Question HELP!! My RTX 3070 Tuf Gaming OC clock speeds have dropped severely for no reason!

sw3000

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Oct 16, 2012
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Hi all...wow, I am blown away. I'm trying to diagnose what is going on, and kind of freaking out. My "perfectly fine" RTX 3070 Tuf Gaming OC card that I brought several months ago, all of a sudden...is showing very, very low clock and memory speeds, for NO reason. It has performed perfectly since I've had it. I was playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider, 1440p. I had quit the game, and gone back into EVGA Precision X1 (which I've NEVER had a problem with) and it showed that my clocks were going down to like 200 mhz!! Same with my memory!! So, I looked at CPUID HW monitor and it showed the same thing. At first I thought "ok, I haven't updated my Nvidia driver since the time I bought it in May"...I did that, re-started...SAME THING! I went into my BIOS, and noticed nothing had changed. What the hell is going on guys/gals?!! My power supply is only 2 years old (brand new) and I see no error message lights on my motherboard. Please help...this doesn't make sense
 
Hi all...wow, I am blown away. I'm trying to diagnose what is going on, and kind of freaking out. My "perfectly fine" RTX 3070 Tuf Gaming OC card that I brought several months ago, all of a sudden...is showing very, very low clock and memory speeds, for NO reason. It has performed perfectly since I've had it. I was playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider, 1440p. I had quit the game, and gone back into EVGA Precision X1 (which I've NEVER had a problem with) and it showed that my clocks were going down to like 200 mhz!! Same with my memory!! So, I looked at CPUID HW monitor and it showed the same thing. At first I thought "ok, I haven't updated my Nvidia driver since the time I bought it in May"...I did that, re-started...SAME THING! I went into my BIOS, and noticed nothing had changed. What the hell is going on guys/gals?!! My power supply is only 2 years old (brand new) and I see no error message lights on my motherboard. Please help...this doesn't make sense
With no load the CPU and VRAM frequency will drop.
 

sw3000

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Oct 16, 2012
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No, you don't understand...it's far below the base frequency for no reason. I try to load my profile that I do all the time, and it won't apply. It goes up to the base frequency of 1815 and drops... for both the clock speed and memory. This just happened this evening out of nowhere...I even re-seated the power connectors-I've NEVER seen this, or had this issue....and it's still doing the same thing. I updated the GPU drivers...everything.
 

sw3000

Distinguished
Oct 16, 2012
47
2
18,545
No, you don't understand...it's far below the base frequency for no reason. I try to load my profile that I do all the time, and it won't apply. It goes up to the base frequency of 1815 and drops... for both the clock speed and memory. This just happened this evening out of nowhere...I even re-seated the power connectors-I've NEVER seen this, or had this issue....and it's still doing the same thing. I updated the GPU drivers...everything.
CPU Z is showing the same very, very low base clock speed...210 MHz!!!! Memory 405 MHz!!!
 

sw3000

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Oct 16, 2012
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OK...this may have been resolved. I use EVGA afterburner for slight overlcocks..(I have a 5800X3D which doesn't allow BIOS overclocking, but is OK since it performs so well with FPS), and one thing I had off in afterburner was "Boost Lock". When I selected it, and loaded my profile, everything returned back to normal. ALSO, I un-installed MSI Afterburner...perhaps some background profile from there was conflicting with afterburner. I am not 100% certain. Anyway, this is very much enough of a resolve for me. I thought my 3 month old 3070 had "crapped out"...and I checked EVERYTHING, from BIOS, to replacing Windows 10 64 bit Pro with Windows 11. Anyway...perhaps this may help someone.
 
OK...this may have been resolved. I use EVGA afterburner for slight overlcocks..(I have a 5800X3D which doesn't allow BIOS overclocking, but is OK since it performs so well with FPS), and one thing I had off in afterburner was "Boost Lock". When I selected it, and loaded my profile, everything returned back to normal. ALSO, I un-installed MSI Afterburner...perhaps some background profile from there was conflicting with afterburner. I am not 100% certain. Anyway, this is very much enough of a resolve for me. I thought my 3 month old 3070 had "crapped out"...and I checked EVERYTHING, from BIOS, to replacing Windows 10 64 bit Pro with Windows 11. Anyway...perhaps this may help someone.

Wait. Were you using TWO competing pieces of software to OC your GPU? Because that in and of itself is a terrible idea that will absolutely mess things up.
 
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sw3000

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Oct 16, 2012
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Well, apparently I was wrong. I did un-install MSI afterburner, but as I boot up my computer today, the low clock speeds are still there...confirmed in CPUID HW Monitor. I'm at a loss at the moment
 

sw3000

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Oct 16, 2012
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Go to NVIDIA Control Panel click Manage 3D settings click power management mode and select prefer maximum performance
Flayed...thank you! That apparently worked! I selected prefer maximum performance and restarted the computer...I thought I had it on that setting already, so I'm thinking what would make it change all of a sudden? Anyway, I hope this helps others. I feel like such a novice...ADVICE: don't drink beer and attempt to diagnose your PC issue at 3AM!! ;) Thank you!