******GTX 970 Seriously Underclocked!!!!!! HELP!!!******

[Netcode Bro]

I overclocked my gtx 970 a few times already never going beyond more than 100 mhz of the stock clock. After a few weeks I began seeing FPS drops and the card only running at like 400 mhz. I tried everything...from using an older nVidia driver, uninstalling MSI afterburner (what I used to overclock), setting maximum performance in 3D settings in nVidia control panel, and switching my 970 to a different PCI express slot. Switching to a different PCI express slot did help....it ran like new again for about 30 mins but then began to drop in performance again. I had this happen once before a few months ago and I found no solution, so I did a fresh windows start and it fixed the problem. I noticed once I started trying to overclock again....this happened. Is there a solution where I don't have to restart my whole computer again?

Build:
i7 950 Bloomfield 3.2 ghz (~3.8ghz)
EVGA GTX 970 4gb
8gb DDR3 1600 ram
1TB 7200 rpm WD
Corsair 750w PSU
Windows 8.1 Pro

 

[Wayfur]

Might be a silly question, but have you tried simply setting back to stock clocks again using afterburner?

 

[TysonY2]

What are you using to log the performance of the card?

 

[Netcode Bro]

I did revert it to stock clocks...and nothing happened. Im using shadow play just to keep track of my FPS ...and its significantly less than what it use to be. About a 20-30 FPS drop. Can it be my old motherboard?

 

[Netcode Bro]

I installed MSI afterburner again to monitor the core clock during load....I noticed that under load it starts to drop rapidly to around 270-324 mhz core clock. WHat is going on????

 

[Wayfur]

What are your temps like? it might be underclocking purposefully to reduce load while running hot.

 

[Netcode Bro]

Temps stay around 60c under full load. It's idling around 38c .....so I know it's not the temp.

 

[Kari]

Temps stay around 60c under full load. It's idling around 38c .....so I know it's not the temp.

what happens if you manually increase the fan speed?
I've heard of couple of cases where the VRMs overheated because the fans were running too slow to keep them cool. The chip itself stayed cool thanks to an aftermarket cooler but the vrm temps caused throttling...

 

[Netcode Bro]

Increased fan speed to 50% .....temps were around 45c at full load. The card was stuck at 540 mhz with 98% gpu utilization. I don't get it.

 

[Netcode Bro]

Screw it....I contacted Newegg and they will RMA the card and give me a refund in store credit. The 970 is flawed.