after a while. I am going to try reducing the voltage next. I also have another GTX 1060, which I will later test.

Below is a screenshot of MSI Afterburner's log file.

https://postimg.cc/LnLHbRXF

Specs:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Q6700
RAM: Crucial 8GB DDR2
Video Card: Gigabyte GTX 1060 WindForce OC 3G
Power Supply: 375 W (I read on the Dell forums that the company underrates their power supplies and the power supply is more like 400-415 W)
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

 

[Metal Messiah.]

Power Supply: 375 W (I read on the Dell forums that the company underrates their power supplies and the power supply is more like 400-415 W)

Do not use this OEM PSU from DELL, even though it might work on your system. Try to get some other high quality PSU, if possible. So, you are facing this issue only when you playback any Video, or even when playing Games, and doing other tasks as well ? The latest Windows 10 OS patches might also be the culprit here.

Have you tried doing a CLEAN re-install of the GPU drivers, just in case doing this might help narrow down this issue ? Do the GPU's Mem and Core clock values BOOST when the card is under full load, and while Gaming ?

 

[Dark Magician]

Do not use this OEM PSU from DELL, even though it might work on your system. Try to get some other high quality PSU, if possible. So, you are facing this issue only when you playback any Video, or even when playing Games, and doing other tasks as well ? The latest Windows 10 OS patches might also be the culprit here.

Have you tried doing a CLEAN re-install of the GPU drivers, just in case doing this might help narrow down this issue ? Do the GPU's Mem and Core clock values BOOST when the card is under full load, and while Gaming ?

1. I suspect the power supply may be the issue, but unfortunately, I don't have enough time to pick up a new one and test it with the video card. I recently purchased the video card open-box from Micro Center along with a couple of others, including two GTX 1050 Ti video cards. One of the GTX 1050 Ti video cards made an abnormal clicking sound when playing DVD encodes only, but this seems to have resolved itself since updating Windows 10 to version 1903 via a clean install and updating Nvidia drivers to 430.86. The other GTX 1050 Ti has not exhibited any problems. Should I decide to return any of the cards, I must do so this Wednesday.

I was going to return the GTX 1060 because it did not fit inside my case, but I managed to fit the video card a few days ago after making a small adjustment, which is why I don't have much time to test this particular video card. I then decided I would like to keep this video card because it offers significantly more power than the GTX 1050 Ti even though it is cheaper than one of the GTX 1050 Ti video cards and about only $7 more than the other. While I don't have another power supply to test, I have a second GTX 1060, from EVGA. If the EVGA GTX 1060 exhibits similar problems, then the Gigabyte GTX 1060 most likely is not the issue. In this case, I may keep the Gigabyte GTX 1060 anyway.

2. As far as I know, the problems only occur during desktop video playback. I'm not sure about embedded media, and I only played one game. I use play in its past tense because I don't really play games anymore.

3. The Core clock runs at around 1860MHZ and the Mem clock runs at 4007MHz. That is when the video card is running at 75-80% load with a 79-80 degrees Celsius temperature. It's a Gigabyte GTX 1060 WindForce OC 3G.

4. Now that you mention it, I am not sure if I clean installed the Nvidia driver. I did so earlier with the other video cards, but at some point, I started installing video cards, then rescanning for device changes in Device Manager. I'll give it a try.

 

[Dark Magician]

I performed a clean installation of Nvidia drivers; it didn't work. After looping a video for 3 hours and 19 minutes, the Core and Mem clocks dropped precipitously, freezing the picture at a frame. The video timeline continued playing, and the audio worked.

YouTube video:

View: https://youtu.be/8rAgv9UZM_Y

 

[Dark Magician]

I just realized that the Gigabyte GTX 1060 WindForce OC 3GB has a maximum boosted core clock of 1797MHz in OC mode and 1771MHz in game mode. I am not using Gigabyte's software, and my Gigabyte GTX 1060 WindForce OC 3GB reaches 1923Mhz, then throttles to approximately 1860MHz, presumably because it gets too hot. I read the card starts throttling at 80 degrees Celsius. It used 1.05 volts.

Since I changed the card to 1900MHz at 0.9 volts, the card has maintained a consistent 1886MHz at a temperature of 75 degrees Celsius.

https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Graphics-Card/GV-N1060WF2OC-3GD#kf

 

[Dark Magician]

After the current test, I think I am going to drop the core speed to 1771MHz and reduce the voltage even more. So long as I can maintain 60FPS when watching videos using the mid-tier profile of LAV Filters Megamix, I don't care about the core speed.

 

[Dark Magician]

So, I discovered the problem occurs when using NGU medium settings in Madshi Video Renderer. It does not occur when using low settings.

Low settings: https://postimg.cc/9DLHj6XK

NGU medium settings: https://postimg.cc/XGbv9JBX

Is it possible that the Q6700 or DDR2 RAM are "choking" the graphics card after a while, resulting in the core and memory clocks tanking and video freezing at a frame, despite only approximately 40% CPU utilization?